I never thought of myself as autistic. The picture I carried in my mind was narrow and inaccurate, shaped by what I had been taught to expect. I didn’t question it until my daughter made me look closer.
One of my daughter Kayla’s therapists mentioned autism to her. Later, her ketamine doctor brought it up again when I learned she had been having suicidal thoughts. I pushed back. I didn’t believe she could be autistic because she didn’t fit the version of autism I thought I understood.
She told me I needed to learn more.
So I did what my mind has always done. I went into a deep, focused dive. I read everything I could find. I ordered two books about unmasking for her, along with an unmasking journal. Journaling mattered to her. She had many journals going at once, filled with her handwriting and her thoughts. It felt meaningful to give her something that matched the way she processed her world.
Before I even gave the books to her, I had read both of them myself.
Somewhere in those pages, I caught myself thinking, “I think I have autism.”
When I told Kayla that, she said, “Duh, Mom. I knew that.”
When I told her sister Amanda, she said, “I could have told you that.”
It was strange to realize that the people closest to me saw something I had never seen in myself. And it wasn’t that I suddenly understood everything. I still don’t. I haven’t fully unmasked. I don’t even know who I am under the mask yet. I’ve worn it for so long that meeting myself feels like meeting a stranger. I still feel the need to apologize for the parts of me I’m only beginning to acknowledge.
But learning about autism helped me understand why certain things have felt so hard, and why others have always come naturally. It helped me see patterns I didn’t know were patterns. It helped me begin to understand why I survived things that should have broken me, even if I don’t fully understand it yet.
This is the story of how I realized I am autistic.
And it is the reason this category exists.
There is more to write.
There is more to understand.
There are still parts of me that are unwritten.
But I am finally seeing them.
