Today is the first day that I have both kids at home for the summer and someone help a mama out. This is like the whole world is on fire and one of us or all of us are on the brink of a sensory meltdown. Now, to be fair we are routine driven and now the routine has changed but darn it! Definitely a struggle bus today.

I didn’t know I could love my sons as much as I do right now though. My diagnosis has brought a whole new level of understanding to their thoughts and actions. All that screaming the youngest one does? Verbal stemming. Instead of telling him to stop? Now I ask him to choose a different way to stem and we usually turn into drummers. Not perfect but, life changing for me.

Hugh’s need to sleep with me? Attachment wise makes sense because I’m the person that has always kept him safe and the only person that understands his words. Handflapping as he’s running? We all know what it means. There’s no dread there though. There used to be but now there’s a sense of pride.

You see I used to feel like autism was this burden that seperated my kids from me but my diagnosis changed all that. Now? They’re just like me and if the world can’t handle it I can.

One of the biggest hints I had when I started thinking about the fact that I am autistic is my super messy house. I’ve always battled it but at its peak of cleanliness I still found myself being comparative. The messy house is a hang up that has served me and my family in many ways but has also caused us to miss out on a few things.

I want to reiterate that my messy house didn’t just suddenly come into being. From the time that the social expectation of cleaning my room was explained to me by my mom I’ve struggled. She tried to show me a million ways to clean and still does to this day. No matter how much she shows me (kudos to you mom btw) I struggle. I’m not sure that there’s some magic or a system I haven’t discovered yet but this is just part of my executive dysfunction and I don’t look for it to change soon.

The messy house has really kept my safe space. As in, I know I’m not having a bunch of visitors and I can actually relax. My kids struggle to socially regulate so being able to escape to the wasteland of toys that is their bedroom and knowing that they can relax is priceless. I’m the same way. And when I say messy I don’t mean filthy. I work really hard to keep our trash picked up and laundry/dishes done. But coming home after socializing sitting in the mess is refreshing. Almost like the mess is protecting me from unwanted visitors popping in when I don’t have the skills to handle them.

The downside is it does keep visitors away. My son’s will probably never host a sleepover in my home and that’s squarely on my inability to deal with the loud noise and tons of kids I’d be responsible for. I can handle a few kids here or there to help my friends occasionally but, I rarely allow any of them into my safe space.

Looking at it,I am lucky as well that my husband understands all this. Nine years of being together and his understanding is so helpful at times. That’s not to say frustrating days don’t appear for him but, we seem to have a balance going. We also because we don’t clean as much, make the most of the family time we do have. We are limited on that because of his jobs and farming but it’s nice to know that we prioritize family over chores. In my book that is the ultimate prize.

One of the best strategies that I’ve found so far came from tiktok. Domestic blisters over there has really helped me view care tasks as “morally neutral” . Her real name is KC Davis and her book has really helped me understand that I am not a bad human because I have a messy home, how to make a house functional, and how to look past the messes and celebrate who I am. I’m still not there yet and being couchbound this week means that it’s a hot wreck in here. But, I know she’s gonna be waiting on me when I can start moving it.

Overall, laying down the guilt and embracing myself as the person I am has really helped me be more comfortable on all fronts. Messy house or not I’m still a human who is amazing and deserves to know my value. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows but at least I feel safe here and for now, that’s what matters the most.

Deciding to self diagnose was hard but once I did I had so many thoughts. I mean I’m a huge analytical thinker with hyperfocus which means my brain tends to go full throttle. So, of course, I immediately started thinking about all the memories I have and asking myself if missing this diagnosis afforded me space I needed or put me behind in so many aspects of my life.

It becomes so hard for me when I think about the stigma I haven’t experienced by not having a diagnosis. Would peoples stigma have kept me from accomplishing all I have in my life? Would I have ever met my husband and had my two beautiful babies? So many neurodiverse people have been written off by society at large just because of the stigma that comes with the labels they carry. That both saddens and scares me. I don’t want my voice to be silenced just because my brain reaches conclusions differently. I definitely think that by being 33 when I learned about my autism I was given a leg up on life. I feel as though my embrace of self diagnosis was voluntary and, because of that, I don’t carry the stigma someone diagnosed younger may.

Sadly, while I missed the stigma in my younger years I also missed formal diagnosis and the understanding that diagnosis carries. For years I’ve felt like I just didn’t fit. That something was wrong with the way I thought. Perhaps if I had known that I was an autist in my younger years there wouldn’t have been the impulsive decisions they brought. Maybe if I didn’t have these bad experienced I would have socially figured things out long ago. There’s no judgment of my past self I still tightly grasp however, it would be interesting to see how I would have turned out with intervention. Overall, I do grieve for the kiddo inside me that had to suffer while I sorted this all out. I wish she had the confidence this diagnosis brings.

The biggest kicker in this whole situation is my parenting of my own kids. Now knowing that we are all autists the dynamic will change in our household. I’ve come to call bad days “bad brain days” anymore around here. I know what disassociation and emotional deregulation can be like and I see myself in my kids. My diagnosis means I can be a more empathetic, listening mom. Most moms of tiny Autists don’t have the leg up that I have. I’m very lucky. Partly, I think my diagnoses suddenly allows me to give my children more grace but it also encourages me to spend the time talking about social settings and roll playing with them so they can feel confident.

Overall, I think anyone learning they are an autist is overwhelmed with lots of thoughts. Knowing which ones to catalog and put away and which you have space for in your life is important boundary to set up. For me, these thoughts were helpful when I reviewed them but now, I need to live in the present and focus on being the most authentic version of myself I can be. They will always be there and I can reconsider them but, looking to my future is where it makes sense to focus.

I never personally thought I was autistic. I mean different? Sure. Quirky? Of course. It wasn’t until I started questioning some of my ticks that it got real, really fast. This is all still fairly recent to me. But, once I started what actually autistic adults had to say about life I was shook. Disassociation, emotional disregulation, masking, anxiety, depression… the list matched almost every symptom I had and more. It was surreal to suddenly realize that not only were Jack and probably Hugh on the spectrum but I was too. Fast forward to me learning about the Aspie quiz this week and my results…

My gap score is huge. Over 100. While socially I seem to have more neurotypical tendencies it’s obvious that every other part of my existence is squarely resting in the Aspie category. I retook this test three times (Hella hyperfocus) and could not manipulate my results.

So at 33, as a mom who has fought really hard for her son to have the supports he needs at school and her toddler to have early intervention, I decided on a self diagnosis. Memories of things I did as a kid including stemming using sand at the beach, being called “creative”, being called “messy”, screaming and crying… it all added to the new realization of who I was. Suddenly the spectrum became really easy to see in me. It was if walls I had built to make life bearable had also become barriers to ultimate self acceptance and answers I had always wanted.

I wish I could explain how much this has effected me lately. How in my late night reading I can feel myself finally relax into the idea that I’m not broken. That allot of things that bother me or I internalized over the years were probably actually red flags that I was processing stuff differently even then. I’m able to lay anxieties over my future down because I now will apply some of the helpful things I’ve learned over the years on a whole new level.

I wish I could go back to the first time i cried over a diagnosis for my kids. I wish I could sit in that room in silence instead. Maybe even knowing what I do now that they are no different from me. I think if I had that knowledge then it’s have comforted me. That diagnosis was delivered with so much stigma and I would have loved to respond with the knowledge I’ve acquired. I could let myself feel a bit more and carry the overwhelming guilt and worry a bit less

My doctor agrees that a evaluation would be a good idea. Getting diagnosed at 33 changes nothing for me. But, for a generation of lost girls coming after me it could unlock doors. If I live my truth maybe the women behind me will get diagnosed sooner and easier. I obviously can’t change my past but I can give them a leg up in the future. That’s what I care about.

In the end, this blog is about a journey I can’t really find anywhere else on the internet. It’s about an autism mom finding out that she’s been autistic her entire life. There’s so much to research and learn. So much to heal and prune. I’m relieved and mad and sad and will share all this with everyone as I start this new journey.