There is the feelings of ‘what if’. What if you’d been diagnosed earlier, would you have made different decisions, different mistakes, led a different life?

There are thoughts around ‘why didn’t anyone see?’ The struggles and how much I was trying and still getting things wrong. The signs that were so obvious when reviewing life through a neurodivergent lens and wondering why they weren’t picked up on.

There are questions around ‘who am I now?’ Now that I know I’m neurodivergent and not broken, a loser, someone who tries to be who everyone wants her to be, or who she thinks they want her to be.

There are feelings of shame and anger at the not knowing. The years of therapy where no one picked it up. The teachers who sent her to ‘self-esteem’ classes because she didn’t present confident enough, when what they were seeing was a neurodivergent girl trying to cope with the change from a small primary school to a huge high school.

There is a grief associated with all of this, along with the feelings of joy that you can now work to understand your brain.

This grief isn’t spoken about enough. The supports aren’t there in the form of therapy or groups where we can talk to others who have been through this, other than online in various groups.

Finding out, after 44 years, after navigating school, uni, work, parenthood, that you’re not who you thought you were, that you’re not broken, that you have a light that has been hidden, has so many mixed feelings, including a grief that needs to be processed, and hits at the most inopportune times. It’s something that I think I will be processing for some time.

This is different to the grief of losing someone as this is about who I am, or who I thought I was.

It seems that this is fairly common, and something that no one warns you about.

There is a unique grief that comes with being late diagnosed, and that’s okay. It’s also mingled with joy and hope for the future in a way that I know I haven’t experienced before.

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