The Mirror in the Shadow: Understanding Projection in Autistic Shadow Work
What triggers us in others often reveals our own disowned qualities.
I used to (and, although I recognize it now for what it is, still do quite often) get furious when people said they couldn't do something. The words "I can't" would hit me like nails on a chalkboard, sending me into an internal rage that felt completely disproportionate to the moment. I'd judge them as weak, giving up too easily, not trying hard enough. It wasn't until I began shadow work that I realized what was really happening: I was projecting my own sense of weakness onto them, and their vulnerability was triggering everything I couldn't bear to feel about myself.
This is projection—one of the most powerful and revealing aspects of shadow work. And for those of us who are autistic, understanding projection becomes both more complex and more essential to our healing journey.
What Is Projection?
Projection is the unconscious process where we see our own rejected, denied, or undeveloped aspects in other people. When someone irritates, angers, or fascinates us disproportionately, they're often showing us something within ourselves that we haven't fully owned or integrated.
To be clear, projection isn't about taking blame for others' behavior or excusing harmful actions. It's about recognizing that our emotional reactions contain valuable information about our own inner landscape. The person who triggers your anger might be showing you your own unexpressed rage. The colleague who seems "too sensitive" might be reflecting your own disowned vulnerability.
According to Carl Jung (big fan!), what we resist in others often points directly to our shadow—those parts of ourselves we've learned to hide or reject. Through shadow work, we can transform these triggering moments into opportunities for profound healing and integration.
The Autistic Experience of Projection
For autistic people, projection work presents unique challenges and opportunities. Our neurological differences create specific patterns that both complicate and illuminate this process.
The Alexithymia Factor
Research shows that 40-65% of autistic people experience alexithymia—difficulty identifying and describing our own emotions. This creates a particular vulnerability to projection in both directions. When we struggle to recognize our own internal states, we become more susceptible to taking on others' projections of us, while simultaneously projecting our unrecognized emotions onto others.
I remember countless times when someone would ask how I was feeling, and my immediate response would be (in my head) "I don't know,” so my go to response, even now, is, “I’m delightful.” Some habits are hard to break. Anyway, it wasn't that I felt nothing—it was that the internal landscape (let’s be real and call it what it was…chaos) was often unclear, like trying to read a map through fog. This emotional uncertainty made me prone to accepting others' interpretations of my experience, even when they didn't fit.
Masking as Projection
Autistic masking adds another degree of difficulty to projection work. When we mask, we're often projecting what we think others want to see rather than showing our true selves. Sometimes this means appearing more neurotypical, but it can also mean performing "acceptable" versions of autism—appearing more stereotypically autistic to match others' expectations.
This kind of "projecting acceptability" can disconnect us from our true selves so thoroughly that we lose track of what's authentic. We become so skilled at giving others what they expect or what we think they expect that we forget who we really are underneath the performance.
Processing Delays and Late Realizations
Many autistic people experience processing delays, which means we might not recognize projection happening in real time. I've had moments where someone made a sarcastic comment that went completely over my head, and it wasn't until hours later that I realized what had occurred. The same can happen with emotional projection—by the time we recognize what happened, the opportunity for immediate response has passed.
Common Projections We Face
The research reveals several harmful stereotypes frequently projected onto autistic people:
That we all lack empathy or don't feel emotions
That we're dangerous or prone to violence
That we either have extraordinary gifts or are completely incapable
That we don't want relationships or social connection
That our natural behaviors are "weird" or "frightening"
These projections can become internalized, creating shame and self-rejection that compounds our original trauma.
The Spiritual Dimension of Projection Work
Like King David bringing his whole self—rage, fear, shame, and love—before God, shadow work invites us to encounter the Divine through our complete humanity. Projection work isn't separate from spiritual growth, in my humble opinion; it's integral to it.
When we recognize our projections, we're practicing a form of radical honesty that dissolves the illusion of separation between self and other. We begin to see that what triggers us most strongly often points to our own capacity for growth. The person who seems "too weak" might be showing us our own unexplored vulnerability. The colleague who appears "selfish" might be reflecting our own unacknowledged needs.
In many spiritual traditions, others are seen as mirrors for our own consciousness. This doesn't mean everything is projection, but it invites us to use our triggers as doorways to deeper self-understanding and compassion.
The Art of Reclaiming Projections
Creative expression offers unique advantages for projection work, especially for autistic people. Art allows us to explore these patterns symbolically, creating distance from overwhelming emotions while making the unconscious visible.
One powerful exercise from my Shadow & Light Art Journal involves drawing someone who triggers you, then honestly exploring where you might share their qualities. The goal of the exercise is compassionate recognition of your own complexity.
Try This: The Mirror Exercise
Think of someone who really irritates you. Before judging them or dismissing your reaction, get curious:
What specific qualities bother you most about this person?
Where might these same qualities exist in you, even if expressed differently?
What would it look like to own these aspects of yourself without shame?
How might their "annoying" qualities actually be strengths when expressed healthily?
When I did this exercise with my anger toward people saying "I can't," I discovered my own deep fear of weakness and failure. I realized that my judgment was actually self-protection—if I could maintain the illusion that others were weak and I was strong, I didn't have to face my own vulnerability.
The Both/And of Projection Work
Projection work doesn't mean everything is about us or that we're responsible for others' actions. It's about recognizing the both/and nature of human experience. Someone can genuinely be behaving problematically AND their behavior can trigger our own unhealed places. Both can be true simultaneously.
For autistic people, this nuanced understanding is especially important because we've often been blamed for others' projections onto us. Again, the goal isn't to take responsibility for everyone else's reactions, but to reclaim our power by understanding our own.
Integration and Healing
The ultimate objective of projection work isn't to eliminate projection entirely—that's neither possible nor desirable. Instead, we're working toward conscious projection, where we use our reactions as information rather than automatic truth.
When someone triggers me now, I've learned to pause and ask: "What is this person showing me about myself?" Sometimes the answer is "nothing"—their behavior is genuinely problematic. But often, I discover something valuable about my own inner world.
This work has taught me that my sensitivity—something I was told was "too much"—is actually something I desire to embrace for empathy and discernment. My anger about injustice isn't a character flaw; it's God-given passion for righteousness. My questions aren't evidence of weak faith; they're invitations to deeper understanding.
Living the Questions
Shadow work, especially projection work, is messy and difficult and humbling. It doesn't offer neat answers or quick fixes. Instead, it ask us to begin a lifelong process of becoming more whole, more integrated, more authentically ourselves.
For autistic people, this work carries particular significance because we've often been told that parts of us are unacceptable. We've learned to project acceptability, to hide our true selves, to take on others' projections of what autism should look like.
But what if our so-called "deficits" contain exactly what we need to serve genuinely? What if the very things that trigger others most strongly about us are pointing them toward their own disowned aspects?
The person who gets frustrated with our directness might be struggling to own their own truth. The one who finds our stimming "distracting" might be disconnected from their own body. The colleague who thinks we're "too intense" might be afraid of their own passion.
The Invitation
Projection work invites us into a radical form of self-acceptance. The kind of self-acceptance that embraces our full humanity. It asks us to see our triggers as teachers, our reactions as information, and our shadows as sources of unexpected gifts.
This doesn't make the work easy. It's humbling to realize how much of what we see in others is really about ourselves. It's challenging to own our own capacity for the very things we judge in others. But it's also profoundly liberating.
When we reclaim our projections, we reclaim our power. We stop giving others the job of carrying our disowned aspects. We begin to see clearly, both ourselves and others. We develop genuine empathy rooted in recognition of our shared humanity.
For those of us who are autistic, this work is both more complex and more essential. We navigate a world that constantly projects onto us while managing our own projections in the context of alexithymia, masking, and processing differences. But perhaps this very complexity is our gift—our unique perspective on the human experience of projection and integration.
The shadows we've been taught to hide might be exactly what the world needs to see. Our questions might be invitations to deeper faith. Our sensitivity might be the healing balm a harsh world desperately needs.
The journey continues, messy and beautiful, as we learn to see ourselves and others more clearly, with compassion for the full spectrum of human experience. In recognizing our projections, we become whole. And in that wholeness, we find both the courage to face our own shadows and the grace to hold space for others as they face theirs.
What is triggering you today? What might it be trying to teach you about yourself? What disowned gift might be waiting in that irritation, that judgment, that automatic reaction?
The mirror of projection is always available, always ready to show us something new about ourselves. The question is: are we ready to look?
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About the Author
Gal is an autistic artist, late-diagnosed at 49, and the creator of AuRTistic Expressions—a space where neurodivergent truth meets creative survival. Through blog posts, printables, courses, and the “This Might Get Messy” podcast, Gal explores what it means to unmask safely, communicate authentically, and make art that doesn’t ask for permission. Stick around—there’s plenty more where this came from.
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References
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Integrated Treatment Services. (2023). Delayed processing in autism. https://www.itstxservices.com
Kenny, L., Hattersley, C., Molins, B., Buckley, C., Povey, C., & Pellicano, E. (2016). Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community. Autism, 20(4), 442-462.
Kinnaird, E., Stewart, C., & Tchanturia, K. (2019). Investigating alexithymia in autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Psychiatry, 55, 80-89.
Rose, K. (2020). Autistic masking: A psychological safety mechanism. The Autistic Advocate. https://theautisticadvocate.com/autistic-masking/
Cover image by moi
