My unmasking journey so far as an AuDHD late identified person (with dx)

TRIGGER WARNING: Bullying and unaliving thoughts

I used to spend school days often with my head down and only coming out of my shell around some people outside of school premises when I was a kid. People used to think I was shy.

In high school I tried extra hard to fit in and mimic social rules from tv shows/interactions etc but didn't realise how much was just another lesser-known form of echolalia in addition to my struggles maintaining said friendships because I floated so much between all the groups and never really ever had a place I felt I "belonged. "

In 8th grade after a terrible first year of high school I tried to get in with the popular crowd only to learn the hard way how terrible those people were and how they would backstab one another frequently and just gossip. I hate gossiping. We all fall into it occasionally, it's human nature at times, but I mean specifically how some people would only ever talk badly of people when they weren't in the room and expose how pretentious they truly were.

That's the kind I couldn't stand to be around. I regretted leaving behind older friends to try my chance at fitting in. Was the dumbest thing I've ever done and there's a few stories there I can share about bad decisions and hard learned life lessons in the concept chasing of "love" and not really understanding a thing about what honest, respectful and safe connection was meant to be like, but I will get to those experiences at some point here because there is a lot and a lot of that lack of being able to recognise certain things or read the room etc all comes back to this part of me and the reflections and hindsight, and understanding and forgiveness journey I had to go on for myself are huge. I now have to reflect with kindness and compassion for what I did not yet know, although I simultaneously felt I didn't fit " the box" deep in my core, and most likely without knowing why they disliked me or thought i was odd/different etc they knew it too. Anyway point being ....

Sharing updates about how a mutual person you care about is one thing, and putting others down and mocking them etc is where I draw the line.

There's a wonderful quote I love about something along the lines of "small/closed minds discuss people, and big minds/ open minds discuss ideas. "

But yeah.... lol back to this long complex story but in short : by the time I was in year 9 I confronted someone about it, then they all turned against me. I was bullied quite heavily at that point and people loved to push me hoping I would snap. I'm grateful every day I didn't have videos of the uncomfortable and horrible bully interactions plastered all over the internet like kids today do. It was all he said she said , hand written notes passed around, and the occasional passive aggressive myspace status/msn messenger display note status, a myspace bulletin I didn't have to see as we weren't each other's friend online anymore and it was private in their circle /clique and at school and prank calls mostly which made my parents change our landline number to a private one.

I dropped out of school in year 10 due to it all. I completed studies from home for that year then went into a local tertiary college (TAFE) to do my VCAL. Unfortunately, one of those girls kissed my ass to befriend me there only to do the same psychotic level backstabbing shit again and reveal I was wrong to give another chance only too feel used and abandoned and leave her place one night walking home after a supposed girls night sleepover only for her to invite some older guy over that smoked and had alcohol to have sex with her while her sister and mum were away. I was not prepared to hear them doing the deed and walked out with all my things and walked myself back to my parents dangerously and stupidly with a dead Nokia 3315 brick, freezing my butt off in a double layered supre slogan cami/tank combo and blinged flare jeans with a juicy duffle bag and my uggs that got muddy from said walk and proud of myself for leaving her a note on her parents kitchen bench that said i can't do this, I'm not here to be someone's alibi. girl bye (well not as smoothly and to the point but along those lines of expressing how fed up I was and disappointed).

I managed to get home in one piece despite creepy truck drivers slowing down to talk to me. I kept moving and made sure I was acting like I was on the phone to my parents (always pretend it's your dad on the phone because it's more intimidating to potential abductors ) ... then yeah I went to bed and just became a hermit for some time. Other things went down following on from that a few years later ... Girls linked to that same group moved back to town and tried to be in my life again so desperate for friends at the time I allowed it. But it was messy, and they always wanted to smoke and drink and would lure me to parties and unsafe situations.

Then one day I liked a boy that one of them had previously liked but not dated. Me being the at face value no bs person I am cut to the chase and asked her directly if she was over him or not and if she would be ok with if he and I were ever a thing and she said she didn't care at that time... However, that was a lie to my face, and I will never understand that part of girl code where someone says something but doesn't mean it literally and doesn't care to explain that part to you expecting you to know that's what they mean, or clarifying it was sarcastic coded etc. I can't tell what people mean even at best of times and even asked "are you sure?" etc expressing if she wasn't ok with it that I wouldn't even dare go there. So there I was , young drunk , vulnerable, and falling into a trap without knowing it, then everyone (those girls) wanted to kill me because he kissed me at a party. Her joint party with cousin of a guy friend of mine I grew up with. I don't even want to think about how it would have gone down if social media was like it is now. It was such a traumatizing experience to have to get into someone's car and be snuck out before i was physically harmed and dropped home to safety. I had to block everyone online, block phone numbers, and once again became a hermit unsure how to trust any people in real life. I never believe people when they tell me I'm their friend still to this day it's been something I've only just made progress within the last year as I'm so used to terrible people and confusing gaslighting mind games I kind of keep to myself mostly as self defence/ preservation so I don't become self-destructive or physically a risk to myself. It took multiple events like these with this group and casual stabs and backhanded remarks that for years went over my head until it sunk in and reality hit me to realise these were my first abusers.

I should have seen the patterns. I should have trusted the uncertainty in my gut and gone with it, but I left myself open to it because I so badly wanted to be wrong about them and see the good. I didn't want to come to terms with it and let my strict parents have the satisfaction of knowing their instincts about that group were right either. I remember they had set up a fake peer mediation texting me off an unknown number claiming it to be a trusted male friend of mine and that he would be there and asking me to come to the park right near the house my parents still live in in a floodway/park area to come hang and that they were sorry for acting immature and wanted to talk it out for real and were done with the calls, egging the house etc as I had gone to police to file a report about the harassment and was refusing to go back to my work or my classes until I felt safe to be on busses etc.

You know what they did? They had lied. It was another trap. All they had to do was tell a lie to a super unhinged bully from my primary school that I called her something I never said while possibly under influence of gosh knows what at that time, and I went without my dog, in impractical clothes (literally a dress and heels as I was making something for my old now completely erased YouTube and taking myspace pics).

I had no person with me for safety and walked right into a trap (in the dark), at 8pm or so at night.

I walked out and as soon as I saw that person they said would be there was not there and my childhood nemesis come out from behind bushes and 5 other people- fear just took over my whole body, and I immediately knew they lied to get me there.

In shock and unable to move.

I froze.

I had a tiny bit of hope that it was truly going to be talking naively and inexperienced with such conflicts, but before I knew it, I was being pushed around and accused of things I never said. I tripped and fell to the ground. She began kicking my ribs while they all laughed and made comments I don't recall as everything went blurry for me mentally at that point. All I remember was being in agony curled up, coughing, crying, confused about the lie, and then they stole my phone and purse. Someone was walking from my house as I hadn't come back or answered my text so they ran off into the road it connected to. I was in bad shape so my parents took me to the police station straight away. I was so broken. I didn't want to go to hospital to get checked over. I wanted to TRIGGER WARNING : unalive at that point, but I didn't. I just listened to my sad song playlists and was convinced Avril Nobody's home was the only song that understood my headspace at that time of my life and no other song existed to me around that.i would sing it through tears every day. ipod in my ears blasting it through headphones.

The next day mum took me to the doctors and turns out they had caused internal bruising on my ribs. I quit my part time job, and I reclused. It wasn't until years later I actually allowed myself to fully process what happened and understand it was a traumatic event and experience and that they were a cruel bunch of toxic people, and not a reflection of who I was at that time at all and more a result of their head games and misleading me then breaking me down patterns they seemed to enjoy a little too much.

A year went by, and I was brave enough to try meeting new people. I made a promise to myself to never get involved with school people ever again, but it was hard as it was a crappy small town. I didn't know many people and meeting completely new people was scary and catfishing risk etc even then.

Eventually I met people at another job. This time a donut shop. I had rekindled with some peers (not those girls) but life was messy, and I didn't always have capacity to hang out. I met someone who was very similar to me and also an oddball but I assumed being opposite gendered that it meant it must be feelings and essentially ruined the friendship , got crazy attached and thought it was true love as it flet like that was my only real friend in the world, but then broken apart by another manipulator who came back in my life years later. This was just the start of more of my coming unravelled once again and being left with no choice but to get back up and try to survive and go on even though my world around me had fallen apart once more. I hurt that boy's feelings.

I was so easily swayed by people. Not that I am any more easy than other teen girls at said time of my life or anything.

I was obsessed with chasing the prospect of "the one" but I was stupid and mislead by people who told me what my heart wanted and were better at decision making than I have ever been, and in my head for whatever reason people assertive in what they wanted always reeled me in. I went on this weird chaotic breakdown where i was almost a serial dater who just always had a boyfriend when what I really needed was to be on my own and work out what I wanted and who I was.I kept slapping band-aids on wound on top of wound thinking it was going to be ok when it wasn't ever truly going to heal if I kept doing things the same.

I was easy in the sense that I was an accessible target for abusers- even the covert narc kinds.

I wonder how many other late dx or identified people were obsessed with uncovering what it means to be in love with "the one" and as lovesick and lost as I was?

There's a lot more, but it's honestly triggering to even write it without tears welling up in my eyes so I rather move to the next parts as it's super hard for me to share this stuff, but I need a safe place to do this to best of my ability and here seems like a better option than therapy tbh with cost of living etc. I have wanted to talk about these things on videos but I get camera shy and anxiety about those girls still lives in me that they will want to ruin my life again even though it was years ago now and we are all in our 30s. I just know what they are like and some people are so deeply caught in their ways they never change.

Some people really are that mean though so it's more a precaution to protect myself, and my children too, I guess? I don't know.... but I have worked really hard to still be here, set myself goals again, and still be fighting for myself to recover from all the things.

I went through a really rough 2009-2015. Probably my most mentally unstable period of living, and most unhinged. A lot of it still feels like a blur to me.

2009 I had 2 hard breakups, 2010 lost my best friend to unaliving, then lost a so-called toxic friend because I couldn't be friends with her and the ex of deceased friend because I didn't want to accept their relationship/hooking up. it was all so fresh and I was grieving. I felt is was super disrespectful too. They didn't like that and the girl tried to hurt me by telling me said friend who was only person I felt understood me and valued me as a friend didn't even like me or count me as a friend and something inside me was never the same again after that as I knew it was only said to hurt me but it hurt still hearing it from people I expected better from. I was in another emotionally toxic situationship at that time and for first time living in share house accommodation and paying rent. I had no support so it's no wonder i kept throwing myself heart first all to bare on my sleeve into situations hoping someone would care and like me for me and fix all my pain or at least distract me from how alone in the world and my daily experiences I always felt.

I wanted to feel like I meant something to someone- anyone. I just wanted a place to belong. I never wanted to hurt anyone in that process. I was just looking for answers in all the wrong types of spaces and settings and it took me so long to learn why I felt so out of place and alone.

After a year I finally started to find myself a little. I met someone really lovely- online and on a dating site. I encouraged her to leave a bad situation. That friendship I have with my friend Lauren is now one of my closest friends. She had been through similar in her life. I am grateful every day that I finally could just exist again and be goofy with someone I could just be me around. I then came out to her about being bi. she is first friend I ever told. We hung occasionally but mostly phone calls and online due to living an hour or so apart. I had a few girlfriends but disapproval from my strict family meant dating them in secret and when I came out I will never forget my mother telling 16 year old me there was something wrong with me and that I was "sick in the head". I broke a girl's heart I really liked a lot. Her name was Jasmine/Jazo for short. We met through a friend I made during year 11 VCAL. So much honestly happened during that time period so please forgive me that all my dates are muddled up. There's a lot of traumas there. Also, I'm not great at story telling so expect it to jump around true AuDHD style when I open up like this.

I often wonder what life would have been like if I had a more supportive and accepting upbringing, so one of the biggest things for me as a mum is making sure my kids feel free to express themselves and be who they are, and I do not force my values and such onto them and want them to be their own person and will always encourage them to never shrink themselves for others so my healing is super important and a huge part of my daily priorities so I can be the parent I wish I had. In some ways I still have to lean on my parents for support but they never let me live it down, and make me occasionally feel bad for asking for help and shut it down which I find confusing and to me isn't what a parent should do, knowing the ways in which I am having a rough time in ways beyond my circle of control that prevent me from access to opportunities etc.

I could never truly stay on task and stick to much for too long. but music I think is not just a passion for me but a special interest I cling to because I feel I'm not skilled at much else. I'm at a crossroad where I'm trying to find a way of making secure income and having a proper grown-up job so I don't feel I have to go back to fast food or a small cafe again.

After dating several girlfriends I went back to dating guys a bit. But then I met another girl I fell head over heels for named Adrianna. She was from a country area and was so romantic. Again, I was not yet ready to be ridiculed by my family and demonised, so I broke it off after a few weeks of passion and being on the phone every night. I was clubbing a lot at this point, and this is where I was hitting actually promiscuous territory. I was making bad drunk decisions and waking up in different places. I hung out with the wrong people, and it was one messy thing after another and nothing ever working out, leaving all my jobs because I prioritized situations and chasing people over working and studying because I was still very lost. I made friends with people you wouldn't normally make friends with through dating drama plot twists, and I found love again only to blow it and end things because I drank too much and did dumb shit like hook up, because I wanted to self-sabotage before people had the chance to be the ones to leave as it was only way I felt in control even if it made people hate me- I wanted things ending on my own terms and I was spontaneous and reckless without much thoughts of consequence. I hadn't been the same girl since before my friend's unaliving and I didn't allow myself to properly grieve. A lot of time working with organisation headspace youth workers helped me navigate finally processing it and not running into more problems because it happened. I got knocked up from my dumb decisions.My party girl days came to an end finally. No more masking using alcohol to run away from problems I wasn't ready to face. I found out late so, and it never came positive on digital and pee on a stick traditional urine pregnancy tests.

I was 16 weeks when I learnt via blood test getting a second opinion elsewhere for the fainting and sudden reflux that I was having, with no idea at all as still had a period. I wasn't eligible to get surgical abortion due to the circumstances, and my own decision I made based on my own comfort level and need for purpose in my life.

it sounds stupid, but I honestly had no idea I was pregnant until that blood test and it didn't sink in and hit me properly until the 18-week dating scan. The whole thing helped me fight for myself to start my life over and rewrite my story. It definitely helped me weed out those who support and believe in me, and those who do not.

I have terrible interoceptive awareness and my pain receptors are up and down and all over the place all the time due to things I live with chronically so took a long time into the pregnancy and showing more obviously for me to register it more.

I left uni in mid-late 2014, and went back to my parents. I'm just glad it didn't happen in my teens as I was not going to be able to handle that and it would've tipped me over the edge entirely. I was in my early 20s. I was able to get counselling support and sober up. I joined a support group for single mothers to be ran by local council. I got prepared and never touched alcohol really since in terms of with intention to get super drunk, and go out and be a party girl.

Weird to say this as I never thought this would be my life. I got back with an ex from before all the messy stuff. Not intentionally. I just needed to talk to someone who knew me when I last felt my life was somewhat on track at that time. It didn't fall into anything romantic until almost a year in of being a supportive friend to me. We have been together ever since but it isn't easy as we have both gone through so much and it's now been 10 years, 2 children together (3 total), and 3 cats. Health issues, mental load, learning to be better parents, and recently one of us experienced losing a parent due to cancer. I wish I could tell you all life gets easier, but it gets much more complex and harder and nothing is just straight forward like we want it to be. I had to learn to advocate for myself which I only learnt through advocating for my eldest form his diagnosis at 3 1/2 -4 years old, which eventually lead to my learning more and more every day and seeing myself and things I've struggled with my whole life in him, and then also in my other 2 children, to key workers, and other disability supports in our life recognising it within me down to being peer reviewed, then my childhood best friends all being diagnosed, and even my sibling. Life's one hell of a rollercoaster that's for sure.

For my personal situation though I have no doubt that becoming a parent saved me from further spiralling, then the cutting people off and getting help and support from professionals so I could start healing. This step helped me become a proper definition parent full of such a huge amount of conditional love that for so long always went to the wrong places. It's still messy but for the better and helped me find who I really am. I wish I didn't have such a messy backstory but it's mine and I will use it so be my superpower and ensure people I love don't ever end up in that mess by speaking up and through my advocacy for my family I am also doing it for my inner child that needed to be validated, noticed, supported , taught tools and strategies for hard things and who needed to understand her brain and feel like she was enough. My fight against myself and the world is also for her. Every day I learn something new through my parenthood journey that brings me more and more back to myself. I am a work in progress and that's ok. Music is my main outlet and also my main coping mechanism to turn to. Hopefully one day I can put all the life lessons and hurt into more music I write. I just i guess want to share it to let people know no matter how dark your world gets and how alone you feel. you have a place in this life and you are stronger than you think.

So big slow breaths. One task, and ONE day at a time. We can do the hard things and when you come back to yourself nothing can ever take that from you. There will always be new challenges and hardships, and it's exhausting, but when you find the right tools and get to know you better suddenly you feel a little braver once more.

We can do this and if you've ever been through similar and are on your own journey I'm so sorry you have been through anything even remotely like this. <3 sending you lots of love. You aren't alone. Your feelings matter and most importantly I believe in you. I hope we can both learn to believe in ourselves and find confidence once again. It's a long rocky road and we can get there.

- Lanie xx

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