I Didn’t Go Looking for Autism.

It Found Me Anyway.

I want to be clear from the start, because clarity matters to me:

I am not asking anyone to diagnose me.

I work in this field. I understand the difference between resonance and clinical assessment. I know how complex neurodivergence is—especially in women, especially when ADHD is already present, especially when you’ve been competent enough that the world assumes you’re fine.

This is not a declaration.

This is a confession of recognition.

I’m 45 years old. And the deeper I go into learning about autism—the lived experiences, the research, the nuance beyond stereotypes—the more I keep encountering something unexpected.

I keep encountering myself.

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Different Was the First Language I Learned

I knew I was different at three years old.

Not because of my brain—because of my feet.

Clubbed feet. Surgeries. Leg braces. Pain before I had language for it. Other kids didn’t have that. My older sister didn’t have that. I didn’t understand how I was different, only that I was.

By ten, “different” expanded beyond my body.
By twelve, it was undeniable.

I was a quiet child. Not because I couldn’t speak—I could. At home, I talked endlessly. In public, I became a shadow.

I wasn’t shy. I wasn’t defiant. I wasn’t being difficult.

I was overwhelmed.

In kindergarten, I couldn’t stand in front of the class and recite my ABCs. The fear was crippling—physical, paralyzing. My body simply refused. I was held back a year because I was deemed “socially unready.”

I knew my ABCs.
My mom knew I knew them.

So she and my teacher devised a plan without telling me. One afternoon after school, my mom sat me on a bench outside the building and asked me to say my ABCs for her. I did—perfectly. My teacher listened from a distance, unseen.

That was 1985. Autism wasn’t readily spoken about. ADHD was a diagnosis for boys only.

There wasn’t language then for nervous system overload. Only words like dramatic, stubborn, too sensitive.

I was called dramatic often.

But I wasn’t dramatic.

I was on fire.

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Fire in the Brain, Silence in the World

When something caught my interest, my brain ignited. Still does.

Art especially. I started drawing at three. By ten, I was considered advanced. And something important happened around art—people listened.

Always.

Art gave my intensity somewhere to land safely.

Outside of art?

I was the oddball.

• Too detailed.
• Too honest.
• Too intense.
• Too quiet.
• Too much.

So I learned early: my intensity was welcome only when it produced something others could understand or benefit from.

That lesson leaves a mark.

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Observation Wasn’t Withdrawal. It Was Survival.

Because people didn’t notice me when I was quiet, I learned to observe freely.

I studied people—expressions, tone shifts, micro-reactions. I studied environments—light, sound, movement, energy. I noticed details others missed because my brain didn’t filter them out.

The average person doesn’t realize how much sensory input exists from one second to the next. Their nervous system sorts it automatically.

Mine doesn’t. Or at least, not reliably.

So walking into a room isn’t just walking into a room. It’s:

• Overlapping conversations I can’t tune out.
• The hum of electricity, vents, appliances.
• Lights that flicker just enough to register.
• Perfume or cologne taking up oxygen.
• Fabric suddenly feeling wrong on my skin.
• Chairs scraping. Feet tapping. Phones buzzing.
• The pressure of eye contact and social timing.

And the thoughts never stop.

Thoughts stack. Patterns form. Emotions are analyzed. Conversations replay. Future responses pre-written.

It’s not fear of people.

It’s volume.

Being awake in a loud world.

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Small Talk: The Social Ritual I Never Understood

_I hate small talk._

I don’t understand it. I don’t know how to do it naturally. And if I’m being honest, I don’t see the point of it.

“How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Good.”

None of that is information. None of it is connection.

It feels like a script everyone else memorized and I missed the rehearsal.

Small talk is uncomfortable for me—not because I dislike people, but because it feels unnecessary and oddly dishonest. My brain doesn’t want to hover on the surface. It wants meaning. Context. Substance.

I don’t want to talk about the weather unless the weather is doing something interesting. I don’t want filler conversation to ease tension; I’d rather sit in comfortable silence or have a real exchange.

People sometimes interpret this as aloofness.

It isn’t.

It’s efficiency of connection.

If we’re going to talk, I want it to matter.

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A Day Inside My Nervous System

Let me take you inside a normal day.

I wake up already processing.

Before my feet hit the floor, my brain has scanned the room—light, sound, temperature, the weight of the blanket, the subtle hum of the house. My thoughts are already moving.

By the time I get dressed, I’ve adjusted twice because a fabric suddenly feels wrong. Not unbearable. Just distracting enough to matter.

At work, the quiet math begins.

I’m listening—to the child in front of me, to the room, to the sounds beyond the room. I’m tracking tone, energy, regulation, dysregulation. I’m monitoring my own nervous system while helping regulate someone else’s.

Noise is everywhere. Not loud—layered.

By mid-evening, my head feels full. Not overwhelmed yet—just saturated.

Then come the thoughts.
Work thoughts. Faith thoughts. Research spirals. Emotional processing. Connections forming without invitation.

I forget to eat. Not intentionally—hunger just doesn’t register the same way when my mind is lit up, and my mind is ALWAYS lit up. I keep water nearby because dehydration sneaks up on me too.

By the end of the work-night, my body is tired—but my nervous system is louder.

So I sit in my car.

An hour passes. Sometimes two.

Music. Drawing. Audio Bible Reading. Chosen sound. Chosen focus.

Then I drive home… and sit again.

Another hour.

This isn’t avoidance.
This is decompression.

When I finally go inside, I love on my animals. I sit with my husband. Then I retreat again—not away from love, but toward regulation.

This is what survival looks like when no one taught you the language for it early on.

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Intense Emotions, Delayed Translation

My emotions are intense.

But my ability to express them in socially expected ways is inconsistent.

Love and anger come out clean.
Everything else goes through analysis first.

As a teen, rage showed up in confusing ways. I tried to control it. Sometimes it felt impossible—like my body reacted before my brain could intervene.

There were night terrors too. Vivid. Physical. Terrifying. I would wake up already afraid, my body convinced something was wrong before my mind could catch up.

Faith was complicated then.

I love God—but I didn’t understand myself, so I didn’t understand why He made me this way. Even now, up until this very moment, that has been my struggle.

I prayed to be calmer.
To be quieter.
To be less.

Looking back on the past plus reflecting on right now. I don’t think God was silent. I know he wasn’t.

I believe He was and has continued to wait for me to stop asking to be different… and start asking to be understood. He has been mercifully waiting for me to stop placing my identity in social norms and start putting it into his hands. He’s been waiting for me to turn and look into his eyes and witness the true reflection staring back at me.

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The Mirror Started Talking Back

The people who suggest I might be autistic are not casual voices.

• They are autistic adults.
• Lifelong caregivers.
• Professionals with decades of experience.
• Coworkers who see me daily, unmasked.

An autistic speech therapist—who has been incredible for Khloe and unexpectedly for me—spoke plainly. She didn’t tiptoe. She helped me see patterns without fear. I won’t share her name. Her autism is hers to disclose, not mine. She has been a blessing in disguise for me.

Brenda, Khloe’s occupational therapist, has also been exceptional—not only in her work with Khloe, but in the way she gave me space to process this recognition with gentleness and respect.

Both are Master Degree holders and when I placed myself beneath them because I only hold an associate degree, they both corrected me. They refuse to allow me to demean myself, my knowledge, my experience. We need more like them in this world. We truly work as a team, all moving parts equally important regardless of educational status.

Then there is Patti Rooks.

Patti and her husband Deahl have fostered over 100 children over the past 25 years and adopted 20. They have raised multiple autistic children across the spectrum.

Patti told me she didn’t panic when new diagnoses entered their family because she knew I would hyperfocus and research relentlessly. I would go past the terrifying surface-level headlines and find truth, nuance, and realistic possibility.

She called it one of my “oddball traits.”

Then she said: “It’s not negative.”

And then:

“If you’re autistic, that changes nothing for us. Think about it Amy, the autistic people in our family are all considered intelligent. If our normal brained and neurodivergent members place you as autistic, that’s more compliment than anything. We just want you to finally accept yourself the way we already have. Autistic or not, we accept you as you are, it’s time you do the same.”

In that moment, I felt oddly seen. Perhaps even accepted.
That night, once I clocked out and quietly moved to my car, I cried.

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The Ones Who See Me Fully

I am not unloved.
I am not unsupported.
I am not alone.

With Bobby—my husband of over 25 years—I am completely unmasked.

He sees all of it. The intensity. The hyperfocus. The silence. The odd routines. The deep dives. The exhaustion.

He has never asked me to be smaller.

He looks forward to the end of his workday and mine because that’s when I get to just be. No editing. No explaining.

There is a version of me only he sees—and he cherishes her.

That kind of love is holy.

My best friend of 16 years lives in Australia. Her name is Casey Lauren Gibson—Broski to me, I’m Red to her.

Across oceans and time zones, she has accepted all of me. The intensity. The honesty. The faith wrestling. The laughter.

Distance hasn’t weakened that bond. It’s purified it. Truly, she is my soul sister. I will never truly have the words to express the depth of my love and gratitude for her and our soulful friendship. If only there were less physical distance from one another.

Patti and Deahl continue to entrust me with their youngest child, knowing all my oddities. That trust is an honor I carry seriously.

Within that acceptance—within that chaos—I flourish.

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Family Threads I Can’t Ignore

My son, doctor diagnosed, has believed I’m autistic since he was fifteen. He’s twenty-four now. He still stands firm in that belief.

My daughter likely has a mild form of autism that was overlooked. That grieves me deeply. I got my son resources I didn’t know to seek for her.

My hope is that my learning gives her the unnecessary permission to accept herself—diagnosis or not.

My mother may be autistic. We most likely will never know for sure as she most likely will never choose to seek out a diagnosis. My sister is being tested. My nephew and niece are being tested. My great-nephew was diagnosed at three.

ADHD runs in our family. My Mom, My older sister, Myself, My little brother, My nephews, My son, My daughter, most likely my husband..all of us diagnosed with ADHD. Autism appears to walk beside it.

This didn’t come out of nowhere.

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Diagnosis, Money, and Meaning

I would pursue formal adult testing if it didn’t cost $2,000.
Insurance doesn’t cover late autism diagnosis.
Apparently, understanding yourself at 45 is non-essential.

I don’t want a label to wear.

I want coherence.

Understanding myself better means living with less friction—and helping others do the same. Those I work with and those I will or have crossed paths with.

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Faith Changed the Question

I’ve asked God my whole life: Why did You make me this way?

I’m starting to believe that’s the wrong question.

The better one is this:

Since You made me this way… what is this for?

What if my brain is not an error?
What if my intensity is not excess?

Only God decides what I can and cannot do.

• Not stereotypes.
• Not assumptions.
• Not labels.
• Not people.

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Letters to Those Who Feel Seen Here

To the young teen:
You are not broken. You are not dramatic. Your feelings are real, and your body is responding to more information than most. You are allowed to take up space. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to grow into yourself at your own pace.

To the young adult:
You don’t have to have it figured out. You don’t need permission to explore who you are. Your differences are not deficits—they are data. Pay attention. Be curious. Be kind to yourself.

To the midlife adult:
You are not late. You are right on time. Understanding yourself now does not erase the past—it redeems it. You are allowed to rewrite the narrative with compassion.

To the elder who is just now recognizing themselves:
Nothing was wasted. Nothing was wrong. You survived in a world that didn’t have language for you. Your wisdom is deep. Your story still matters.

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The Voices That Helped Me See

Watching and listening to Temple Grandin helped me understand how differently wired minds can perceive the world with incredible clarity and purpose. Temple is an autistic woman, a scientist, and an advocate who changed the livestock industry by designing humane systems based on how animals actually experience their environment. Her mind sees what others miss—and the world is better for it.

Listening to Kaelynn Partlow, an autistic advocate, therapist and educator, helped me feel less alone in the emotional and sensory realities of autism. Her honesty, humor, and compassion speak to the lived experience—not the stereotype. She names things many of us were never given words for.

Their voices reminded me: difference is not deficiency.

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Burning the Masks

This isn’t a sad story.

It’s a liberation story.

It’s about acceptance without shrinking.
About burning masks to ash.
About standing as your beautiful, awkward self—without apology.

If you’ve been told you’re too much, maybe you’re just more awake than most.

Some rooms aren’t built for people like us.

So we build new ones.

And we stop apologizing for taking up the space God designed us to take.

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Author’s Note

This piece was written slowly, prayerfully, and honestly. Not to convince. Not to label. But to name a lived experience many carry quietly. If this resonates with you, take what serves you and leave the rest. You are not required to explain yourself to be worthy of understanding. Remember, God does NOT make mistakes. You are beautifully and wonderfully made.

— Feral Faith Studio
Amy Lee Murr