You’ve Always Been This Way is a column written by Taylor Harris, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman and 1980s preschool dropout, who identifies every moment from her past that filled her with shame, and mutters, “Yep, that tracks. I see it all now.”
I sent an Instagram post to my daughter recently, an apology for some of the ways I’d mothered her before I knew she was autistic. I’d already run the reel of regret in my head many times, remembering flickers of moments when I’d sidestepped her distress or pushed the “ignore” button on her cries. She’s our firstborn, and her dad and I had been advised that toddlers, then preschoolers, and even some school-aged children who threw “tantrums” needed to learn their caregivers would not cave to every desire or demand. Okay, that seemed to make sense. People were always warning us that a kid who hears five “no’s” and then an exhausted “yes” has your number. You’re cooked.
In my late twenties, I was a stay-at-home mom of two toddlers, living in a University of Virginia dorm (the faculty penthouse apartment, darling) while my husband worked as an assistant professor and attended seminary. No one would have shamed me for a few missed cuddles or a handful of short-fused responses. It’s just not humanly possible to get it right every time; there’s a reason we love a “good enough” mother.
So, yes, I missed the mark in typical ways. But it’s how I responded to behavior I couldn’t possibly have named or understood that shreds me. How I perceived meltdowns before they were meltdowns. How a barrage of questions felt like hot coals on my face—was I angry? Why? Now I understand the rapid firing as my child’s need for regulation, which tended to flood my own nervous system. For every vocal stim session in our minivan, there’s one or two Harrises reaching for Loops.
Is regret the right word for what you did when you didn’t know?
I sent my daughter the post, and she came to find me in my office, where I sat in just the natural light, and she said only: “That got me.”
I held her to my chest this time, as though I could rewrite or overwrite or make things right.
What if I tell you I don’t want to go back in time? I fear I’d have more information and clarity, but not enough capacity to make the time travel worthwhile. In the space of three years, three of us in my family of five have been diagnosed with autism and ADHD (that’s AuDHD for you fancy neurotics). We’d previously all belonged to the Generalized Anxiety Disorder club (where the beats and existential dread never stop stop stop), and which I now see as a gateway (but valid standalone) diagnosis.
Can I shoot straight with you? While I wrote a memoir with the word “genetics” in the title and understand that having sex can lead to having babies who look and act like you, the fact that neurodivergence and mental health diagnoses run in families doesn’t make things any easier. It’s not like being a world-class diver and walking to the deep end with your little world-class divers-in-the-making to show the lowlifes at the public pool how it’s done.
Last year, when my inner parts and brain seemed to all be saying they’d had enough, I visited a midlife clinic. In trying to give brief and truthful answers (we love an A+ medical narrative) about major life stressors, I mentioned my family being mostly neurodivergent. The doctor said, “Oh, does that make it easier, then? Since it’s not just one of you?”
Bruh. My ovaries gasped and fell out on the floor. I grabbed my mom tote and took my perimenopausal autistic self back home to face my neurodivergent wolfpack alone, without additional estrogen.
Can three things about late (or later) autism and ADHD diagnoses be true? 1) I wish I had known when my daughter and son were closer to kindergarten-aged; 2) Knowing would have mattered to our family; and 3) I’m not sure how much more I could have given my kids.
The other day, a friend who’s clued into my ongoing, low-grade, hormonal-brain-life-driven burnout, referenced John O’ Donohue’s blessing “For One Who Is Exhausted.” I found the book of blessings on my shelf. A friend from Charlottesville, the city I still think of as home, had given it to me about five years ago, before we moved away to State College and then Richmond, before I really got it, so I’d tucked it away.
This time, at 42, I read each line with my limbs and bones in tow, breaking down between stanzas.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
I am four decades in, and learning, for the first time and yet again, that sometimes you have what you’ll need before you need it. Thank God when you, out of politeness or not wanting to waste, tuck the gift away.
What I sent my daughter feels something like the inverse.
Here, I offered from another room, another body, a same but different brain. Ways you might have experienced trauma that you couldn’t name and I couldn’t name, and sometimes it was at my hands—or my lack of hands-on care—and does this hit your soul? Because I am not asking for forgiveness, though I am, in a way. But mostly, I am trying to see you, hold you, and give you what I couldn’t when you needed it. Maybe you needed it most then. I’m sorry. Can it be a salve now? A thin one, not perfect, not even good enough. Just a little something to take the edge off.
That moment was my daughter’s to perceive, not mine to squeeze in and overtake. I hope we’ll have more. And one day, maybe when we are getting twin piercings (her request), I’ll share what I couldn’t have known about myself. Not to get stuck in rumination (we love an A+ ruminator) or to excuse bad decisions, or to say “at least” you got your diagnosis earlier, but mostly to tell her we cannot go back. And we were not wrong to feel what we felt and to tesser between thoughts in a way that threatened the invented code of compliance.
Look at the world, I’ll tell her, still thrashing about, trying to find its way. You and I were not made to rush. We are not late or too far from home. Let’s just be here for now. Want to give it a try?
