One Year In

It’s been a year since my autism diagnosis. 

In this solo episode, I reflect on what the year has been like, the relief of understanding myself, the grief of what was missed, and the ways my life has shifted as I’ve learned to work with who I am instead of constantly trying to fix myself.

I talk about what changed after being diagnosed with both autism and ADHD. What it’s meant for my relationships, and how knowing myself has softened the shame I carry.

This conversation is a look at how identity, self-acceptance, and difference continue to evolve after the pink cloud of discovery floats away.

Podcasts

What ADHD Feels Like We Can Do Hard Things Podcast w/ Jaklin Levine-Pritzker

Creative Work Practices for AuDHD Artists and Entrepreneurs Off the Grid Podcast w/ Mattia Maurée

Communities

Divergent Design Studios 

The Nook 

Like Your Brain 

Transcript

Amy Parrish (00:02)
Okay, here we go.

Hey y'all, welcome back to Rebelling. Today I want to share some reflections about what I've learned and experienced in the year since my autism diagnosis. So back in January of 2024, I was in a funk and my therapist and I were trying to figure out what was going on. She thought I was depressed and I didn't totally agree. It felt like things weren't working and that's what was hard.

Not that it was hard, so things weren't working.

In the midst of our conversations, she suggested I might be autistic and it just made sense to me, but I didn't really know why or know much about it even. And even though both of my children are multiply neurodivergent and my husband is too, it never occurred to me that I could be. I mean, I'm in my fifties, I'm a woman.

If I were neurodivergent, I probably would have known by now, right?

And so.

You know, when my kids were little, even though that was only 10 years ago, I knew they probably had a diagnosis or two, but I didn't want to hand them the labels. At that time, to me, it felt like labels would be burdens and not helpful. So I really didn't do much investigating, even though it was clear that they were different. I knew we were all different, but

just chalked it up to us being weird. I didn't understand then how much relief can come from knowing more about who you are.

My husband was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 18 and I'm gifted, but I didn't know then that being gifted was considered neurodivergent. And so other than my husband's ADHD, neurodivergence just wasn't a thing in our lives. I mean, it was, it just wasn't a known thing. And something changes when you know.

So back to January, 2024, my therapist gave me some online assessments to do for anxiety, depression, and autism. I've always had anxiety and depression and CPTSD. So those didn't really seem like much change for me. But when the ones for autism said it was likely I was autistic, I felt this sort of dawning.

It was one of those aha moments where you just feel like, okay, now we're getting somewhere.

So I take this information to my therapist and she backpedals. And I was so confused by this because I thought we were really onto something and I wasn't sure what to do.

And so randomly I was ordering Devon Price's book, Laziness Does Not Exist. And then, you know, when Amazon offered me the bundle of all three of their books, I just went ahead and bought them. Even though I thought, well, unmasking autism probably is just going to gather dust since I don't really have a reason to look at it.

But then in March, I was listening to the, can do hard things podcast episode with Jaklin Levine-Pritzker talking about what ADHD feels like. And it blew my mind. I related to so many of the things she talked about and I just knew I needed to find out if I was ADHD. And so I got assessed and I found out that I am.

And of course, I'm immediately researching, trying to learn more. And the more I learn, the more all of it makes so much sense to me. And I really started seeing why so many things that seem so easy are so hard for me. And it was such a relief. I felt like I had finally figured out some of why my life just didn't make sense to me. And

It didn't make sense to me, but it did seem to make sense to other people. And I just didn't understand what I was missing.

I started taking Adderall and that was like glasses for my brain. Everything that was fuzzy and blurry suddenly became more clear. I could do things like figure out life insurance, quarterly taxes. I figured out going to AA meetings. I researched going back to school. I started working on a new website and restructuring my business. I went to New York City for the first time.

I started running again. I signed up for a couple of races. found therapists for my kids. I started a small monthly recovery group. Like life just got easier in this way. I'd never known could be possible. It was like the, the pause frozen part in the middle of all of my decisions and choices, just like

disappeared or just got easier?

And so in the summer of 2024, I was about to mow the grass and I was looking for a podcast to listen to. I'd been listening to Off the Grid with Amelia Hruby, and I decided to listen to this one about creative work practices for AuDHD entrepreneurs. And after I listened, I was like, whoa, am I also autistic?

I mean, if you could have seen me standing in the front yard, like with my real mower, ⁓ just like having this moment of what?

I can picture it right now. And so I was diagnosed as autistic in October of 2024. And in my morning pages, I wrote:

"AuDHD, I am AuDHD. I am feeling all kinds of ways about it, mostly happy that I know so I can take care of myself in the ways that work best for me.

It makes so many things make sense. Why I'm rigid and impulsive. Why I often feel like I don't understand why and how I do things. How I feel like I'm getting dragged along. The uncertainty battle that goes on inside of me. The fear of missteps, mistakes and looking foolish. The overriding message that says you don't know what you're doing. God, I really don't sometimes."

It was so interesting to go back and read that and remember how much of a relief it was to just know and how it made so many things make sense. I felt happy and angry and cheated and this sense of possibility all at the same time.

listened to ⁓ podcasts, I read a ton, and I joined a few neurodivergent communities. And it reminded me so much of getting sober, how you find a way to an identity and then that identity changes your life.

The first part of being diagnosed with autism, I remember it just being this very pink cloud time for me. It was so amazing to know that there wasn't something wrong with me, but that I was who I was and that other people were like me too.

Getting diagnosed with autism and ADHD, they both reminded me so much of quitting drinking and how I wanted to know more people who were sober. And so I started blogging about being sober and through that, I met people who were sober like me. My AuDHD diagnoses made me want the same thing. I wanted to see myself in the world. It was such...

a breath of fresh air when I did. And I just wanted to talk to more people who were like me, people who understood what it was like to be me, who knew what it meant when I said that my world had been one thing and now it had widened to become another.

And so I joined a couple of neurodivergent communities, like I said, and I started interacting in them and I was seeing a somatic therapist. I was reading everything I could get my hands on. I was telling people I'm AuDHD. And it was so weird when people would be like, ⁓ I never would have guessed, or you don't look autistic to me.

I really didn't know what to say when people said things like that, or like when my parents were skeptical, like I was making it up. And I did struggle with that feeling of, ⁓ I neurodivergent enough to be able to claim it?

It's interesting because as happy as I was and as relieved as I was, I was also pretty fucking pissed. Like how did nobody see this? How did this get missed?

And what would my life have been like if I'd known?

I felt so much sorrow for little me, confused and scared in the world and not knowing why she just couldn't seem to get it no matter how hard she tried.

And even with that sorrow, I was still so delighted. It was like, finally, finally, finally finding the shoe that fit.

Another thing that I realized was that all of my drinking was self-medicating. That, that shit blew my mind. And also it made so much sense to me. Like no wonder I had to black out drink. It was the only time I got any peace. And there's so much more research and learning that needs to be done about this.

but.

Again, it just felt so amazing to know that there wasn't something wrong with me, but that I'm who I am and that there are other people like me too.

And by meeting other people who were like me.

I didn't know what the world was like.

through the lens of neurodiversity because that haven't, it hadn't ever been my reality.

And then when I started to understand my world through that lens, made so, so much, it just made my life richer and more real.

Another big change over the past year is who I am and how I show up in my relationships. I'm a better friend. I'm learning to be vulnerable and open up to share my experience. And this is really hard and can also be really confusing. ⁓ You know, my husband and I don't live together. We are not a couple, like a married couple, even though we're married.

and understanding him so much better.

I have so much compassion for the two of us raising children and trying to figure out how to make a life not understanding who we both were and how hard it was for both of us.

It's been really great to be able to open up to setting boundaries with my parents.

to put myself in front of them rather than having a relationship with them in front of myself. It was...

a long time coming that I stopped going to my old therapist and I found a new therapist.

understanding who I am gave me permission to not have to keep upholding all of these norms that I thought I had to do to be a successful human being.

understanding more about my impulsive and destructive behaviors.

has been so helpful for the shame I have for some things in my past.

⁓ learning how to deal with this constant battle in my head about every little thing, to be able to not feel like I have to choose a side, but just be with my experience as it unfolds, knowing that it makes sense that this is how things are.

When you're not concentrating on trying to fix yourself to be who you should be, you can work with who you are and concentrate on understanding that.

This past year has been a time of learning and understanding, of recognition, and also of frustration. I'm angry in a different way than I was a year ago. I'm happy in a different way than I was a year ago.

Knowing I'm AuDHD is like I've been living in a foreign country all my life and I finally started to be able to understand why I can't speak the language or understand a lot of the customs. Because I'm not from there, I'm from here.

It's also interesting to me how out front my diagnosis felt a year ago and how now they've just sort of integrated in like sunk in. It's kind of like when you meet someone and you know, you just hit it off like right away.

like finding out about my autism, about my ADHD, understanding that giftedness is also a neurodivergence. All these things just came together and just like sobriety, it just helped my life make sense. All of this, all of these other identities also just helped me understand more about who I am.

And it's been so interesting to just really notice the ways that I am really neurodivergent and just thought I was just not getting it or being weird or not knowing what I was doing.

To understand that it wasn't that I didn't get it, it was that I didn't get it.

And the difference between those things is so important because I was trying so hard to get it, but I was trying for the wrong thing.

Over this past year, it has been amazing to understand who I am and how I experience the world. And it has helped me understand other people in my life too. It's helped me be so much more open and willing to take a look at myself to try to understand why some things are hard for me, to try to understand why I think

and act and feel the way that I do.

I really think the biggest thing for me over this past year is that it has helped me be able to connect with other people in a way that feels like me in a way that feels like I'm not pretending. I'm not trying to fit in, but more like I'm trying to be seen and understood. The kindness that it's given me for myself, the patience for this person who

is in this world that really is just not, it's just not set up for the way that I experience things.

I've done things like move my room around so the desk is in a little nook. I've done things like rearrange my schedule and experiment with time to see how things work better for me. I've been able to cancel plans when I'm close to capacity and be okay with that if I'm not feeling it. I mean, just this past month of not putting out a podcast because I was just not able

to do that is such a great example.

And I understand that it's not because I'm lazy or because I'm unwilling, that it's just sometimes I'm not capable and I'm learning how to not force myself to do things out of like obligation. And instead I'm remembering my obligation to myself. And I think that's really important.

And then thinking back on, know, when I first discovered all this, I have such a tender feeling in my heart today for who I was a year ago and for who I am now.

It's really interesting how that pink cloud of delight of discovering these new identities and learning about them is now turning into more of an exploration. And it's also feeling more real and it feels more serious for me right now.

And it's also interesting, I mean, really just like sobriety, like how it starts to become an integral part of your life. And it's not, it doesn't have all my attention all the time, like it did a year ago. And I'm just thinking about like, even just sitting here saying this, I think I want to get some of that attention back.

I think I want to pull it back in and not let life be just a matter of course, but something I pay deeper attention to because I think that's how I really like to do things.

It's been a year. It's been a year since all of my current identities came into a clearer view. And I'm just really incredibly grateful for the experience of being able to have access to being diagnosed. I'm grateful to be able to talk about it so other people can find themselves in their identities too.

I'm really sad and afraid in the world sometimes at how difference is so fraught and I just don't understand it.

And I want to be able to keep us all safe who are different.

And I feel sad that I don't know how to do that. I think something that I've really been absorbing in the past few months is that the identities that I hold and that people that I love hold are things that put them in danger, put me in danger.

And that's, it's such a heavy thing. And I also know that when we talk about it and we connect with each other, that somehow it gets us closer to something more.

I don't know. I guess I wanted to be able to say that this first year, like at this first year mark, I am really excited and delighted and I am. I just also feel I feel solemn.

I feel grateful and I feel hopeful for other people like me who went through their whole lives and didn't know because I feel like knowing who you are and how you experience the world is one of the most important things for us to all understand about ourselves.

and a willingness to just step out of the status quo, step out of the idea that normal is the only way to be, to me is like the only way we're ever going to get through all this.

And so I'm willing to hold up my difference out in the world, not to save anybody, but just to say, we're here too. We're here too.

And so to wrap us up, what I think I've learned is that I still have a lot to learn. And I hope that talking about this has helped you and wherever you are in your journey of being a human, I hope that you can feel the curiosity and possibility of learning.

What I try to remember how to do is just be willing.

Just be willing.

I really appreciate you listening and I'll be back in a couple weeks. There's more to come. So thanks for being here and I'll see you soon. Bye.