"Why has being neurodiverse taken over your whole personality?"

It's annoying, I get it.

It's a sentence I'm sure a lot of late-diagnosed neurodiverse adults have heard before.

Imagine spending your whole life feeling like you're the problem. Things that seem to come so easily to other people feel impossible to you. You're exhausted from giving it your all, but it's still never good enough.

Imagine spending your whole life being told you're too much, whilst simultaneously being not enough. You're lazy, you're annoying, you're too sensitive. You have so much potential, if only you applied yourself.

Imagine your relationships and friendships all following the same pattern. People either instantly dislike you (and you never know why!), or the relationship is insanely intense until it dwindle's out when the other person realises you're too much for them. For every new person you meet, you take a part of yourself and swap it for a part of them. You don't understand people, and you don't know who they want you to be, but you crave connection.

Imagine fleeting through multiple jobs, possibly in multiple totally-unrelated fields, never being able to stick somewhere for too long. You either crave more stimulation, or you feel pushed out for being too different.

Imagine receiving the same feedback every year since you were young. You talk too much. You don't seem to understand how to appropriately engage with other people. You're academically gifted, but lack any common sense. You need to control your face better. You say inappropriate things too much. You're too negative. You're rude and dismissive. You're disorganised. You're too intense. YOU are the problem, you're just not trying hard enough to do better.

Now imagine that one day you come across something. It may be a video, a podcast, an article, a conversation - whatever - but, it resonates deep in your soul. It sparks something within you. You explore, you learn, and you have a revelation.

You realise that you're not alone. You realise that you're trying to navigate a world that wasn't made for people like you. Importantly, you realise that there are other people like you! You realise that you were never the problem, you just have a different brain that views the world around you differently.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. The lack of social awareness, the communication struggles, the organisation issues, the executive dysfunction, the over-sensitivity, the struggling to form and keep friendships - all of it now makes sense!

Now, back to the question.

I really struggle with my sense of self. As a result, I have significant issues with my self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence.

I know my core values; I have goals and dreams; I know my strengths. I just don't really know who I am.

Being a late-diagnosed woman, the validation that comes with a diagnosis is immense. It's as though, for the first time in my life, I can now start to understand who I am. I can use this knew knowledge to finally try to understand myself and piece together some semblance of a sense of self.

For anyone who has known me for more than a few years, you'll know there's been many Claudia's.

We had the horse personality.

We had the performing arts personality.

We had the med school personality.

We had the rape personality.

We had the travelling personality.

We had the Paige personality.

We had the young love/ engaged/ marriage personality.

We had the charity personality.

We had the corporate personality.

We had the dog personality.

We had the crafty personality.

We had the walking stick personality.

We had the psychology personality.

We had the 'big dreams' personality.

We had the weightloss personality.

We had the divorced personality.

I get all-consumed by life, and tend to hyperfixate on things. I don't deal well with too much stress, but I need constant stimulation. I have a very powerful, albeit overly-sensitive, mind. I want to understand the ins and outs of, well, everything. This tends to mean that I get overly passionate about whatever it is I'm currently experiencing.

I'm just a girl trying to find connection with other people, whilst I figure out who the fuck I am and how I fit in to the world around me.

So, now it's the turn of the neurodiverse personality. Sorry.