This essay is part of the Between Chapters project, inspired by the book. What chapters are you between? How did you get from one chapter to another? Share your story here.
Imagine you’re reading a novel. You’re about three-quarters of the way through, and you’re really connecting with the story and the main character. She’s so relatable. You get used to living inside her head, hearing her thoughts, seeing how she sees the world around her. Then, on page 350, you suddenly find out she is not the person you thought she was.
That’s essentially what happened to me. Five years ago, in a plot twist I never saw coming, I was diagnosed with autism. I was forty-four years old. A writer. A wife. A daughter. A mother of a son.
Growing up, I had always felt like something about me was just a bit off, like the seams didn’t quite line up. Not in a major way, but just enough to be noticeable. To be awkward. I searched for explanations, or had them handed to me. I was shy and introverted. I was an only child, a spoiled brat. I was extremely sensitive. I was a drama queen. I was a girl with an attitude problem. I was a freak.
None of these reasons added up, though. They didn’t explain why, as a girl, I got so overwhelmed ahead of every celebration and party that I threw up several times. I lay in bed in a dark room, a cool cloth over my throbbing eyes.
They didn’t explain why the smell of laundry detergent and air fresheners, or the texture of eggs and tomatoes made me nauseous. Or why certain clothes rubbed me the wrong way, making me squirm and itch and whine like I wanted to tear off my skin. Why I didn’t wear jeans until my thirties. Or why, one day when I was eighteen years old, the sensation of my hair on my scalp sent me into such a frenzy that I shaved it all off.
Nothing explained why I found people so mysterious and confusing. I got good grades, yet had trouble understanding the most obvious punchlines. I wasn’t sure when someone was joking or serious. I had no idea what I did wrong when friends and boys suddenly dumped me.
Growing up, I dabbled in identities, adopting personas, trying to find one that fit. One that felt like me. I was a goth. A brain. A goodie two-shoes. A weirdo. Nothing fit right. I felt shapeless, undefined.
When I met my husband at age twenty-two, I felt solid for the first time. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t run away. Maybe he was a weirdo, too. Eight years later, we had a baby together. A little boy who cried so much that my skull ached. I wanted this family. Yet I felt myself dissolving again. I didn’t want to die, but I also wanted to be gone. Doctors saw depression and anxiety.
Later, they saw something in my three-year-old. A boy so intense his cries pierced the sky. A boy who covered his ears when toilets flushed. A boy who could not wear the clothes people bought for him. A boy who traced license plates and carried around old phones instead of teddy bears. A boy who didn’t play the way other kids played. The doctors saw autism.
I saw something else: a boy like me. Could I be autistic? Yes, the doctors agreed. Yes, you are.
It took me forty-four years to arrive at this chapter. To understand the first 350 pages, to reframe my backstory in a way that makes sense. This year I will turn fifty. I wrote a memoir about everything that came before, about all the pain and confusion that brought me to this point. I know there are others out there with similar stories. I’ve spent the last few years getting to know this new character, seeing the world through her eyes.
I can’t wait to see what comes next for her.
Julie M. Green is the author of the memoir Motherness. Follow her on Substack, Julie M Green, and on Instagram @juliem.green.
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