Late diagnosis, Gen-X masking, and raising a neurodivergent kid when you had no idea you were one.
Memorial Day, 10:37 a.m. I’m heading north to Hobby Lobby.
Sunroof open. No music. Just the road.
My husband’s outside dismantling something in the yard. The dogs are asleep. Sun pours through my sewing room windows. I could be quilting.
Instead, I’m doing 75 on I-93. Highways are, paradoxically, the quietest place my brain knows.
Not physically quiet—mentally quiet. There’s a difference.
(At least until one of my three beautiful humans — Leading Man #1, Husband #2, or TheEx — calls with something “urgent.”)
Growing Up Gen-X Before “Neurodivergent” Was a Word
As kids, autism meant one thing. If you were bright but socially strange, you got labeled “Hyper.” Difficult. Too sensitive. Argumentative.
I spent four decades assuming I was just an oddball with strong opinions and terrible social timing.
Then, at 48, my therapist mentioned — almost in passing — that I “met the criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome.”
I’d been autistic my whole life.
I was also raising an autistic kid. How in the actual hell had I missed this???
Moving on.
The Noise Most People Don’t Notice
My brain notices everything. Every voice in a room. Every shift in tone. Every raised eyebrow. Every micro-expression from someone standing fifteen feet away.
Then it tries to fix everything.
If someone nearby seems unhappy, I instinctively start adjusting — changing what I’m saying, what I’m doing, whether I’m talking at all — until everyone around me is comfortable.
Picture those paper fortune tellers we folded as kids—folded again and again, until nothing’s left but paper dust. That constant adapting was my social strategy.
That was my social strategy for most of my adult life.
The Existential Wardrobe Situation
I can mix patterns all day when I’m designing something. Quilts, scrapbooks, retail displays — mismatched is fine, actually encouraged.
Wearing mismatched underwear? My brain refuses.
Blue polka-dot underwear with a black-and-white bra? No way. I know it’s illogical—no one sees it—but my nervous system ignores logic.
Autism is often described as a difficulty in processing sensory input. I describe it as opening my closet every morning and wondering which item of clothing is about to start a philosophical argument with my central nervous system.
The “Fix Everything” Instinct
If someone suggested something, I assumed it was an instruction. If someone seemed unhappy, I assumed it was my job to fix it.
This made relationships… complicated.
I spent years anticipating what people wanted instead of just being myself. Then I’d quietly resent having to do things I never actually agreed to.
My husband — patient man — eventually sat me down and delivered the note in its simplest form:
“Stop folding yourself into origami shapes and just exist like a normal human.”
It took time. But I got there. Mostly.
On the Missed Diagnosis
A lot of people assume an earlier diagnosis would have made everything easier. Maybe. But I’m genuinely not sure childhood-me needed the label.
What do I wish? That I’d figured it out in my twenties, trying to navigate adult relationships without understanding why things felt impossible.
But growing up autistic before autism awareness was common gave me a crucial perspective: I understand what it feels like to be the kid who doesn’t fit. That insight matters, especially as a parent.
Motherhood on the Spectrum
When my son was growing up, I had one goal: he was going to experience everything a neurotypical kid experienced. With modifications, maybe. With extra coaching, definitely. But the opportunities would be there.
So I taught him to drive. Took him out for his first legal drink at twenty-one. Helped him decode the unspoken social rules that nobody ever writes down.
The world doesn’t always rearrange itself around you. Sometimes you learn the rules of the game — and then you decide when to play and when to walk off the field.
Understanding my own neurodivergence made me a better parent for one key reason: I fully grasp the stakes and challenges my child faces.
The Reset Button
For years, I never knew why I craved long drives, writing, or time alone away from others’ emotions.
Now I realize those are resets—moments where the mental noise quiets and I can process all the day’s data.
Without them, the network overloads. With them, I work pretty well.
Reflecting on all of this, I’ve realized one thing: Autism explains me, but it doesn’t define me.
When I first got the diagnosis, I let it define me for a while. Then I stopped.
I’m autistic. I’m also a mother, a writer, a project manager, and someone who has spent decades figuring out how to navigate the world in her own slightly unconventional way.
Autism explains some things, not what I can do. Maybe it even explains why I write — because stories refuse to shut up until I get them out of my head.
Some people write because they enjoy it. I write because the alternative is worse.
After years of decoding the world, the biggest breakthrough is finally understanding how my own brain works—and that knowledge is genuinely liberating.
Even if it took fifty-four years to get here.
