NEURODIVERGENT NARRATIVES - CHAPTER 10: ADVICE FOR OUR UNIDENTIFIED SELVES

The Moment You Begin.

There is a particular stillness that settles over a person when they first let the word Autistic rest inside them, not as a rumour or a fear but as something that might finally explain the shape of their days. It can feel like standing at the edge of a long coastline, seeing both the years behind you and the years ahead, realising how much of your life you lived without the language that could have held you. In that moment the world feels both immense and tender, as if you are learning how to breathe in a different register.

This chapter meets you in that threshold. All across this late discovered generation people are finding the courage to look at their own lives without the old distortions, noticing the instincts they once hid, the sensitivities they once apologised for, the joy that once seemed out of reach. What you read in these pages is not instruction. It is recognition. The kind that steadies you before you take the next step.