I stagnated for most of my early years. It wasn’t failure. It was awareness, understanding, observing, and waiting to be heard. It didn’t look like progress, and for a long time it was me standing still, but it served a purpose.
It protected my mental health, and in many ways, it protected me and my life. At the same time, it was still time passing without awareness, and that's something I can’t ignore – and shouldn't be ignored.
Awareness didn’t come early. It came later, at the point of a diagnosis at forty-six, when my circumstances finally allowed me to look at my life instead of just moving through it without question.
That kind of awareness doesn’t arrive when it’s convenient. If you believe in karma, it comes when your circumstances change – usually at the right time, when you’re ready, and you understand your challenges – to see things as they are, not how you hoped they would be.
Once it arrives, it changes how you see yourself and with the work yet to do, you start to understand everything that came before.
Starting again at forty-six wasn’t starting from zero. I'd sat with something for decades. I could physically see the things that made me different, and my difficulties even without the known understanding, often felt like I was starting from zero.
It was starting with a name, later learning the facts through reflection of what I didn’t have before, with a clearer understanding of patterns, choices, and consequences. There is truth in that. It's all been valuable.
Decades without a diagnosis – and that part is candidly real. There’s no way around it. But not everything is gone. The awareness is here. The understanding is here. The ability to choose differently is here.
The CP Diary is also here for a reason. That’s real and it matters.
What remains isn’t empty. It’s deliberate, informed, and aligned with reality. I don’t just write for me – I write for each of our realities. From this place, as I continue, it’s still possible to build something meaningful, not from where things should have been, but from where they are now.
