Neurodivergence is the water that I swim in.

As a child, I knew from a very early age that I was “different.” Different from my family, teachers, and classmates, and as I got older, different from my coworkers, neighbors, and extended family. I knew this in my heart, and I also knew it because people told me—and, especially in childhood, usually not in positive ways.

Now, “neurodiversity” wasn’t a term for most of my life, and I had to somehow define or name this thing about me, so I thought of myself as a “black sheep.” I had no other word for my differences, those things about me that I had been told to keep hidden, so that I would fit in with others, have friends, and not be so weird.

In God’s good plan, I married a man who was also “different.” Not in all the same ways that I was different, but still. He was clearly swimming in neurodivergent waters, and we had an immediate “You, too!?” connection. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that we, being two “black sheep” kinds of people, would produce children who (mostly) did not fit into the typical mold. And yet, for whatever reason, I was completely surprised and unprepared when I gave birth to a not-neurotypical child.