For 47 Years, I Thought I Was Just Failing at “Normal”

For most of my life, I thought I was just doing whatever it took to be normal. I didn’t have a word for what I was doing—constantly scanning the room, mimicking what others did, putting on my best “socially acceptable” face even when my insides felt like a windstorm. I now know there was a word for it: masking. 

But for over 40 years, I had no idea that was what I’d been doing. I just thought I was bad at life. When I finally got diagnosed as neurodivergent, it was like someone slid a key into a lock I hadn’t realized existed. Suddenly, the parts of me I’d buried in shame—the quirks I thought were flaws, the struggles I assumed were laziness or incompetence—had context. They weren’t failures. They were traits. Real, explainable, understandable parts of a neurodivergent brain. 

 And as I started unpacking them, so much began to make sense. Like how something as simple as “doing the laundry” never felt simple to me. It didn’t register as one task. It was multiple stacked together: sorting, carrying, loading, remembering, switching, folding, putting away. If I dared to do something else mid-process—like, say, make lunch or return a call—I’d panic, convinced I’d forget where I left off. 

Everyone else seemed to juggle just fine. I assumed I was just bad at being an adult. Or how, whenever someone asked me a question or gave me a task, it felt like my mind had to shuffle through a deck of mental index cards before I could even begin to respond. That pause, that delay? I used to beat myself up for it. “Why am I so slow?” 

I thought I had poor self-control because when I loved something—a hobby, a creative project—I’d fall into a time vortex. Suddenly, it was 5 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten, hadn’t showered, hadn’t moved. I thought I was irresponsible, not passionate. 

There were moments where excitement bubbled over, and I’d burst into dance or act out stories mid-conversation—only to find myself completely drained afterward, needing to retreat and recharge in private. That pattern made no sense to me. I felt dramatic and ridiculous. 

A single comment—one small critique—could send me into a spiral of imaginary arguments and internal explosions. I didn’t know that was part of emotional dysregulation. I just thought I was too sensitive. 

Social interactions? They were survival exercises. I studied people obsessively to figure out how to fit in. I kept a mental loop running: “Make eye contact. Sit still. Look interested. Eye contact. Still. Interested…” But while I ran that loop, I wasn’t listening. I missed entire conversations because I was so desperate to look normal. And if I tried too hard not to interrupt, I’d forget my thought altogether. 

Then I’d spend the rest of the night replaying the interaction, wondering if I’d been too much, or not enough, or accidentally offensive. 

I hated how “immature” I felt—jumping around the house when I was overstimulated, acting out scenes from stories in my head. It soothed me. But I believed it made me weird, childish, broken. 

 And when I had a big, imaginative idea—something that lit me up—I’d get stuck. I’d try to do it “the right way,” the normal way, and I’d end up bored or blocked. It was like two parts of me were constantly at war: one creative and alive, the other trying desperately to be respectable and rule-abiding. 

There are a hundred more examples. A thousand. This has been my life. And for so long, I thought I was just failing. That I wasn’t trying hard enough. That I was too emotional. Too messy. Too much. But my diagnosis didn’t just give me an explanation. It gave me permission. Permission to stop fighting my brain and start understanding it. Permission to find tools that actually work for me. Permission to stop being ashamed. 

No, I can’t undo 47 years of feeling like I didn’t belong. But I can start telling the truth. I can be open. I can be vulnerable. And maybe—just maybe—I can help someone else realize they’re not broken either. Because neurodivergence is real. It matters. 

And talking about it isn’t just about raising awareness. It’s about changing the world—so people like me don’t have to spend half their lives believing they’re failures… just for being different.