These words are usually meant as an observation, but they land as an accusation: something about me has changed, and not for the better. What people don't see is that I spent most of my life becoming very good at hiding how hard things were.
At 47, I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I hadn't suddenly become neurodivergent, and I wasn't looking for a label. I was finally given an explanation for the difference I had felt all my life, and for why, after decades of appearing to cope, I no longer could. Growing up as a female in an Italian family, I always thought some of those differences were cultural. There were certain expectations about how you behaved, how you presented yourself, what was acceptable and what wasn't. Particularly as a girl, there were social expectations you were supposed to understand and comply with.
But I was always the quirky one. The one who thought differently, questioned things, became fixated on certain subjects or did things that other people found a little strange. I was told not to overthink things, not to obsess and not to worry so much. I was different, but being different wasn't particularly celebrated. When most people would say ‘Rebecca is different’ or would belittle how i used to think about things, it became very clear to me that I was different, i just didnt understand why.
I don't think anybody was deliberately trying to make me feel that way. It was simply how I experienced the world around me. And perhaps because I learned to hide those differences so well, nobody ever really recognised what was happening. I became very good at adapting, observing other people, understanding what they expected and adjusting myself accordingly. When you spend your entire life doing that, eventually people stop seeing the effort. They just see someone who appears to be coping. I think there is also a link to same sex children in a family, you constantly compare yourself to the others around you and although you know you are fundamentally different from them, you cant really understand what made you this way.
Why I always wanted to leave
Even as a little girl, I remember wanting to leave Adelaide. I couldn't really explain why. I just knew there had to be somewhere in the world where I could feel different without feeling that there was something wrong with me. I wanted to experience somewhere that didn't already have an expectation of who I was supposed to be. This was sad to me, i felt like although belonging was what I truly craved, I knew I would never find that here.
And eventually, I left. I moved to London, and for the first time in my life, I felt free, i felt that i could finally take a breath from life and live the way I wanted to.
London was a place where people came from everywhere. Different backgrounds, different personalities, different ways of thinking and living. Being different didn't automatically mean being strange. It was simply part of the world around me. I could reinvent myself, build a career, make friends and explore who I wanted to be without constantly carrying the expectations I'd grown up with. Again, something I hear alot is - but you werent like this in London. Well of course not. I was free in London. I was open to finally being me.
Looking back, I don't think I stopped hiding everything entirely. I didn't even know that's what I was doing. But I was free from so much of the stigma I'd associated with being different at home, and that freedom meant everything to me. For years, I thought the answer was simply that I'd found somewhere I belonged. I didn't realise that perhaps I'd also found somewhere I could exist more comfortably as the person I'd always been. Little did i know that losing the link to London and being back in Adelaide would result in such trauma.
And then life changed
Eventually, I came back to Adelaide. My father became very ill, and he died. I met someone, had a relationship which didnt work out, and eventually I fell pregnant by chance and became a mother on my own. There was grief, rejection, responsibility and an enormous amount of change that I couldnt deal with.
Suddenly, the life I'd created, the independence I'd enjoyed and the ways I'd learned to manage everything were violently taken from me and I couldn't have anticipated the impact this would have. And I think that's when things began to unravel. Not because I'd become someone different, but because life had become so much more stressful, unhappy and demanding, and the strategies I'd spent decades developing to cope were no longer enough.
When you have spent most of your life trying to be hidden, the people around you don't necessarily recognise the enormous amount of energy that goes into appearing capable. They see someone independent, someone successful, someone who's always managed. So when that person begins to struggle, the assumption is that something about them has changed. But really what I was doing ever since i can remember was working o hard to find a way to be accepted for my differences.
“But you weren't like this before.”
No I definitely wasnt, but fate has taught me that whats meant to come to you, the truth in life and why you were the way you were, as well as uncovering the truth is something that will always come around .
The little boy who helped me understand myself
The most heartbreaking part of this story, and perhaps the part that still makes me emotional, is that I genuinely don't know whether I would ever have understood my own autism if I hadn't become a mother. When Joshua was diagnosed with autism, my entire focus was on understanding him. I wanted to know how his mind worked, why certain experiences were difficult for him, why he responded to things differently and how I could give him the support he needed. As his needs became clearer, and his diagnoses became more complex, I spent more time learning, researching, advocating and trying to understand his world. This wasnt different to most ways i learn, understand things and navigate the world, and I truly believed it was just because i was the different nobody could explain.
And somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened. I started recognising parts of myself. Not because Joshua and I experience autism in the same way, because we don't, but because, for the first time, I was learning about differences that I had experienced my entire life without ever having the words to describe them.
Being assessed was a revelation. IT was almost so clear as to what I was in terms of neurotype that I cant actually beleive i never saw it, so at t 47 years old, I discovered I was autistic. I don't think I can adequately describe what that moment means to someone who has spent almost five decades wondering why they never quite fitted in. There is instant and intial relief, you feel justified, finally a way you can tell others about who you are and this is a very liberating feeling. However what comes in time is a deep emotional realisation that you were not supported in this disability the most part of your life, including growing up. You start looking backwards at your childhood, your relationships, your friendships, the decisions you made and the situations you struggled with. You begin to wonder how much of your life might have been different if you'd understood yourself earlier and had support in the areas you struggled with. Even writing this down now brings me to tears.
And then you realise that the little boy you've spent years trying so desperately to understand has, without ever knowing it, helped you finally understand yourself.
Are more people autistic, or are we finally recognising them?
There seems to be a growing narrative that too many people are being diagnosed with autism. That suddenly everyone has a diagnosis, that perhaps we're overdiagnosing, overlabelling or making disability out of ordinary differences. But I find that narrative deeply dismissive, particularly for women of my generation. In the past I was angry, annoyed, in disbelief that most people didnt question everything like i did. That most people didnt sit with emotion and let it rummage through them like a wave of torment.
But the data speaks for itself. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the estimated number of autistic females in Australia increased from 46,500 in 2018 to 90,900 in 2022. That's an increase of 95.5%. The ABS acknowledges that historical underdiagnosis of autism in females may contribute to these figures, alongside growing awareness and changes in diagnostic practices. This brings me to my other passion in life, gender diversity. The world believed that Autism was more prevalent in boys. This wasnt true. What was true, was that much of the research and the work undertaken to assess individuals for this disability was focused around the male gender.
Research published in Autism Research has also found that autistic women are, on average, diagnosed later than men, and that greater camouflaging can be associated with later diagnosis. In other words, some women have spent decades learning to conceal the very differences that might have led to them receiving support.
We became articulate, successful, independent and capable. We learned how to fit in. And then, when we finally received a diagnosis, some of the same people who had admired our ability to cope began questioning whether we were really autistic at all.
I find that extraordinarily sad, because autism is not something that suddenly appears when you receive a diagnosis. And being successful doesn't mean you aren't disabled.
But why can't you cope like you used to?
I think this is the part that people, including those closest to us, find most difficult to understand. Since my diagnosis, I've had people suggest that I've changed, that I used to manage things better and that I didn't struggle with certain things before. And perhaps what they're observing is real. My capacity has changed, but my circumstances have changed too.
I'm now a single mother raising an autistic child with substantial and complex needs. I'm working, parenting, managing appointments, advocating for support and navigating systems that are often extraordinarily difficult to access. There are days when it feels like every ounce of energy I have is directed towards making sure my son is okay. And I wouldn't change being his mother for anything, but it doesn't mean I'm not struggling too.
Research into autistic burnout describes the impact of prolonged stress, masking, unmet support needs and the exhaustion that can follow. It makes me wonder how many women have been labelled difficult, emotional, overly sensitive or incapable of coping when what they've actually been experiencing is the cumulative impact of trying to meet expectations they were never adequately supported to manage.
In Australia, the ABS reported that 43.8% of primary carers had a disability themselves in 2022. That's nearly half. Yet how often do we really think about the needs of the person providing the care? How often do we assume that because somebody has always managed, they'll continue to manage? And how often do we mistake someone's ability to function for evidence that they don't need support?
The grief of finally knowing
Nobody really prepares you for the grief that can accompany a late autism diagnosis. The sadness of realising that the little girl who always felt different wasn't imagining it. That the young woman who wanted to escape her life wasn't necessarily rejecting where she came from. Perhaps she was simply searching for somewhere she could be herself. That the adult who worked so hard to build a successful career was also working incredibly hard to meet social expectations that didn't always come naturally. What is probably the saddest part was the inability to love someone and be with that person forever. The pain of rejection and the fear of that itself scared me enough to never get too close to men.
I don't regret my life. I loved my years in London, I'm proud of my career, and becoming Joshua's mother has been the most profound and meaningful experience of my life. But I do grieve for the version of myself who didn't understand why certain things were so hard. And perhaps even more than that, I grieve the lack of understanding that can come after you finally find those answers.
Because when somebody says, “But you weren't like this before,” what I sometimes hear is, “I preferred the version of you who was better at hiding it.” I know that's not necessarily what people mean, but it's how those words can feel. This is also feels as though your life long meaning, who you are and how you have evolved is totally dismissed.
I don't need everyone to understand autism. I don't expect people who haven't lived it to fully comprehend what it means to spend decades masking. But I do need people to recognise that a diagnosis doesn't suddenly change who you are. It gives you an explanation for who you've always been, and sometimes that explanation allows you to stop pretending that everything is fine.
Maybe I was always like this
I've spent 47 years trying to make sense of why I experience the world differently. For much of that time, I thought it was my upbringing, my personality, my circumstances or simply something I needed to work harder at. Now I know there was another explanation, and while that knowledge has brought sadness, it has also brought something I never expected: a sense of acceptance.
I'm no longer trying to work out why I'm different. I'm trying to understand how to live comfortably with those differences, without feeling that I need to apologise for them. And I'm learning that I can be a capable, independent, successful woman and still have a disability. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
Most importantly, I'm learning that the needs of the person caring for a child with a disability matter too. Perhaps I wouldn't have reached this point without Joshua. Perhaps I would have continued masking, continued questioning myself and continued believing that being different was simply something I needed to overcome.
Instead, I have a little boy who has taught me more about myself than I ever imagined possible. And for that, I will always be grateful.
So when someone tells me, “But you weren't like this before,” I wish they would consider something.
Maybe I was always like this. Maybe I was just better at hiding it. And maybe the greatest change isn't that I've become someone different, but that, for the first time in 47 years, I'm finally beginning to understand who I've always been.
Research referenced: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Autism in Australia (2022); Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia (2022); research published in Autism Research on camouflaging and delayed diagnosis; Raymaker et al. (2020), Defining Autistic Burnout.
