Hello World, Literally!

I created this blog a few months ago and never went back to look at it. Life was carrying me through yet another major lesson. I could have returned to it sooner, but you dont interrupt a lesson is what my mother used to tell me. Nonetheless, like everything under the sun, everything has a season and a time. Life is a great, humbling teacher who demands you drop everything else and pay attention. However all good things come to an end and there I was, lesson completed. I came out the other side of trauma a complete different person, so, Hello World, quite literally.

I’m not being dramatic when I talk about Life throwing me a lesson disguised as a curveball. It was necessary inorder for me to be able step into this life with the identity I’m only now beginning to understand.

First of all,I discovered just how autistic I am after 30 years of high level, top of the range masking. I am learning that this is a common life experience for many women. We often go undiagnosed because we mask and fit perfectly in society until midlife, when the world stops adjusting to our masking abilities and you have your midlife crisis. I spent over 30 years unknowingly masking my autism, aware of my ADHD and telling myself I am just an overly sensitive overthinker and I need to relax. This world built largely by men for themselves, demands that you fold, and fold again, breaking yourself into palatable pieces or risk being swallowed whole by patriarchy.

So I get it. I understand my sisters who are still masking. I hope life brings you the clarity and courage to see that you don’t need to hide. You can exist fully and take up space in this male‑dominated society simply by being yourself. I intend to move forward honoring my different mind rather than hiding it.

What else? Ah yes, I learned that the situation I once believed victimized me was something I had been viewing through narrow, self‑protective eyes. Once upon a time, I had a job I loved deeply. As workplaces often are, it became a place where I experienced harassment, bullying, racism, and emotional distress so severe that I began having breakdowns at work. All the while, I was ignoring and unaware of my autism, and the fact that I needed accommodations and support. I was winging it like God’s mightiest soldier. But autistic burnout, meltdowns, and shutdowns do not care how kind you are or how hard you try.

Eventually, someone identified the function behind my behaviors: escape. I needed to get out, and it took me time to realize that if I didn’t, I would not only crash and burn, I would be doing a disservice to others like me. I worked at a residential campus for autistic youth and teens, and I was being targeted and retaliated against for advocating for them.

I didn’t fully understand this until a few weeks ago, when I finally began to feel like myself again, after working through and healing the trauma responses I carried from that workplace. I felt like myself without hate, anger, resentment, or any grudge toward anyone. And then I began to wonder, if healing is actually possible after all that, if I’m standing here feeling like I recovered , was I ever truly the victim?

It brings me to tears to trying to piece it together and understand it in retrospect. If I was pushed out of a workplace because I advocated for the rights and humane treatment of children who cannot advocate for themselves, then who was the real victim? That is a question I will carry for the rest of my life and I think that was the biggest lesson Life needed me to find answers for.

There is an African Proverb that has stayed in my head for as long as I can remember;

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

As a species, we have yet to realize that the barriers we’ve created to keep ourselves from being compassionate and loving toward one another are superficial, of no real consequence or significance to our survival. If we are to make any sustainable growth or meaningful impact in this life, we must embrace and celebrate the very things we believe make us different, and choose to work together and honor the fact that we are one people.

So, hello world. I’m just a girl standing in front of you, asking you to be kind to one another.