I Wasn’t Wrong. I Was Autistic.

One thing that’s been on my mind lately is how some parents know their child is neurodivergent, or autistic, or they are diagnosed, but they choose not to tell them.

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I recently watched this TikTok where @mrwilliamsprek shares how his mother knew he had ASD, ADHD, and dyslexia, from kindergarten through to his senior year of high school and chose not to tell her son this. He found out on his own in college after a separate evaluation.

Now, I know many parents choose not to share this with their children because they fear they will be singled out or bullied. They don’t want their kids to feel different from their peers.

Except they are different.

More so, they know they are different. Whether they reached that conclusion on their own or their peers have already pointed it out. They know. They just don’t know why. And why is arguably the most important thing.

I’ve heard similar stories like @mrwilliamsprek’s throughout the autistic and neurodivergent communities. However, I can only really speak on my experience.

And in my experience, I started masking as young as five years old. I knew in the first grade that I was different, that certain things didn’t come naturally to me and I had to adapt…