I Thought I Was Just Good at Reading the Room...
Late diagnosis. A lifelong performance. But at 35, clarity.
I’ve always been good at school.
Straight A/Bs.
Varsity athlete.
Team captain.
Honor roll.
Got into the Ivy League.
Went to law school.
Became a lawyer.
I didn’t think I was struggling.
Not really.
I just thought…that I overthought things.
That I was intense. That I needed structure. That I was good at figuring out what other people wanted from me.
And maybe I was. But only because I was always watching.
Always tracking.
Always adapting.
I didn’t realize that I’d built a whole life - successfully, visibly - on top of something I didn’t have words for yet.
I wasn’t just high-achieving.
I was masking.
The routines. The scripts. The obsession with doing things right. The burnout I couldn’t explain.
Then I met my husband.
His brain works differently. Not in the “opposite” way, just… freely. Unapologetically.
You see, Trevor is dyslexic. And being with him taught me a lot about how he navigated through school, how he had to work to be seen by a system that wasn’t designed for him.
The kinds of achievements I had taken for granted—high test scores, awards, teacher praise—were harder for him. But I knew, without a doubt, that he was just as smart. Just as creative. Just as curious and capable.
So why did our paths look so different?
(Later I’d learn: neurodivergent people often find each other. There’s a sweet, quiet recognition, even before the diagnosis.)
Eventually, he earned his MBA. On paper, we were now “equal” by society’s standards of success — law degree, MBA, careers we were proud of. But our routes were so different. His path made me stop and look at my own.
Being with him made me look inward.
At how much I planned to appear spontaneous.
At how hard I worked to be easygoing.
At how I could sense the energy in a room before anyone said a word…and change myself to match it.
And then I had a baby.
And suddenly, the little things bothered me so much more.
The unraveled seam in my shirt. The distant hum of the fridge. The constant noise of…everything. The way my emotions could turn on a dime.
I couldn’t regulate like I used to.
The sensory overload. The rapid changes. The loss of control. The anxiety.
And the breast pumping? That almost did me in.
The sound, the pressure, the rigid schedule, the never-ending logistics of it—
something about being hooked up to a machine multiple times a day felt… mechanical and jarring.
Like my body was no longer mine.
And I couldn’t explain why it was affecting me so deeply. I just knew that it was.
Things I had masked or managed for years no longer stayed quiet.
And thanks to a suspiciously accurate TikTok algorithm and a few late-night rabbit holes, I decided to get tested.
At first, I was sure I had ADHD.
The forgetfulness. The scattered thoughts. The way my brain could be both so fast and so foggy.
But I figured I’d rule out autism first—not because I thought it was bad, but because I truly didn’t think it could be me.
I’d never shown any of the “typical” signs.
I wasn’t the awkward kid. I made friends. I was social. I did well in school.
But that’s the thing: I masked so well, for so long, even I didn’t see it.
Turns out, I have both.
Autism and ADHD.
For sure. No ambiguity.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
Not the stereotype.
Not the version anyone would’ve spotted in a classroom or a courtroom.
But it fit.
And it explained so much.
All that time, I wasn’t just driven. I was surviving.
There’s grief in realizing that.
But there’s relief too.
Because now, I get to meet the version of me who doesn’t have to perform.
Who can stim laying on her stomach on the floor if she needs to.
Who can rest her brain by scrolling through Amazon without guilt.
Who doesn’t have to earn her softness anymore.
So if you’ve ever been praised for how much you can carry…
If you’ve ever looked “fine” on paper but felt like no one really saw you…
If you’ve spent your whole life achieving and still wondered why it felt so hard…
Maybe it’s not you.
Maybe it never was.
More soon,
as I keep unlearning and unfolding,
xo,
Tay