25 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Finding out I Was Neurodivergent (Autistic and ADHD) In Adulthood
Question for my late-identified Neurodivergent readers: Is there anything you wish you’d known or understood sooner?
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger, unidentified self, what would it be?
CONTENT WARNING: The intro to this piece contains descriptions of plans for self-exit and suicidal ideation. You can skip to the numbered list if these topics are triggering/upsetting to you.
I am Neurodivergent, but I didn’t know it (or even what Neurodivergence or Neurodiversity was) for most of my life.
Being diagnosed Autistic, at the age of 29, a few months shy of my 30th birthday, during a mental health crisis, turned my world upside down. It also saved my life.
Taking a self-exit is one of the top killers of Autistic adults, and at the time of my mental breakdown, I was dangerously close to making a self-exit.
Without understanding why I was struggling so much with the expectations of the people and world around me, and with no sign of relief in sight, things had begun to feel hopeless, so I had started to make a plan for how I would end it and the ways I would get my affairs in order before I left.
Due to the shame and stigma against ending one’s own life, I kept my plans to myself, and I am fairly certain the people closest to me probably had no clue how close to leaving I actually was.
I’ve gotten close to that point multiple times in my life, and whenever that feeling would boil up in me, it wasn’t something I would ever share with the people around me.
For most of my life, I had this passive feeling that “I would rather not exist” or “wished I’d never been born“, but occasionally, when things would get bad enough, the desire to simply stop existing would sometimes become something deeper, something that scared me.
The pull to exit was stronger than it had ever been, leading up to my Autism diagnosis. I’d never had such a detailed exit plan before, and I remember being deeply afraid that, this time, I might actually do it.
Ten years ago, I hated myself because I believed I was broken, a failed person who would never be truly happy or succeed in life.
Ten years ago, I didn’t know I was Autistic and ADHD – I didn’t even really understand what Autism and ADHD were.
Ten years ago, I was not the person I am today. I wasn’t okay either, and didn’t know if I would ever be. Then something happened that would change my life forever.
After spending most of my life stuck in a cycle of comparing myself to the people around me, mirroring, mimicking, and copying them (but still failing to do what many people seemed to do easily), the cycle of comparison was finally stopped when I found out the truth about why I’d been struggling and why life had been so hard for me… That I was (and always had been) Autistic.
Learning the truth about my brain, and by extension the human spectrum of brains, was a wake-up call and the start of a journey.
There were many emotions I had when I finally understood myself. I went through a grieving period and also had a lot of regrets and things I wished I could have understood sooner.
Here are some of those things that, looking back on my life, I wish someone had told me, and things I wish I could have learned earlier:
1. I wish I had known that I wasn’t broken, I was wired differently. I was Autistic and ADHD (always have been).
2. I wish I had understood that I had a spiky, uneven skill profile, and that I wasn’t “lazy” or “a failure“.
3. I wish someone had told me that I was not a “problem” to be solved, but a person who needed understanding.
4. I wish I had known it was okay to accommodate myself rather than trying (and failing) to force myself to fit in.
5. I wish someone had told me that many things I blamed myself for struggling with weren’t my fault, and that there were systemic barriers at play, making my life harder and preventing me from getting my needs met.
6. I wish I had understood that the people around me were judging me based on their own experiences (strengths, weaknesses, skills, and needs), which were very different from my own.
7. I wish I had known that my need for autonomy wasn’t “stubbornness.” It was my brain telling me what it needed to survive, clashing with what other people thought I needed (based on assumptions that my needs were the same as theirs).
8. I wish I had known that “trying harder” and constantly berating (and hating) myself was never going to change my neurological differences.
9. I wish I had known that other people’s expectations were often unfair and unreasonable, and that, without proper support for most of my life, the bar had been set too high.
10. I wish someone had told me that healing wasn’t about fixing myself, but about letting go of shame and learning to work with the brain I actually have.
11. I wish the people around me growing up had understood that having a diagnosis wouldn’t be a negative label that would trap me and “follow me around for the rest of my life“, but would instead be the key that could finally let me meet and understand my true self.
12. I also wish the adults in my life could have understood that, in the place of the correct label, many labels that were much worse (stubborn, difficult, sensitive, rebellious, lazy, rude) would take the place of the labels adults feared might be placed upon and stigmatize me or hold me back.
13. I wish I had understood that the diagnosis wouldn’t change who I am. Instead, it would give me my life’s instruction manual, which would help me understand many things I had been missing and that I had been using the wrong manual (one meant for people whose brains were very different from my own).
14. I wish I had understood that community matters, and being able to recognize myself in other people’s experiences would be healing and transformative (in the best way possible).
Paid subscribers on Patreon and Substack have access to the rest of this piece.
The first 14 realizations helped me stop hating myself. But my healing wasn’t linear.
Up next: navigating the grief of the ‘lost years‘, and how I finally learned to love and trust myself.
To read the final 11 lessons (including how my diagnosis quite literally saved my life), unlock the full post on Patreon or Substack.
This post was written with the assistance of Focused Space (a sponsor of the Neurodivergent Rebel blog).
What is Focused Space?
Focused Space is an ADHD-focused, Neurodiversity affirming, goal‑setting, and online co‑working / body‑doubling platform designed to help people prioritize, stay motivated, and bust through procrastination (and it is something I believe in and personally use every day).
More info:
Learn more about how I use it here!
I get requests (that I mostly ignore) to do brand partnerships all the time, because I don’t want to partner with products unless I actually find them useful and high-quality. I also want to work with brands whose owners and processes align with my personal standards and ethics.
That’s why I’m excited to announce that the Neurodivergent Rebel Blog is officially partnering with Focused Space, and our community members can now get access to Focused Space at a special rate of 20% off forever when you use the code “NEURODIVERGENTREBEL” at checkout via the button below or at get.focused.space/neurodivergentrebel:
Now, when you get Focused Space via the link above, you’re getting discounted access to a great tool while supporting the work I do here at the NeuroDivergent Rebel Blog.
Also, if you ever join a 7 am CST wakeup call, or pop into an un-hosted Quiet Owl session on a weekday, you might bump into me.
Not sure if Focused Space is for you?
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