It as been eight months since my diagnosis of neurodivergence – autism and ADHD – and I feel like I am only just starting to process it. Like, really process it.

When I was first diagnosed I felt pretty unfazed.

I’d been considering the possibility of being autistic for a while. It came up in therapy about a year and a half before my diagnosis. I had started to review my childhood in my head, all the little pieces of anxiety and confusion and overwhelm and how they all added up to one big picture.

Logically, it made sense. Even before my diagnosis, I had started to see myself in a different light. I discussed the theory with my friends. None were surprised; many were amused. I’d spent years making jokes about how I was the only friend without a neurodivergence and now, when we really thought about it, I clearly wasn’t.

I’m quite good at the logic part. I can logic myself into a sense of calm on most occasions. I’ve been sailing in a calm of logical bliss for the past eight months, surprised but delighted that this diagnosis hasn’t really shaken me up at all.

Cue September, post summer blues, back to work and back into a culture that isn’t my own. I spent five weeks at home in the UK during the holidays, surrounded by people who have known me for years, speaking my mother tongue and just being myself. I needed it. Living abroad is an adventure but the constant awareness of language and how another culture behaves and different social expectations can be exhausting. It was the refresher I needed after completing my first year of work in Mexico.

For some reason, the return has been the opposite. I was excited to return to my second home in Mexico City and see my kids (I am a primary school teacher). My first year of teaching wasn’t exactly without hiccups, but it wasn’t particularly troubled either. I was excited to start a year as a seasoned member of the team; being a newbie is always hard and I like to blend in.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. My social stressors have been off the charts since coming back and I seem to be offending people left and right. I’m exhausted all the time because there are so many cultural differences I have to remember. I’m sleeping 9-10 hours a night just to recover from the overstimulation. I’ve cried multiple times getting home from work from pure frustration and confusion. The list goes on.

I think the point is that I can see how my autistic traits have been there throughout my entire life. The problem now comes and in figuring out how this knowledge can help me in the present day. I haven’t come to terms with the fact that it is something that I am, not that I was.

Sometimes I forget how far I have come. I have built such a beautiful life for myself, a life that I never thought I would get to live. I am 32. I wasn’t supposed to live past 25. That’s exciting. Things aren’t always going to be simple and I am going to face challenges.

I guess part of me hoped these struggles go away. I’ve dealt with so many mental health problems that have improved (or pretty much disappeared) with therapy. Autism doesn’t go away. It doesn’t improve with therapy or medicine. It’s just who I am.

Maybe that’s the part I am not OK with yet. I know how to be sick and overcome it. Now I’ve got to figure out how to just be me.