#1 Growing Up Different:

My Early Journey

I am now 51, but my journey began long before I understood what words like ADHD, PTSD, or Autism meant. At the age of 5, I was diagnosed with hearing loss. In kindergarten, teachers described me as shy, quiet, and withdrawn — probably because I couldn’t hear what was being said. I was held back that year, and by grade three, after a false diagnosis of mild learning challenges instead of ADHD, I was placed into a Special Education class with children who had diverse needs: autism, Down syndrome, and behavioral challenges. That was where my young journey began — verbal bullying, exclusion at school and sometimes home, and never fitting into whatever crowd was “in” that week. I was a petite girl with hazel-green eyes, not outgoing, but feisty when pushed. My smile was meek, and as I grew older, I was shamed into believing my body was never good enough. I felt like no matter what I did, I was always wrong. Counseling from time to time in my teens was really not effective until years later, after my divorce, when I finally received the diagnoses I had carried all along: PTSD, ADHD, and possibly Asperger’s — what today is recognized as high-functioning Autism.

Home was not without comfort — meals, a roof, vacations, extracurriculars — but safety and love felt broken. Communication with my parents was limited, and even now it feels like we put on fake smiles and walk on eggshells. My sister, eight years younger, has done well for herself. I am proud of her, though it took me years to let go of the jealousy I felt over her closer relationship with our parents. Today, we are in a better place, though not without our own messy baggage. My mother was complicated. She screamed at me, called me a liar, and often withdrew into soap operas or books instead of engaging with us. My father escaped into marathon running, refereeing, overtime shifts, and volunteer police work. They did their best in a generation where ADHD and Autism were barely understood, but the emotional safety I needed was missing. I grew up depressed, guarded, and longing for connection.

Looking back, I see my parents as wounded souls who carried their own traumas. My father grew up poor in a family of 12 children; my mother in a home with alcoholism and abuse. They married young, lost a baby to crib death, who had been born with Down syndrome — traumas they never spoke of. I believe my mom carried PTSD from her own childhood, and has an undiagnosed case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and I believe my dad has ADHD himself. At their ages now, change is unlikely, and I am learning to forgive them not for failing me, but for never dealing with their own pain.

Despite all of this, I am proud of the woman I have become. My world is messy, almost stormy, just like the recent song I wrote called “The Storm Within.” Still, I continue to grow and learn while parenting with my beloved Colin by my side, a 12-year-old girl with Autism and a 14 year old boy with ADHD — with four biological children aged 12, 14, 27, and 29, and two stepchildren aged 30 and 27 — I try to do this all with compassion shaped by my lived experience. My story is not about perfection. It is about resilience, survival, and the ongoing work of healing in real time.