Hello there!
Hi, I’m Heather of Autism Chrysalis, and I work with people who figured out, mostly in adulthood, that they’re Autistic.
And now all of a sudden so many things make sense, but you still have all of this conditioning from a lifetime of believing that you were broken, or wrong, or terrible at being a person, or all sorts of stories that we told ourselves.
And there are reasons for those stories, but they aren’t entirely true, yet when we believe them, they affect us in the same way as if they were.
So I help people deconstruct what’s true and what’s not. And how to deal with the parts that are true, and how to dissolve, or resolve, the parts that aren’t. It’s not just saying, “let it go,” it’s the how of letting go of decades worth of shame, and blame, and guilt, from not fitting in and being different and struggling with people, and getting things wrong. Most of the time you probably try to push that away and not think about it…except that’s not entirely possible.
It still leaks out around the edges, often in the form of anxieties or depression, fatigue, and sometimes chronic illnesses may be exacerbated because of the self-loathing and blame that we carry, that isn’t ours to carry, at least not entirely.
By the way, all of this was me just eight or nine years ago. I had to work through all of that myself after I figured out at 34 that I’m Autistic, too. I got a formal diagnosis at 35, and it was one of the hardest things, and the best things, that’s ever happened in my life.
I worked through a lot of crap in those first three years especially. And as I worked through more of it, and the shame dissolved bit by bit, I started getting my energy back from my last burnout, it started healing in new ways than it had in previous iterations of burnout. Things started feeling genuinely different.
I felt lighter. I started getting interested in things again, started getting excited about new possibilities, and approaching old things again for the first time in this Second Chance life that I was building for myself.
And I started relating to people in different ways. Learning healthier communication patterns that were more genuinely autistic and worked better, even with allistics, and that led to significantly better relationships than I had ever had in my life. And with everything working better, and because I felt more capable of dealing with my life, my anxieties started to fade.
It was still hard, it is still hard, but I felt like I could handle it being hard. I wasn’t overwhelmed in the ways that I had been before. What I was doing was actually making a difference. It was working. Sometimes more obviously than at other times. But it built up into the life that I have now.
What I was doing was actually making a difference. It was working.
In the last several years, I’ve been helping other people go through their versions of this Journey. What I’ve seen when working with over 100 other autistics, is that, even while everyone’s Journey is unique, there are some strong patterns in the process. So you don’t have to figure it out from scratch, like I did.
I didn’t have anyone in my life who was both Autistic and had actually created a good life for themselves, so now I’m that person for others. And I’m doing that in a variety of ways.
I do one-on-coaching, working with people individually to work through the things that they’re wrestling with right now. Sometimes we meet just a few times, and that’s enough to get clarity and relief on a few key issues, and that’s great. Some people like to work with me for months, or even a couple of years, really building that new life, working together through all the ups and downs.
I also offer group workshops, courses, ebooks, and other materials to help people via a variety of formats, schedules, amounts of desired interaction, and price points, including a lot of free content.
So, if this is at all appealing, I invite you to look around at what I have to offer. There’s a lot on my on my website, a lot on YouTube, and on social media, and I’m putting more out all the time. One way to find out about all the new stuff is via my newsletter, which goes out every other week.
I wish you all the best on your Journey of peeling back the layers of gunk that society and family and other people have put on you. By the way, those opinions may not be as accurate as it feels like they are. Just because you’ve been told something over and over doesn’t make it true.
Alright, that’s a bit about me and what I do. I wish you a neurowonderful day.
