“It is our professional opinion that in view of these results you should pursue an ASD diagnosis”. And it all catastrophically but not shockingly clicked. And it has carried on “clicking” since I was met with this sentence and learnt more and more and more about it. In a terrifying way this is the answer I have been needing all along but it is also making me grieve a lot.

Let me explain that even if I had been a neurotypical person I did not have a normal childhood or upbringing by any standard. I am a grown adult and I am still picking up the pieces from all that I was put through, some of it I can’t even talk about it because it just sucks to come to terms that the people who are meant to be biologically programmed to love you more than anything did not see you worthy of basic standard of care and made you feel guilty and still make you feel guilty for ever questioning this might not have been fine. Let’s just put these material circumstances aside for now.

From a psychological point of view, I spent my entire life feeling like there was something off with me, like I had missed an important introduction lesson as to how life worked and people worked and now I was stuck in the course three months behind trying to make it up and still succeed and not let anyone down in the process. I remember being told over and over how so many little things I did were “wrong”, how I was not “sociable” enough or how impolite I was for not wanting physical contacts, how unreasonable and difficult a baby, a child, a grown up I was. Shame over myself and self doubt have been the main forms of forcing me to just go along. I talked about it with my husband how I pretty much ended up feeling like Quasimodo, some deformity who should be grateful for the scrapes that were handed over because no one could ever love them more.

Now I am not saying this because I want anyone to feel sorry. I do not need or want this. I am explaining this because I am now a grown woman who is just starting to figure out that all this time there was nothing wrong, nothing that could be changed, just accepted and just different. And I need to be OK with that. And I need to apologise for all the times I got it wrong trying to “fit in” and making more of a mess than I would have had if I had just been myself. So I am learning how to navigate the world a new way. It feels better.

I have a long way to go to learn and be fine with myself but at least I have a roadmap now that works for me. It is not all bad though, there are many steps I had the chance of taking in the last few years that came to me naturally from my motherhood journey. Ironically the way my brain is wired is also part of how my couple and family structure have held on together, and it is good to know now that if I have come this far there is hope to keep growing and being comfortable being me.

Thank you for reading,

I hope you have a magical day. N 🦋🧜🏻‍♀️