Chronicles of an Atypical Mind — Unfiltered and Unapologetic
Personal stories, science-based articles, and resources on autism, bipolar disorder, and atypical cognition.
I’ve explained several times on this blog how capable I am of treating a rule like a sacred creed. One of those rules came from the countless times my father scolded me for losing important documents. “Scan it”, “How many times have I told you to scan things?”, “You’ll have to learn to scan your documents.” And countless variations of the same message eventually got through to me.
Many autistic people have a strong ability for pattern recognition. In 2025, I realized that I primarily think this way.
This pattern-based thinking is formidable.
Sometimes even… too much. The Autisticism that follows is a perfect example.
For about a year now, ever since I started using GPT, I’ve received various criticisms about my mentions of AI. They are varied: some question the way I use it to bring my imagination to life in my illustrations; others comment on the “psychological” feedback from GPT that I quote; and still others question its role as a proofreader. The topic is timely, so I thought I would clarify a few of these points.
After my accounts of bipolar episodes, I thought I would introduce a brief breathing space before continuing my content about my conditions. A moment I repeat every morning, which awakens my senses and gives me the energy I need to navigate a world designed for allistics. It is the very first thing I do when I get up. I did it every morning for 12 years before a depressive episode managed to sweep away a moment that was nonetheless so precious and simple. And then, naturally, it came back.
A brief breather between two serious articles. Here is an ironic guide based on my latest trip, where I observed how one can travel abroad… without ever really encountering the country.
My trip to Cambodia has come to an end. I was there with a small group of very good friends. I had gone for immersion, for the journey more than for the vacation. We obviously didn’t all share that vision. There were some frictions, and I ended up listing everything I was observing around me. So I put together a survival guide for you to never experience Cambodian reality while in the country, and to keep enjoying a dream trip by living everywhere with five times the local standard of living. Buckle up — it’s sometimes more subtle than it seems.
A short Autisticism pause to evoke this time a rocambolesque situation linked to my rigidity regarding rules—especially those in movie theaters—which are nevertheless displayed in huge letters with icons on a blue background in the UGC cinemas I go to, just before the film starts. Namely: avoid talking during the film, put your phone in airplane mode. For some people, these rules are apparently mere suggestions. Some of them did not see the scene I’m about to recount coming.
It’s now been two weeks since I came back from my trip to Cambodia with my group of friends. In the previous installment, I slightly veered off course, diving into social reflections sparked by a healthy dose of well-timed (or poorly timed) humor. All of it stemmed from one simple context: a trip that left almost no room for privacy. We did everything together. Today, it’s time to take a step back and look at this strange, chaotic, unforgettable vacation.
Over the years, I’ve collected a whole range of quirks — the kind that never show up in diagnostic manuals, yet quietly shape my everyday life. They’ve become part of how I make sense of my autism, and in a way, they’ve even helped confirm that the diagnosis fits. So here starts this series: small autistic misadventures, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes funny, always distinctly mine. I call them my autisticisms — a word I came up with to name these wonderfully awkward, unmistakably autistic oddities… the ones that make me smile (and occasionally other people too).
5 to 8% of autistic people are believed to be affected by bipolar disorder, and yet, this association between the two conditions is rarely mentioned in the literature. When you type “autism and bipolar disorder” into Google, finding a personal account can feel like a challenge. A few years ago, I took part in a podcast on this topic, sharing an experience that was almost unique—especially in France. The idea of a blog exploring both subjects in detail slowly began to form a few weeks ago. A few days later, the project was underway.
This blog is not intended to talk only about autism. From the beginning, when the idea for this project emerged, I hoped to provide a rare and in-depth testimony about two of my conditions: autism and bipolar disorder. Why rare? Simply because I noticed how drastically the literature lacks first-person accounts from people living with both conditions, even though this comorbidity is actually quite common — with bipolar disorder being even more frequent among autistic people than allistic individuals. And in-depth, because I intended to share my experience honestly and without filter through a long series of articles detailing what it means to live with both conditions.