In this personal essay, Sarah Jane Cody writes about the challenges in her life before being diagnosed as autistic in her early 30s. Identifying as part of “the lost generation” within the autism community, Cody recounts an adolescence and adulthood defined by masking, chronic illness, and misunderstanding. “Because we were missed—some as kids and others for their entire lives,” writes Cody. “We lacked potentially life-saving knowledge about ourselves.” She reflects on writing as a lifeline, and on finding in her partner Noel someone willing to cross the distance to meet her.
Looking back, adults in particular have a terrible habit of labeling as “good” what is merely convenient for them, of painting as “good” what is really just their standard for normal. The rules dictated that I hide. Not just my sensitivity, but my essential being in the world, the strangeness of my mind and social bearing, how my body wanted to move in space, the songs ever brimming in my throat. I hide so automatically that even now it pains me to write these words. My first clear memory is of hiding.
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“Empathetic, climate-conscious, vintage-loving: Bella Ramsey has plenty in common with other 21-year-olds… aside from being the star of one of the biggest TV phenomenons of all time.”
What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained
“I’d long suspected something was ‘off.’ Then, at 43, an unexpected answer arrived.”
Yellow Band
A diagnosis alters a writer’s relationship to his work.
