Healing and Growing
A Safe and Supportive Community Welcoming all who Believe in Kindness
It took time and much deliberation to decide on a central theme for this publication. Ideally, I want to be a light in the darkness that we're all currently facing. I've felt this calling more strongly since the election. Though politics are often on my mind, I don’t want this space to feel like just another political platform.
My goal is for Healing and Growing to be a safe and supportive community for marginalized individuals, highly sensitive people, free thinkers, creatives, neurodivergents, victims of abuse, survivors of hate and trauma, and anyone who believes in lifting one another up. In other words, I warmly welcome all who are pro-kindness.
Our differences should never make us feel shame. They are something to celebrate.
I love my country and all of its rich diversity, but right now, it’s breaking my heart; more specifically, the powers that be and those who blindly follow. As a highly sensitive person, I feel this deeply. Everywhere I turn, I'm hyper-aware of the brokenness surrounding me.
The day after the election, I broke down in tears multiple times. There are still days I cry under the weight of it all. I think about children being torn from their mothers who only wanted to give them a better life. These families don’t even remotely fit the profile of drug smugglers or traffickers, yet they are treated as criminals. I cry when I read about those who don’t fit MAGA’s rigid definition of gender norms being put in situations that are unsafe or dehumanizing. This administration is stripping away their rights.
I cried watching a local news segment where a woman spoke about how hard she had worked for a promotion, only to now live in fear for her children’s future as the government fights to eliminate EIT. I worry about my cousin’s biracial children, especially her son. As a male, he is more likely to be racially profiled than his sister. On top of that, he has behavioral traits related to autism, but the “good ol’ boys” in Florida, where they live, won’t see that. They won’t see a neurodivergent child they’ll see something else, something dangerous. My cousin worried about this when her kids were little, but now, with the way things are, that fear has only grown.
I keep thinking about how we are supposed to be the most powerful nation in the world, so why can’t we stop this big orange train? My husband tries to lift my spirits by telling me we're not likely to be affected by any proposed changes. I’m not convinced that's the case, but if it is, my heart still breaks for people who do have reason to worry. I’ve at least reached a point where I’m not crying about it every day, but even on my good days, I feel so weighed down by it all.
I always knew I was sensitive, but for years, I saw it as a weakness. Growing up, I heard it constantly: Toughen up. Grow a thicker skin. Don’t be so sensitive. I heard it from teachers, coaches, friends, even my own mother. I believed something was inherently wrong with me.
As I got older, I learned to control my emotions, at least in public. I studied my peers, mimicking their behaviors and attitudes to blend in. This survival strategy, which I later learned is called masking, helped me navigate adolescence and early adulthood. But eventually, the emotional dam would burst.
Because of misinformation and lack of awareness, I didn’t realize I was on the autism spectrum until my mid-thirties. Like many, I assumed autism meant being antisocial, less verbal, emotionally distant, or a math and computer genius. None of that fit me. I have plenty of friends and enjoy socializing, but it drains me. I need space, quiet, and time to recover. I was highly verbal from a young age— family members loved telling stories about how I spoke in full sentences and asked endless questions by the time I was one. And math? I struggled in every math class I ever took. I’m also technologically impaired.
I later learned that many autistic women, especially those in the ASD Level 1 category (formerly Asperger’s), go undiagnosed because they are better at masking their traits. Still, people notice that something about us feels off, even if they can't pinpoint why. I was always acutely self-aware, constantly aware that I thought, felt, and reacted differently than everyone else.
It wasn't until I had my youngest daughter that I began seriously researching ASD.
When my daughter was born, I was over the moon that I could stay home with her. I had wanted to do the same with my older children, but we hadn't t been able to afford it.
From the start, though, I knew something was different. Unlike my first three, she barely slept and cried almost nonstop. Even those first precious months were filled with exhaustion and fear. Something was amiss. We took her to doctors, who ran tests, drew blood, checked everything. Nothing was wrong. That was a relief, but it didn’t explain why our baby screamed endlessly.
Our parents tried watching the kids for a night to give us a break, but every time, they’d call us in a panic, begging us to come home because they couldn’t calm her.
When she started talking, I began to suspect anxiety. We took her to Shriners Hospital, and therapists came to our home. By the time she was two or three, they explained that she had heightened sensitivity, sensory processing disorder and likely mild autism.
Her responses to stimuli were far more intense than those of a typical child. Sometimes, she could be redirected. Other times, irritability would spiral into full-blown meltdowns — screaming, hurting herself, hurting others — lasting an hour or more until she finally exhausted herself.
I threw myself into research. I watched videos of autistic adults describing their experiences. Their details varied, but many themes repeated: heightened anxiety, hyperfixation, taking things literally, struggling with time management, zoning out, becoming overwhelmed, stimming, burnout.
One of the traits that resonated most was hyperfixation; becoming singularly focused on an activity or topic, struggling to transition to something else. Burnout was another. I frequently missed school, work, or social events simply because I couldn’t handle the emotional drain of constant interactions.
Another lesser-discussed struggle hit home for me: preferring texting over talking because speaking aloud to certain people triggers my anxiety, making my mind go blank. Even on subjects I know well, anxiety wipes my thoughts clean.
The more I learned, the clearer it became: I was on the spectrum. Online tests confirmed what I already knew.
Oddly, this realization wasn’t upsetting, it was liberating. My whole life, I felt like something was wrong with me. But being autistic didn’t mean I was broken. It simply meant my brain was wired differently.
I am learning to work with, not against myself. My anxieties are signals to listen to my body. My sensitivity helps me understand people more deeply. Socializing is still exhausting, but I’ve learned that I fare far better in one-on-one interactions or small, quiet groups.
I still struggle with time management, hyperfixation, and zoning out. I still get overwhelmed. But I now understand my limits and no longer force myself to push past them.
For now, I make a living through physical labor, working 40-60 hours a week cleaning properties. It’s exhausting, but it causes me less stress than 20-30 hours at a bank, where I’d have to navigate endless social interactions, different personalities, and the constant need to be “on”.
But I hold onto hope. Hope that one day, I can work from home, writing articles, stories— maybe even a bestselling novel. Hope that I can use my gifts and my neurodiversity to create something meaningful.
And most importantly, hope that we can build a world where listening leads to understanding, and understanding leads to acceptance.
Because at the end of the day, we all need the same things: love, kindness, support, and compassion. Let’s listen to one another and lift each other up.
What are some ways you need support?
What ideas do you have that can help provide support to others?
Leave a comment with your answer or send a message to join the conversation.