01 • Growing UpDifferences in communication
Growing up, I got bullied in school a lot. People would say I either talked too much or did not talk enough, but there was a reason for that. Autism is a communication difference, and one of the hardest parts for me has always been figuring out what information another person actually needs from me in a conversation.
My mind holds a lot of details at once. It is like my brain is constantly canvassing everything — connections, context, possibilities, little pieces of information — and sometimes it is genuinely hard for me to sort through all of it and decide which details need to come out of my mouth.
When I talked a lot, I was not saying random or unnecessary things. I was usually giving all of the information I had about something because, in my mind, every piece felt connected and relevant. The hard part was that I did not always know when someone had enough information or when they were tired of hearing me explain.
Other times, I would do the complete opposite and leave details out because they felt so obvious in my own mind that I did not realize the other person needed me to say them out loud.
There was even a point in school when I was threatened with being held back a grade because I would not talk. I remember feeling so frustrated because I knew I had a voice, but it did not feel effective. I had so much happening in my mind, and I did not always know how to get it from my head into a conversation in a way other people understood.
Looking back now, all of those struggles are part of what made me the communicator I am today. I have had to put significantly more work into speaking, understanding communication, and learning how to make my voice land. In a funny way, I had to work at mastering the gift of gab that God gave me. Haha.
What once made me feel like my voice was ineffective eventually became one of the things I worked hardest to strengthen.
I would also get frustrated often because my mind goes on 10 — it feels like it never stops. Other kids noticed that. They knew I could be impulsive, and sometimes they would intentionally do things to get me into trouble.
They called me a “fat ugly gorilla.” They started saying I was a disease. They would touch me, run away, and say I had “the Gabby touch.”
Some kids would even tell me that I should take my own life because they did not like me. They would make assumptions about who I was, what I meant, or why I acted a certain way without ever taking the time to actually understand me. I was a kid, and hearing people decide who I was before they even knew my heart stayed with me for a long time.
There was a point when I was fundraising and knocked on a girl's door. She looked at me and said, “Aren't you the girl who gets bullied a lot?” That really hurt.
02 • Being Singled OutThe “Dog House.”
My school had something called “the dog house.” Basically, it was a group for kids who were considered “bad” or “not good.” I was put in it, and that was incredibly damaging for me because it reinforced the idea that something was wrong with who I was instead of asking what might have been happening underneath my behavior.
I did get in trouble. I am not pretending I never did anything wrong. But when I look back at some of those moments now, I can see how much was going on underneath them that nobody really stopped to understand.
One time, I got suspended after making a serious statement during an overwhelming moment. I was extremely angry, but not because I had “anger issues.” I was angry because I felt like nobody understood me. Kids would pick on me, laugh at me, push my buttons, and then people would mostly see my reaction instead of everything that had happened before it.
Because I could speak, it often felt like people put me in this box where they assumed I should be able to communicate, process, and respond exactly like everyone else. But being verbal did not mean communication was easy for me. I was frustrated so much of the time because I had a lot going on inside of me and did not always know how to make other people understand what I was experiencing.
In that moment, something nearby influenced the words that came out of my mouth. I would not hurt a soul, but my brain can be very literal, and when I became overwhelmed, I sometimes expressed myself impulsively without fully understanding how my words might be received.
Years later, when we were in high school, she brought the incident up again and people laughed at me over it. Kids continued making jokes about it for a long time. What I had said was not okay, but there was a difference between speaking impulsively while overwhelmed and genuinely wanting to hurt someone.
A lot of people saw the frustration, but they did not see what happened after I went home. There were times I would hide and cry myself to sleep because I felt so misunderstood and did not know how to make any of it stop.
I also remember another time when my teacher had pretzel sticks. Some kids encouraged me to put one to my mouth and pretend I was smoking it. I wanted so badly to fit in that I went along with it. The adults around me saw the behavior and responded to it, but at the time the deeper reason I had gone along with it was not something I knew how to explain.
In both situations, the behavior was what everybody saw. Almost nobody seemed to stop and ask, “Why is she behaving this way?”
Maybe I was not a bad kid. Maybe there was a struggle underneath the behavior that needed to be understood.
ADHD has affected my impulse control, and growing up I was also trying very hard to be accepted by other kids. Sometimes that combination meant I reacted before I had time to think something through, or I went along with things because I desperately wanted people to like me.
Accountability still matters. But accountability and understanding can exist at the same time. A child can need correction while also needing an adult to become curious about what is driving the behavior instead of deciding that the child themselves is simply “bad.”
03 • The Support Gap“Nothing is wrong with my kid.”
Teachers sometimes noticed that I was struggling in ways that were not always obvious from my grades. I was getting by in school, and because I could do well in many areas, it was easy for the challenges underneath to be missed. I was not unintelligent — nobody with autism or ADHD should be reduced to assumptions about intelligence.
At the time, the people around me did not always have the language, information, or understanding to recognize autism, ADHD, or the kinds of support that might have helped me. Like many families and communities, there were also beliefs about disability and diagnosis that could make those conversations feel frightening or negative.
Looking back, I do not tell this part of my story to blame anyone. I think it shows how powerful stigma and limited awareness can be, even when people care about you. The result was simply that some of the support I needed was not identified as early as it could have been.
Even after I was later diagnosed with autism, there were different reactions and different levels of understanding around what that diagnosis meant. For me, that became another reminder that a diagnosis can carry stigma long before people understand what it actually says about a person.
Autism is not something that makes a person less worthy, less intelligent, or less capable. For me, having the diagnosis finally gave language to things I had struggled with for years and helped me understand what kinds of support actually worked for me.
I have also been in churches where people literally rebuked autism because they thought it was something demonic or something that needed to be cast out. That was deeply confusing to me.
Just because you do not understand something, or because it seems negative to you, does not mean it is evil. I come from a Christian household, and I love God. My faith is a huge part of who I am.
I do not believe the Lord makes mistakes.
I believe people deserve support, compassion, understanding, and prayer without being made to feel like the way their brain works is something shameful or spiritually wrong.
Autism and ADHD are not something we need to look at through a negative mindset. A diagnosis is not about saying something is “wrong.” It is about understanding what support a person may need.
04 • The Right Support Changed EverythingI did not suddenly become smarter. I finally had an environment that worked better for my brain.
In high school, I had a teacher who let me take my tests in a separate room with students who received special education support. My grades shot up — like, so much.
I was still the same person. I had the same brain and the same ability. The difference was that I was being given an environment where I could focus, process what was in front of me, and actually show what I knew.
Eventually, I learned how to navigate a lot of things on my own. I learned how to compensate, how to push through, and how to figure out what worked for me. But looking back, some of it was unnecessarily more difficult than it needed to be.
If I had gotten the right support earlier, I probably would not have had to struggle so hard just to show what I was already capable of.
That is one of the reasons I care so much about accommodations and support. They are not about giving someone an unfair advantage. Sometimes they simply remove a barrier so a person can demonstrate the ability that was already there.
05 • A Different Kind of MindStrength in one area does not erase struggle in another.
In school, I could do really, really well in certain things. Matter of fact, I scored in the top 1% globally on the WAIS for spatial reasoning. But in autism, it is possible for someone to score extremely high in one area while still needing support in other areas.
I am very verbal. Some autistic people are not. When I was diagnosed, the clinician told me that my presentation previously would have been called Asperger's.
Because people carry one stereotype of autism in their minds, I get pushback a lot. I also had a really hard time making friends and building community because people would misread my behavior and judge me for it.
06 • How Autism Shows Up for MeAutism is a communication difference.
For me, that difference often shows up in knowing what is necessary from me in a conversation. I have so many details in my mind all the time that it can be hard to canvas everything, organize it, and know what another person actually needs me to explain.
Sometimes I give every detail because I am trying to make sure the other person has the full picture. Other times I do not give enough because something feels obvious to me and I do not realize it is missing for them. Neither one is me being careless or choosing when to communicate well.
I never talked just to say unnecessary things. I gave all the information because all of it felt relevant to me — and I did not always know when someone had enough.
I have also struggled with understanding other people's moods and what they are really feeling when they do not say it directly. That does not mean I do not understand emotion. I am a very emotionally connected person, and I care deeply about people.
I am also a psychometrist trained to administer the ADOS, an assessment commonly used as part of autism evaluations. So yes — there are areas involving people, behavior, emotion, and autism that I understand very well.
Being strong in one area does not mean I cannot struggle in another.
Sometimes people may look at me and think, “Well, she understands this, so why does she not understand that?” Or they may think I am picking and choosing when I communicate well. I am not.
The truth is that I struggle in some places and I do not struggle in others. Sometimes I need more context. Sometimes I need someone to be direct with me. Sometimes I need you to simply tell me what you mean instead of expecting me to automatically pick it up.
That has affected friendships too. I would make friends, but sometimes people would not take the time to understand how I communicate. A misunderstanding would happen, they would assume what I meant, and then they would leave instead of asking me. That was painful because a lot of the time I genuinely did not know that I had missed something.
One example makes me laugh a little now. A friend once told me how much she loved her bedsheets. She was actually trying to hint that she was tired and wanted to go to sleep. I did not catch the hint at all — I started talking about my bedsheets.
Later, I realized what she had been trying to tell me. To me, she had brought up bedsheets, so I responded to the subject she gave me. I did not know there was another message underneath it.
I can understand some indirect communication, and I have learned a lot over time, but I still have more difficulty with it than many people do. That is why direct communication means so much to me. If you are tired, tell me you are tired. If you need space, tell me you need space. If something I said bothered you, tell me. I would rather understand you clearly than lose a relationship over something neither of us ever actually said out loud.
If you know my heart, be open to understanding me before assuming the worst. Sometimes all you have to do is ask me.
Ask me what I meant. Ask me why I responded the way I did. Give me the information I might be missing. A communication difference does not mean a lack of care. Sometimes we just need to meet each other halfway.
07 • MaskingI started thinking I was the problem.
I went to the extreme of changing my whole being. I masked so much of who I was that I became a shell of a person.
I would do things and not even know why I was doing them. A lot of the time, I was doing them because I wanted other people to understand me and love me.
And it worked — but I was gone. It was not me. I was following their version of me.
08 • Mental HealthI almost lost myself.
I developed depression and anxiety, and at one point I almost lost my life because I hated who I was as a person.
I have struggled with my weight, even to this day. I have PCOS, and I previously had to do intensive outpatient treatment for an eating issue. I had some very dark moments.
A big part of what made things harder was that so much around me was viewed negatively instead of being addressed head-on with understanding and support. That kind of silence can become dangerous.
09 • Diagnosis & SupportA label does not define me. It can help me access support.
Today, I stand as someone who is neurodivergent. Yes, I have autism. Yes, I have ADHD. But they do not define who I am as a person.
Nobody is a label. Labels can be useful when they help you get the support you need. After I was clinically diagnosed, I was able to receive speech therapy — and yes, speech therapists work with people who are verbal.
My speech therapy included going over images, facial expressions, and nonverbal communication cues. Before that, I could sometimes come across as rude or mean because I would unintentionally ignore boundaries I did not fully understand.
I understood some boundaries, but not very well. Having someone actually teach me those cues helped.
10 • Invisible DisabilityNot every disability is visible.
When I got a disability placard for my car, some people around me got really upset. They said I should save it for people who cannot walk.
But I am deaf in my left ear. If someone walks up behind me, I may not notice them until the last minute, which can put me in dangerous situations.
I am very self-aware, and I process exceptionally quickly, but there can be a huge amount of environmental information coming at me at once. Sometimes it takes me longer to sort through all of those details around me.
11 • Sensory NeedsSometimes the environment is the problem.
Some of my struggles have been sensory. When I was a kid, I remember getting up and shutting the classroom lights off because they were so hard for me to tolerate.
I was expected to sit in that classroom with the lights exactly as they were, even though my nervous system was struggling. Because nobody around me fully understood the sensory piece yet, the behavior was easier to see than the reason behind it.
What looks like “bad behavior” from the outside can sometimes be a person trying to survive an environment that is overwhelming them.
12 • Choosing My Own PathI thought success had one path.
There was also a point in my life when I embarked on the journey of nursing school.
The truth is, I never really wanted to become a nurse.
I was doing it because I had internalized the idea that a stable, respected profession was the safest definition of success. A lot of young people grow up hearing encouragement toward careers like nursing, medicine, law, or other traditional paths because the adults who love them want them to have security and opportunity. In my family and cultural environment, education and building a strong career were taken very seriously.
As a young person who wanted to make the people around me proud, I internalized that message very deeply. I genuinely felt like if I did not become a nurse or follow one of those traditional paths, my life was basically over.
Looking back, that is such a limiting way to think about success. There are so many ways to build a meaningful, successful life.
I went through nursing school trying to make it fit who I was, but underneath all of that, my real passion had always been psychology. I was fascinated by people, behavior, the mind, communication, and understanding why we do the things we do.
Eventually, I had to give myself permission to follow that.
Today, I hold a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and an Associate degree in Behavioral and Social Sciences. I am a trained psychometrist and have worked in behavioral-health spaces.
And my life did not end because I changed direction.
Quite the opposite.
I went on to build businesses, have my work featured in magazines and media, advocate for causes I care deeply about, speak publicly, and create a career that actually reflects who I am.
I am living proof that changing your major, changing your career path, or realizing that a path you once thought you were supposed to follow is not actually your path does not mean you failed.
Sometimes changing direction is exactly how you finally find where you are supposed to go.
And I think young people need to hear that more. Becoming a nurse or doctor is beautiful if that is truly what you want to do. But your worth, intelligence, and potential are not determined by whether you choose one particular profession.
There is more than one way to succeed.
One of the biggest things I have learned through all of this is that you have to learn to work with the mind and not against it. That applies to school, careers, autism, ADHD, mental health, and honestly life in general. When I stopped forcing myself into paths and environments that were constantly fighting against the way my mind naturally works, I finally had more room to grow into who I actually am.
You have to learn to work with the mind — not against it.
13 • What I Want People to UnderstandNot everyone sees the world the way you see it.
As a community, I think it is important for people to truly consider how different our presentations can be. We need to be loving to one another.
This is only a small piece of what I have experienced, but the point of my story is that not everyone sees things the way you see them. If we looked for understanding instead of immediately looking at difference through a negative lens, so much could shift.
It is a blessing to have a diverse range of minds. The world often tries to eliminate difference because, instead of seeking understanding, people seek to correct it. People often listen to respond instead of listening to actually listen.
One time, when I was working as a behavior therapist, I shared that sometimes I would look at my phone while talking to someone because eye contact can be very uncomfortable for me.
To most people, looking at your phone while someone is talking might automatically look rude, dismissive, or like you are not paying attention. But for me, that was not what was happening at all.
I had learned to look at my phone sometimes because it helped me avoid the sensory discomfort that came with making eye contact. I could still hear the person. I could still care about what they were saying. I could still be fully engaged in the conversation.
I just was not looking directly into their eyes.
Over time, I have learned how to make eye contact when I need to, but I still naturally prefer to gaze away. I genuinely do not enjoy prolonged eye contact.
And that is exactly why I think we have to be careful about automatically assigning meaning to someone else's behavior. Our society often teaches us that looking away is rude, looking at your phone is rude, or not making eye contact means someone is not listening.
Sometimes it can actually mean: “I am listening to you better because I am not forcing my nervous system to do something that is uncomfortable for me.”
The behavior may look the same from the outside, but the reason behind it can be completely different. That is why understanding matters so much.
If we work with our minds and not against them, our world can change. We can embrace the beauty in the way different people experience life — and we could see fewer meltdowns, fewer people struggling in silence, less preventable mental-health suffering, fewer suicides, and more people feeling understood before they ever reach a breaking point.
