Ep 032: Kendall Mariah: I Thought Something Was Wrong With Me, Part 2

In part two of this conversation, Kendall Mariah shares the deeply personal journey that eventually led to her autism diagnosis as an adult.

Kendall opens up about growing up feeling different, struggling socially while excelling academically, and spending years masking parts of herself without fully understanding why.

She speaks candidly about high-masking autism in women, ADHD, sensory struggles, shame, identity, and the emotional weight of constantly feeling misunderstood. Kendall also vulnerably shares experiences surrounding purity culture, sexual assault, and the pressure many people feel to hide parts of themselves in order to fit in.

Throughout the episode, Kendall continually comes back to one powerful message: people are often carrying far more than we realize.

This conversation is emotional, honest, and deeply human.

Topics discussed:
 • Adult autism diagnosis
 • High-masking autism in women
 • ADHD and neurodivergence
 • Sensory struggles and masking
 • Purity culture and shame
 • Sexual assault
 • Identity and authenticity
 • Feeling misunderstood

Connect with Kendall:
 Instagram: @kendallmariah
 Website: kendallmariah.com

Every life has a story worth telling. Follow Unspoken Lives Podcast on your favorite podcast app and join the conversation. Visit unspokenlivespodcast.com and follow @unspokenlivespodcast on Instagram. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You're tuning in to part two of this conversation. If you haven't heard part one yet, I encourage you to pause and start there first. Let's jump back in. Welcome to Unspoken Lives, the podcast that uncovers the powerful, untold stories of everyday people. The real stories you don't always hear, but ones that deserve to be told. I'm your host, Kelsey Billingsley. In each episode, we'll explore journeys of growth, resilience, and transformation. Conversations with guests who have faced challenges, embraced change, and discovered new purpose along the way. Through their stories, you'll find inspiration, hope, and a reminder that every life has a story worth telling. Let's dive into this next unspoken life.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Take on it and how I processed the way I framed it and how I worked through it. It was not more less conversation, but even my grandmother who's 97 read it. And she just came to me and she just said, I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for you more. I wish I'd been there for. I said, Mama, you had no idea. Like you had no idea. I mean, and when this happened, this was before the Me Too movement. This was before those conversations. When I knew the first questions would have been, What were you wearing? What were you doing? Why were you there? And if you read the story, it had nothing to do with any of those. I was at the right place at the right time, and it still happened. Doing wear wearing baggy pants and a baggy shirt. Like, and my husband, we were dating at the time, and I'm like, and I talked about it, like he would have come down and probably beat the crap out of the guy. Like, yeah, that wouldn't have helped anything. Like him catching a charge would have not helped his future as a military officer. Like, what was it going to do? Because it was not the cult, he would have believed me. My husband. I mean, he just has unquickly always supported and believed, believe me. Because of the era in the world, I think everybody else would have at least had some questions. And when you've experienced something like that, you're already gaslighting yourself. Well, was I wearing the wrong thing? Was I wasn't me? Did I do it? Because that is the framework we're giving. And I didn't want to have to rehash it and relive it with every person and to validate it to every person. And having to explain it would have done that. And so there hasn't been that many conversations other than simple apologies of I'm sorry. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's personal probably acceptance or realizing they would have been a part of that questioning or not believing or asking. Like I'm sure my mom and my dad, and they've had to do their own personal work reading through it and thinking, well, what how would I have responded? You know, how would I have worked through it? Because unfortunately, there isn't a lot of precedent at that time that would have showed you any other way to navigate it.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah. Did it feel freeing for you knowing that that was finally out there and you weren't holding on to it anymore?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yes, and no. I think it was more scary, you know, because I knew people would question. Or I, you know, I even said people people are gonna invalidate it and say that wasn't really a sexual assault when I know that it was, and by definition, but it could have been worse. At least you weren't raped. You know, like but how I feared those invalidated changes, which is the exact same line of logic of why it took me six years to come out with an autism diagnosis post when I knew because I knew there would be all these invalidating statements, and then that that causes you to re-ask all the questions I've already lived with. And so what does that do? But now I know that being open about that story or being open about this diagnosis, I pray that it makes room for other people to be more open or to be able to talk about it. And I've already seen that. And now I think being a mom, and as my daughter gets older, she's six now. If I can take off any burden from her or any shame that she may feel, or you know, make that path a little bit wider, then I want to do it. And I want to do it now versus later so that she doesn't have to experience that same shame that I felt through all those different scenarios.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yeah. Well, I can say you're already doing it. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I wanted to ask you about so you mentioned autism. Can you share when you were first diagnosed?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

I'll say this as I think I've always known. And those closest to me, now that we know what we know, probably always knew I was a very different child. Um small things like I had a very different sleeping pattern, a very delayed sleeping pattern as a child. I didn't need a lot of sleep. I didn't nap. My dad would be up with me at one o'clock in the morning. I hadn't gone to sleep, and then I would go to sleep and sleep till eight. Like I just didn't need a lot of sleep. I had three imaginary friends and would rather be with them instead of being with other people. I like to play by myself with my imaginary friends. I was easily frustrated for the first several years of my life. There was only two people that I had any attachment to that I wanted to be around that were safe to me. I had a lot of sensory issues for the first 15 years of my life. I ate the same breakfast every morning. Two spoonfuls of peanut butter on a small metal spoon in my mouth before my eyes opened. You know, these little tiny signs that were always there. But I was diagnosed with ADHD in the second grade, which as a child of the 90s was very young for little girls. Yep. And it's just post-me having imaginary child friends. I had a lot of issues with starting school. My mom had to walk me into class every day. I screamed, cried, didn't want to leave. I didn't do transitions well. I would sit and had to be held by the assistant teacher for the first hour of school. My mom then would come and eat lunch with me every day. Wow. Um, because I just had such a hard time. And there's no other way to put it than like there was things that should have I should have grown out of or I socially should have done better with. And I was a very bright child. I was very intelligent. So I was ahead of the curve when it came to testing or um reading. But socially I had some struggles, uh, which are very indicative of neurodivergence. Yep. I was not non-virbal, verbal, I was hyperverbal, which now is something that has to do with autism, but for some of that thought only non-verbal was. So I didn't not talk, I talked too much. Like I I'm a hyper processor, I'm a verbal processor to the point to like even in college, like in between classes, I had to call my mom to talk about something. Like I had to rehash things with my mom. Yeah. And this is just like a funny story. I don't did you happen to do sorority stuff in college? Mm-mm. My college school. Well, have you ever been at Okay. Well, I found sorority life at our college, so it was very new. Yeah. I was a sorority president. So again, this is why I was very complicated. I'm a high masking level one. So unless you got real close to me, you couldn't see it. But who in the right mind in college would allow 40 to 50 young women to answer anonymous surveys and say whatever they wanted about you in order to learn better about your leadership. Yeah, and I was okay with it. And it never bothered me. Like you could say things about me and it never personally bothered me. Like I took it as data. It was all data to me. But the number one feedback was that I was cold and hard to read. I was not expressive. No one could tell when I was excited or happy about something because I am such a processor. I'm just thinking. And like even my husband will tell you this like I don't get excited about something until a day or two later. But shirts are already happening because I've processed it. I'm not a real time excited person. If you see me real time excited about something, it's because I know the social cues to pick, like say, oh, we're all excited. Let me be excited, you know. Yeah. Like and that's the difficult part is having to realize what part has been processing and what part has been masking and how to pick apart those things. So it wasn't until I finally decided to go on medication. And I won't tell all the details because it was it's a long story, but it's it's in the book about why I decided to go on medicine for ADHD. And when I finally decided to go in, I took a folder of medical journals information. I went in prepared to tell the doctor what I was wanted to take, what milligram I wanted to take, which medicine I thought would work based on my biology. Yeah. I had it all prepared and knew way too much, you know. And the doctor said, and I left this out of the book because again, I've just not been ready to talk about it until it's just become more prevalent on social media where people are like, Are you like in my DMs, like, are you autistic and you just don't say it out loud? Because there's some very clear things here. And it's usually coming from other people that are practitioners or people that are autistic because kind knows kind.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

And it's out of care.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

It's it's genuinely.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Are you one of us? Like you know, you can just tell. I mean, I've realized the closest people to me in my life are all are all neurodivergent. And we we hang in packs. That's a very normal thing. The doctor looked to be with my folder and he said, Let's do this plan that I'd come up with. He's like, But you know, I want to talk to you. I'm gonna call you in 48 hours, we're gonna meet back in seven days. Like, he wanted to closely monitor it all because I was like, I knew you're gonna want to put me on anxiety medicine. There's a tension you're gonna think I'm bipolar, but here's the journals that say this is how it manifests a woman. Like, I was so prepared, Kelsey. Yeah, and he was like, But I also want to discuss with you a potential for another diagnosis. There, I think you could be autistic.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

And I was like, No, like that's not in my folder.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

That's not in the folder, yeah. That is not what I'm here, which again, looking back, flaming sign. Yeah, like I was there prepared to have one conversation. Just like, you know, when I'm prepared to go eat somewhere, and then all of a sudden you just say that place is closed, I'm shut down, take me home. Like I can't do a second option, I'm gonna eat nothing for dinner now. Like when he said, Let's also talk about autism, I'm like, no, we're here to talk about why I think I should take Adderall versus Riddle. Like, that's all we're here to talk about. I'm not prepared to have that discussion. So since then, and talking to other professionals, like it's become abundantly clear. And I did a podcast episode with she's a professional counselor, and she does her podcast episodes as like free counseling sessions. Oh wow. I go into like talking about this, and you know, this first one like confess to all of it and tell and and what a burden is to carry that, yeah. And to think that, but it's like when you start unraveling it and you start understanding it, you're like, oh my gosh, this shows up in everything. Like one of the things that my online friends caught was I've been in the process of trying to buy a car. Guess how many cars I've owned in my 33 years of life?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

It's either gonna be a tiny number or a huge number. Yeah. Okay, let's say I was gonna say one before my new car, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

The one I got when I was 16, and then I got a car 10 years ago, and then it was time for me to get a new car recently, and I had the worst time. And everybody's like, you need to get a third row, especially if you're wanting to have another child. And I was like, but I only we have one plus two, like, and I have very peculiar things. Like Kelsey, one of my things on my list was the doors had to be heavy and they had to feel a certain way when I shut them. That was a point that I think a lot of people were like, your door has to feel a certain way. Like, yes, it does. It does, it yes. Uh-huh. And when I got my car 10 years ago, I'm the person like I do all the negotiating and purchases in our family. And I knew down to the color pattern, I knew how many miles, I knew I was 48 cent off from what I would pay for it when I got that car. Like, I'm that specific, you know. So I knew it was going to be hard to do it again. Six months ago, my husband told me, Kendall, just go get exactly what you've got, just get the newer version. If we have another child, we'll figure it out. Like, we don't have it yet, but you we've got to get another. Like, my car was 10 years old. It was time, you know, especially with him potentially deployed again. He's like, I want to feel comfortable about what you're driving. Long story short, I end up buying exactly what I had before, just the slightly larger version. You know, same brands, like the only difference is my car before was black and white. This one is just black. But my compromise was because this one had like was ten thousand dollars less, and I was like, Oh, I can do that, I can handle that. Like, I need the seats to fit around me a certain way, as dumb as that sounds. I like to feel like I'm in a cockpit. I don't like to feel like everybody, all my friends have like Tahoes, and I hate the feeling of like I am a small thing and a big thing. I need to feel like I'm in a spaceship and I'm safe that way. Again, I have to have compression, I have to have a certain amount of weight on me to sleep, to do things. But you know this. So I know this. And my online neuro spicy friends were like, oh yeah, this all makes real sense to me. Like, you know, they're checking off the list. I eat the same thing, I eat the same thing every day for lunch. Like, I'm very regimented on certain things. It's been an interesting journey, it's been freeing to openly talk about it, but at the same time, I still constantly get the invalidating questions of like, I know autistic people, you're not autistic. And I'm like, it's a spectrum, right? Like, right, you know, no two autistic people are gonna act exactly or manifest it exactly the same. Does that impact you when you hear stuff like that? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it feels like it would. Yeah. And that's the interesting thing. You could tell you could tell me you disagree with or I'm wrong about something opinion-wise, politically, or you don't agree with how I did something, or you could tell me I suck at my job. It all of those things, my brain files that as data, but if you question my experience or my character, it is a very physical wound for me. But you could tell me, like I I'm not a singer, but you could if I sang, you could be like, You suck as a singer, or like I grew up dancing, and I, you know, again, when I got scored, I was like empirical data. I didn't do as good as I should have, or they were better. Okay, got it, move on. But if you questioning my character or my experience, which again I didn't know, are things that are very common with people who are autistic because you're so justice and right centered that I need things to be correct. Even if I'm wrong, I need to know what is correct. Right. And because I have the inability to be inauthentic, for you to misjudge my character feels like I have been wronged. Like it is a personal attack.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

So, how do you deal with that then when you get those messages? Because I mean, you're very public, your you know, social media profiles, and you've recently talked about autism. So, how do you handle that?

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Trying to keep in mind that the handful of people that have negative things to say outweigh the dozens of people that are in that maybe silently in my DMs that aren't even have the confidence to say it out loud in the comments or the messages, or the like I had a lady at church come up to me and say, I think I might be that way too. And she's in her 70s. But I never really knew people didn't talk about it. Yeah, because I struggled with X, Y, and Z. You know, those are the things that is very affirming, and they're I have to remember that these are the situations that we're called to as believers to build a way or you know, to blaze a trail, whatever you know you want to call it, that I have to lean on my faith that God didn't make a mistake in the way that He created me, and that I couldn't think the QA that I do critically and creatively if he hadn't made me this way. Yeah. And so there's good and bad with all of it. And that's the struggle right now is I'm trying to navigate how to continually show up authentically. But now that people do know that I'm autistic, I can share even more authentically. But how do I do that in a way that doesn't take away from my professionalism?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Because people a lot of people are still not comfortable with the way people are like, oh, you're not autistic. I just don't show you the autism meltdowns. I don't show you the ways that autistic keeps autism or AHD keeps me from functioning like a human. I don't show you how I literally cannot get out of the car sometimes because I'm so stuck in transition. I don't show you the stack of stuff that I need to take to the post office because I can't make myself do the executive function task and they literally cause me physical pain. Like, how do I show you those things that are very validating to my experience that are not pretty, that cannot be tied up with a bow. And unless you are inside that embodied experience, you cannot understand it. Yeah. And so it's hard. And there's not a lot of people out there doing it with level one autism. There's people out there with level two, level three doing it. You know, because I believe a lot of the people that are like on the show's Love on the Spectrum, I believe there are a lot of times between one and two, yeah. Autist level ones and two, where they need the one, two, three, and four system is based on how much assistance you need. So again, it's not even based on you, it's how much it affects other people. Yeah. Like how much other people have to help you. So it's just a difficult world to be in because it's so misunderstood and there's so much still coming out about it. And if I've truly unmasked all the way, the truth is, is I probably wouldn't be where I am professionally. And that's also a hard pill to swallow. That the world is not ready yet to fully understand and embrace me in my capacity. But if I can blaze a trail and I'll look back and say, I did all this while being autistic, like I like I could cry talk about it right now, and I'll try not to, but a girl, but a follower said, I have a five-year-old, she was recently diagnosed with autism, and I can say, But look what Miss Kendall did. Oh, and that chokes me up right now thinking about it, because for so long, when I was that little girl, I thought something was wrong. I thought something was wrong with me. Like, why can my friends do this and I can't? Like, why is that so simple to them? Or why does this come so easy to me, but it's so hard for everybody else? And I just felt like an alien. And there wasn't there was no examples of that. Like the I now her name has left me because my emotions have overtaken that part of my brain. The only example of women we had in autism was she's a veterinarian, she's brilliant mind. Oh, she's blaze trails, it's gonna come to me as soon as we get off here. But the the examples we have of women in autism, again, are are so specific and they they look so generalized that we don't have those high masking examples or women that aren't just laser focused in one area. Like I, you know, I'm involved in a lot. And I'm autistic and I'm ADHD, so it's very conflicting, you know. Part of my brain really needs order, part of my brain really needs routine, and the other part of my brain is really bored by that. The other part of my brain needs dopamine from new and spontaneous and impulse. Yeah, and living within that dichotomy can cause a lot of anxiety and tension a lot of times. And so it's difficult, but as a believer, I just pray that God will continue to use all of my experiences and my authenticity to help other people. And I could have never guessed the way that this book would have come about. You know, it is a dream come true to be able to publish with one of the top publishers in the world for your first debut book. It's an unknown author. I mean, that's something only God could have orchestrated. And I did it in an untraditional way and an untraditional path. And so I just have to believe at the end of the day that if I continue to honor who I am in the way that God created me, that all the desires of my heart and all the things that I hope will happen, God is orchestrating in the back end in a way that I can't see.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Yeah, absolutely. I know when we were emailing before this, there was a line in there where you said, you hope that this makes people feel less alone. Like that's one of your hopes. And it really aligned with my podcast because it's, you know, these stories that people have, whether they're the same story or different, but it's just showing, you know, we're not alone in this world and everyone's going through something. Um, and I think you sharing about this with autism, whether whether it's somebody who has always struggled with, you know, why do I feel this way, or a parent who's trying to help their child, I really think it's it's gonna make a difference. And it takes a lot of bravery to share that. So I think you're you're doing a great thing. And I just want to say thank you for sharing it. Thank you. Very valid and I appreciate that, Kelsey. Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, I am really excited for you with this book and everything you're doing. I just really enjoyed our conversation. I don't know if you have any closing thoughts you want to share, but I really enjoyed speaking with you. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

No, thank you so much for letting us go there and have these conversations. And again, I just encourage people to if they're feeling any kind of frictioning about faith or questions or doubts, or you know, you're asking the question like I have been asking still like how can people call themselves Christians and act a certain way, or you see things happening in the world and it just doesn't make sense. And one, you're in good company. Yeah. Um, but my book is for those people. Um, it's called This Little Fire of Mine, kind of a play on the words. This little light of mine. Um, and if you want to talk more or go deeper into it, I'm constantly talking about these kinds of things on my social media platforms and the same place, same name everywhere at Kindle Mariah Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. So I would love to talk to you more there.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, great. And then I think you have a website too. Is it the same?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Yeah, Kindlemaria.com. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Well, thank you again. Really enjoyed this conversation. Um, thanks for bearing with me as I spilled coffee earlier, but you can't see it.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Listen, that's it. Day in my life, girl. I get it. I get it. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Of course. Thanks again. That's it for this episode of Unspoken Lives. If today's story moved you, inspired you, or made you reflect on your own journey, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss the next powerful conversation. I'm always on the lookout for new guests. If you know someone with a story that deserves to be shared, I'd love to hear from you. Check the show notes for contact details and make sure to follow along on social media at Unspoken Lives Podcast. Until next time, keep listening, keep sharing, and remember, every life has a story worth telling.