Care-Less Era: What I'm Done Explaining

In this episode of 'Women Who Are Autistic,' host Annelise delves into the complexities of constantly having to explain oneself as an autistic woman. She explores the concept of the Care Dash Less era, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing self-care and nervous system regulation over endless justification. Annelise shares personal insights and encourages listeners to evaluate the costs of their explanations, advocating for a balance between genuine connection and self-preservation. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to recognize and reduce the exhausting labor of constant self-explanation.

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the Women Who Are Autistic. The podcast we, being different isn't just accepted. It's celebrated. I am Annelise your life, career, and financial coach, and I help autistic women build lives that feel aligned, meaningful, and unapologetically authentic. Each week we'll explore neurodiversity identity, work money, and the messy magic of being human. So grab your favorite sensory friendly beverage and get comfy. Let's dive in and rethink what's possible together. If you are new here or not aware, this New Year's series for 2026. It's all about being in the Care Dash Less era. This is episode two of the season. If you have not yet listened to the first, I encourage you to do so as each episode builds on the other. This is a series about choosing to care less about the things that quietly drain us, not because we're giving up, not because we're finally protecting ourselves. Today's episode is called what I'm Done Explaining, and I wanna be clear from the start. This isn't about refusing communication and it isn't about never educating. It's about choice For a lot of autistic women, explaining is an occasional. It's constant. We explain our needs, we explain our reactions, we explain boundaries, our tone, our exhaustion, and over time that explaining can start to cost more than it gives. This episode is an invitation to notice that cost, not to judge yourself, not to judge others, not to force change, just to ask what you might be ready to stop justifying. A little, I wanna say this gently. I'm not offering advice. I'm not telling you what you should and shouldn't do. I'm just sharing what I'm unlearning and what's helping me right now. Take what feels supportive, leave what doesn't. And if at any point listening feels too much, you're allowed to pause, skip, or stop. Your nervous system gets to lead. Here's what I've noticed and what I want you to have permission to question, who are your explanations actually for? Are your explanations for the curious person who wants to connect with you or is it out of safety? You need to feel safe in this scenario. I want to be clear explaining it's not a bad thing, and either is explaining outta safety or need for connection. Where it does become troublesome is when your nervous system gets dysregulated. You feel like you have to do something in order to justify things. Let's look at explaining for connection. If one is seeking connection through explanation, they might be hoping that the other person will understand them and actually stay for a change or by explaining well enough, someone would meet you with care. I wanna point out that connection based explanation feels mutual. There is curiosity on both sides. The person you're explaining to will genuinly want to step into your world and get to know you. That folks is connection. For my fellow autistics, I would like to bring assurance and comfort to you that there are people out there who want to genuinely get to know you, who wanna step in your shoes into your world, just as much as you step into theirs. They wanna get to know the unmasked you. For those of you who are reaching out for connection with us, autistics, thank you from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. You do not realize what a gift you are giving us. You are opening a door for a chance of safety and to be valued. It does not happen often for us, so thank you again. That being said, not every request for explanation is a request for understanding. Most autistic women run into someone who has what I called mind blindness. I'd like to further define what that mind blindness is. But before I get to that, I want to say upfront that this is not a definition to bring judgment or offense. It is also not a definition that is everyone's definition. There's different definitions and different scenarios, but I am gonna give you what I use as a definition for mind blindness. Mind blindness is someone who simply can't see the value of someone who is different neurologically than them. They cannot accept their neurodivergence. They're not willing to understand them. These are people I usually find I have to mask in front of and I cannot disclose my diagnosis. This person is usually not safe for me to be my authentic self. Again, this is not to judge or offend those who do have mind blindness, and it can be hard to hear. There are people out there who do have this, but I say to autistic women everywhere, the best thing for you might be to let them walk away, and it might be even you walking away because it's not worth you being unregulated, having meltdowns over this person or these people, but rather it is an opportunity for you to say no and to step into getting to know other people who actually wanna know you. Genuine connection is worth fighting for, and it's worth the wait. That brings me into the next about explaining out of safety. In the careless era, the question is not is explaining for safety bad, but rather it becomes, what would it mean to need less proof to be safe with myself or with others? Careless is about reducing the labor of survival, not abandoning wisdom I wanna be clear about something. Explaining for safety isn't wrong. It's intelligent, it's protective, and for many of us, it's how we learn to survive. But careless doesn't mean pretending we didn't need those strategies. It means noticing when we're still using them in places that no longer deserve that level of effort. Explaining for safety becomes heavy when it's automatic, when every interaction requires proof, context, and justification. Because safety that depends on constant explanation isn't rest. It's vigilance. And the careless shift isn't about explaining less everywhere. It's about explaining less by default. It's asking, is this a room where I actually need to translate myself or is this a moment where I can care less about be being understood and more about staying regulated? Care less doesn't ask us to stop understanding ourselves. It asks us to stop using understanding as a way to avoid impact when something painful happens translating it immediately can feel like control. It can feel like stability. But the careless choice is sometimes letting that moment land without solving it, letting yourself say, even silently, this affected me without turning it into a lesson. Let me give you an example. It is so easy for me to analyze logically when a major event has happened, good or bad. Say I had someone I cared about walk away suddenly with no explanation, instead of admitting to myself the impact this had on me, I would probably sit down, write out a list of potential reasons why they left, so that I can learn and do my best to make sure it doesn't happen. When explaining requires me to erase myself, it's no longer education. In my careless era, I'm learning that not everything needs my explanation. Some things just need my presence or my pause, or even my boundary. It doesn't mean caring less about people, it means caring less about performing safety when it costs my nervous system care less is what happens when survival strategies are no longer the loudest voice in the room. Here's a clear separation of what I'm talking about through this whole episode. Education by choice is empowering. It's comes from resource and it's optional. But education by obligation is draining. It's pressured, it's extractive, and it's not validating to you. Here's an example of what I'm so tired of explaining this year. I'm already tired of explaining this, and it's only the beginning of 2026. I am so tired of explaining the fact that because I have a job. I'm able to have a routine. I am able to speak, I'm able to interact with others that in itself disqualifies me for being autistic. I don't know how many times in the last week I have gotten that, especially now that I've opened up about being autistic to others, In those situations. I have learned that explaining and educating those people that are saying that is just gonna end in a fight or conflict. They're not gonna be willing to listen to what I have to say. Sometimes if I'm feeling bold enough, I will say, well, that's your opinion, but not my reality. Or, I walk away, or I stay silent. But what I'm not doing anymore is taking the effort to explain why I am the way I am. Another thing I'm tired of explaining is why I'm making all these changes in my life, why I am suddenly putting up boundaries or why I am suddenly not doing a lot of the things I used to do and honestly getting crap for it. I don't know about you if you are in that situation or not, but I am kind of just telling people I'm just done doing things that drain me and that are not empowering and are more focused on pleasing people rather than taking care of myself. At the end, folks, that's really what this era is about. What this series is about is choosing to care for yourself in a selective manner, to finally choose your nervous system regulation over fitting in, over making people feel comfortable because us autistics are put in a system into a society that our nervous systems were not built for. And I think that is where I'm gonna leave this off and I am going to close. But before I do that, I wanna remind you that you don't need to be understood in order to be valid. Explaining can be generous, it can be connective, but it should never require you to erase yourself, to earn comfort from someone else. The Care Dash Less practice for this episode is simple and optional. Say less, offer fewer justifications and notice what happens, especially inside your body. And if all you notice is how hard this feels, that still counts. Awareness is not failure. Rest is not avoidance. This careless era isn't about becoming harder or colder. It's about coming less divided inside yourself. Thank you for being here. Take what you need, leave the rest. I am so grateful you spent this time with me today, and I hope something here gave you support, clarity, or even a bit of peace. If you'd like more conversations like this, I'd love for you to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Your support helps this podcast reach other autistic woman and neurodivergent people who might be looking for a space like this too. If this episode resonated with you, leaving a review is one of the most meaningful ways to support the show. And if there are topics you need help with, questions you want explored, or even what I'm talking about isn't quite what you're looking for, I truly wanna hear from you. You can connect with me on Instagram. My profile is linked in the show notes. And if you know someone who might benefit from today's episode, please feel free to share it with them. Sending you calm and compassion. Until next time.