Where My Story Really Begins
My introduction to this world didn’t start in a classroom. It started in a delivery room.
My son came into this world — bright, curious, different in ways I could not yet name. He was first diagnosed with ADHD. Later, around age thirteen, he received an Asperger’s diagnosis. The doctor handed me a trifold pamphlet on autism, wished me luck, and that was it.
No roadmap.
No guidance.
No “here’s how you help your child survive and thrive.”
Just a pamphlet.
At that time, I realized something terrifying and humbling: I knew almost nothing about autism. I had only ever met one autistic person before, and as a kid I hadn’t understood anything about them. Suddenly I was a parent responsible for navigating something I didn’t understand — and the stakes were my child’s life, future, and dignity.
People even suggested I consider placing him in a “special home.”
That was never going to happen.
So I did the only thing that made sense: I went to war for knowledge.
We started psychotherapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. And here’s where the story shifts — those therapists didn’t just work with my son. They worked with me. They explained what they were doing and why. They let me watch, learn, practice, fail, adjust, and try again.
We became a team.
They brought their expertise.
I brought relentless commitment.
At home, I carried the work forward the best I knew how.
It was exhausting, overwhelming, and emotionally brutal at times. But my son deserved someone who refused to give up on him — so I refused.
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From Mother to Magnet
Somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened.
Parents started finding me.
Families walking through diagnoses. Kids struggling socially. Teens melting down in worlds that never seemed built for them. They recognized something in me — not authority, but understanding. I wasn’t a professional then. I was simply a parent who had walked through fire and lived to talk about it.
I learned how to meet kids where they were.
Sometimes that meant stimming with them — rocking, flapping, bouncing — until they trusted me enough to invite me into their world.
That was the beginning of everything.
I realized how many parents were going through this with nothing but Google searches, fear, and guilt. I decided I didn’t want other families to feel as alone as I once did.
So I stepped forward, slowly at first, then intentionally. Not to play doctor. Not to play hero. But to be part of the process instead of another bystander watching families drown.
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Turning Experience Into a Calling
I haven’t worked professionally in this field for twenty-five years — and pretending otherwise doesn’t honor the truth.
What I have done is spend twenty-four years learning through my son, collaborating with professionals, supporting other families informally, and understanding autism and ADHD from the inside out.
Professionally, I’ve been working in the field for nearly three years. And now I’m taking the next step: certification and formal registration as a behavioral technician. I’m in the process of completing coursework and preparing for assessment, because I want my work to be both heart-driven and clinically grounded.
Yes — my college degree is in art and graphics. Life loves plot twists. But across both the professional world and the family world, people kept saying the same thing:
“You have a gift for this.”
Call it instinct. Call it intuition. Call it something divine. What matters is this: people trust me, kids feel safe with me, and I intend to use that responsibly.
Not as a replacement for licensed professionals —
but as a bridge between confusion and understanding.
What I’ve Learned Along the Way
After years of walking this road — first as a mother, then as a support for other families, and now professionally — one truth has stayed consistent:
Behavior is communication.
Meltdowns aren’t manipulation.
Shutdowns aren’t defiance.
Inattention isn’t laziness.
They’re signals. And when you don’t know how to read the signals, everything looks like chaos.
Autism and ADHD are often misunderstood because the outside world sees behavior before it understands the brain behind it. When a child avoids eye contact, repeats phrases, can’t sit still, or reacts intensely to small changes, people rush to label the behavior as a problem. What’s actually happening is that the nervous system is overwhelmed, under-supported, or simply wired differently.
Once you understand that, your entire approach changes.
One of the most common questions I hear is:
“How do I tell the difference between autism and ADHD?”
The honest answer is: sometimes you don’t — not without context, history, and professional evaluation.
Autism is primarily about differences in communication, social understanding, sensory processing, and patterns of interest or behavior. ADHD centers around regulation — attention, impulse control, motivation, and executive functioning (the brain’s ability to plan, organize, and follow through).
They are distinct neurological profiles.
They also frequently overlap.
Many people live with both — often referred to as AuDHD — and that overlap can make everything more confusing. Someone may hyperfocus intensely (common in both), struggle socially (for different reasons), or appear inattentive when they’re actually overwhelmed.
Understanding why a behavior exists matters far more than naming it.
The Cost of Myths and Mislabels
I’ve watched myths damage people.
I’ve seen autistic children labeled “rude.”
I’ve seen kids with ADHD called “bad” or “lazy.”
I’ve seen parents blamed for neurological realities they didn’t cause.
These misunderstandings don’t just hurt feelings — they shape self-image. A child who grows up hearing they are a problem eventually believes it. An adult who spends decades masking differences eventually burns out.
The problem isn’t autism or ADHD.
The problem is a world that refuses to learn how different brains work.
Late Diagnosis and the Quiet Grief
Many people — especially women — don’t discover they’re autistic or have ADHD until adulthood. They’ve spent years coping, masking, overachieving, or collapsing privately.
When diagnosis comes late, it often brings mixed emotions:
Relief: “I’m not broken.”
Grief: “Why didn’t anyone see this sooner?”
There is no timeline for self-understanding. Late diagnosis doesn’t make the experience less valid. It often explains decades of struggle that never made sense before.
Where I Come In
When people reach out to me, they are usually overwhelmed. They’re not asking for labels — they’re asking for clarity.
My role is to help people slow down, understand what they’re seeing, and figure out where to start. I help families and individuals distinguish between myths and reality, between fear and facts. I help them find appropriate professionals, understand therapy options, and learn practical strategies they can use right now while waiting for evaluations or services. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll research and find the answer or find someone who does.
I am not here to replace doctors or therapists.
I am here to help people navigate the system without losing themselves in it.
Why This Space Exists
This section of my website exists because too many people are handed pamphlets and platitudes when what they need is understanding.
Here, I will break things down clearly — Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, subtypes, outdated labels, functioning myths, masking, burnout, and what support actually looks like in real life. Not from an ivory tower. From lived experience and professional practice.
This isn’t about fixing people.
It’s about understanding them.
Continuing Forward
This post is an introduction — to my story, my perspective, and my purpose.
In the next posts, I’ll go deeper. We’ll unpack the subtypes, the overlaps, the myths, and the realities. We’ll talk about why “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” are misleading. We’ll talk about how Autism and ADHD look different across genders and across a lifetime.
Because understanding changes everything.
And nobody should have to navigate this world alone with nothing but a pamphlet and a prayer.
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Thank you❤️