For decades, I didn’t have the words to describe the way I experienced the world. I just knew I was and felt different – I was tuned into a frequency other people didn't want to hear. I have carried far too much pain.
It took decades to get my own diagnoses – and that was 'my' turning point. Not because anything about me suddenly changed, but because I finally had the words to understand myself, what I had been dealing with – Cerebral Palsy and Autism. What I had thought were personal shortcomings were in fact valid – and very real parts of my being neurodivergent with an identity that included exclusion.
But getting those diagnoses helped me re-frame how I saw myself. It would take years later to understand my experiences. I see now that the challenges I faced with motor co-ordination, sensory processing, and social communication weren’t failures – they were simply reflections of how my brain and body naturally functioned.
It gave me a new way to view myself: not broken, but different. And that difference carries meaning.
For the first time I get to finally understand my experiences, to understand my neurological symptoms and neurological disorders. I have also come to understand my intellectual disability. Without my blog and without writing, that never would have happened. By learning more about my neurodiversity – I am able to connect the dots between how I move through the world and the systems that weren't built with people like me in mind. Having the language – words like autistic, disabled, and neurodivergent – haven't boxed me in. Instead those words have freed me. Through writing, they have finally allowed me to name the things I had always felt.
That shift hasn't fixed everything, but it has made space for self-understanding and self-advocacy. I can finally live more honestly – not by hiding my disability and difference, but by embracing them as an integral part of who I am.
I've never really got past how I got to this place, learning about a disability I didn't know I had. Uncovering the pieces and writing a book about my disability has helped, knowing exactly what I have had to deal with over the years. None of it is a waste.
BUT – it is time for a different kind of writing and for the healing to begin – from wounding, to mending and connecting back to me. With no one saying 'sorry' I still carry the wounds.
I shall continue to write – for others too, so they may get past decades of wounding. Because let's be honest, no one is free of emotional wounding.
