A Love Letter to My Neurodivergent Self

For my most of my life, I felt like I was living in a world that didn’t notice me.  I was the quiet, and shy girl who faded into the background. The girl with scattered thoughts behind her eyes, and a heart that felt too much, too deeply. 

I didn’t always have the right words to express myself.  I tried, but it felt like whatever came spewing out was in another language.  A language in which I hadn’t quite mastered. I’ve learned how to essentially shrink myself and become unseen.  I created a mask that smiled when it was supposed to and laugh when I personally didn’t feel like it. I became an expert at pretending that I was okay. 

I spent years thinking something was wrong with me.

My late diagnoses hit me like a tidal wave. At first, it felt like my whole life had been a lie. But slowly, something incredible happened. The wave didn’t drown me. It lifted me. It gave me the language to finally understand myself. The permission to stop apologizing for the way my brain worked. The power to say: I am not broken. I am beautifully, complexly whole.

That’s when the healing began.

I started embracing the things I used to see as flaws:

• My tendency to get overwhelmed in noisy spaces. That’s sensitivity, not weakness.
• My hyperfocus? It’s passion, not a lack of control.
• My need for structure and routine? That’s how I protect my peace.
• My big emotions? They’re my compass, guiding me toward what matters most.

The world still doesn’t always get me—and that’s okay. I don’t need to be understood by everyone to be at peace with myself. I am learning that the unseen parts of me are not shameful or strange. They are sacred.

Now, I move through life a little softer with myself. I give myself room to feel deeply, to stim, to rest when the world feels too loud. I build spaces that reflect who I am, not who I was told I should be.

If you feel unseen, misunderstood, or like you’re too much or not enough—this is your reminder:
You are not too anything.
You are exactly what this world needs.
You just might not have been looking in the right mirror.

You deserve to be seen. Especially by yourself.

With love,
Someone who finally is.