1 year in 3 Days

From Projection to Protection: My ADHD + Autism Diagnosis, One Year After Heartbreak

Content note: relationships, invalidation, gaslighting, meltdown, self-worth, neurodivergence. This is written from personal experience, this is not medical advice.

I didn’t just “get diagnosed.” I reclaimed myself.

A year ago, I thought I’d found a mirror—someone who would understand my sensitivities, my intensity, my patterns. Instead, I learned how easily projection can masquerade as intimacy, how my low self-esteem and lack of boundaries confused chaos for chemistry, and how cruelty can hide inside “care” when you’re starved for acceptance.

This is the story of being ADHD and Autistic, of being kept a secret and called “too much,” of being compared to someone I’m not—and then, finally, of seeing myself clearly. After trauma treatment and proper evaluation, my understanding of my brain shifted: what I’d blamed on character flaws was actually neurodivergence layered with survival strategies. Naming it didn’t fix everything, but it gave me language, tools, and permission to stop apologizing for existing.

The Relationship That Clarified Everything

I wanted to believe love meant safety. What I got was secrecy, tests, and whiplash.

Last Oct, I had met a man I admittingly put on a pedestal. I really was amazed by who I thought this man was. Intelligent, charming, and very much like myself. Neurodivergent, deeply wounded from his past, and dedicated to healing with a partner. I deep down felt that he was it. I still believed in “The ONE” at this point in my life. I believed in connection. I believed in fate. I believed that even the WAY we met was exactly the way I wanted to meet my person.

But I was struggling with grief, which I was transparent about. A Depression that started shortly after we started dating after being hit with a contest that fell apart due to coaching issues and losing my medical shortly after, to which they replied “it’s going to be alright. You’ll figure it out”. I felt so invisible in that bed with him as I was losing the ability to be seen by my drs steadily.

I thought I had met a person I could be vulnerable with and discuss deeper parts of my life that didn’t include them, But when those darker parts were judged, and made about them anyways, it triggered my biggest trigger….. not being believed when I was being honest and forthcoming, vulnerable with information I was ashamed about. My depression….. my thoughts that I would be better off unalived so to speak. It’s hard to explain when you don’t want to die but you don’t want to feel that way anymore, which after being diagnosed with Autism, discovered that this is actually a very COMMON experience with people that have Autism. Suicide is the leading risk of death. When discussing this with my partner at the time, the cruelty came out in always and never statements. “Well, I’ve never felt this way.” Well, Im happy you’ve never experienced depression to that magnitude before but I’m also sorry you haven’t experienced empathy for someone else’s experience either because the words “if you feel this way because of me, I would have to leave” should have spoken the volume of their self importance over actual concern of a human. Asking a person to stay and talk should never feel like begging, and when you notice it does and they spin the narrative to play more of a helping role than they ever did help during that time, that should have been a tell tale sign that gaslighting was going to be more prevalent. The labels they desperately didn’t want at the beginning became the titles and traits clasped to at the very end.

I was kept a secret from his parents, which was part of the mask worn at the beginning. The “I’m a private person but don’t believe in secrets” mask.

Friends that knew about the divorce were all of a sudden “just being told about it”, friends who encouraged him to join radiate “a few months ago” but he had been a member for a year already…..

I don’t know why I never called out of questioned these bends in truth. I think it’s because I wanted to believe him. Even when I started to dissociate for self protection. My friend time I brought this up, it was to be open with him about something I was struggling to remember. Not a wrong doing on his part but I was really upset because I was struggling to remember something important to me and when I brought up this fact, I was met with defense and a threat to breakup instead. And the only way we were able to continue was if I agreed to disagree about the setting of events, which never sat right with me. And was my first hurt within our situation ship. What started out as asking someone I trusted to tell me the truth by their memory turned into them feeling attacked and me feeling like I was making a mistake by admitting an issue I was struggling with.

I cried in front of him while he stared at his phone. Once, he answered a call from his mom during my tears and said, “I hope she didn’t hear that!” like my pain was a background noise he needed to hide.

The first I love you I said to him was meant to be that of sincere joy over meeting someone you respect. Someone who you feel gets you as a person. But instead, I got panic and disgust. And a message that that feeling was happening too fast. It was so hurtful to talk about how it’s our duty to be love and when I expressed such a feeling, I was shamed for my feelings.

He invited me over—and then his wife showed up while he was no where to be found at his house. A meeting that felt like an absolute setup. He was still doing marriage counseling with her while starting a relationship with me I had found out months into us dating.

When he was sad, the conversation turned into what he wanted to eat, what he wanted to do to feel better. My feelings were often props; his were the plot. We were never allowed to be equals, as I felt we were.

He “tested” me with little questions: “How do you feel about affirmations? Tarot?” If I said I liked them, he’d dismiss or mock them—then later buy something related as if he’d liked it all along. It kept me off-balance. Make fun of me for pulling tarot cards for guidance in life but then buy a pillow the shape of his Astro sign.

When I asked reasonable questions, I got accused of wrongdoing. Hypocrisy sat in the center of everything. This wasn’t just his doing but my fault as well.

I was called by his wife’s name and compared to her repeatedly. For someone who hated labels, He tried to tell me I had a condition I didn’t have—CPTSD. I don’t have CPTSD, and being compared told me he wasn’t seeing me at all.

When I had a meltdown and opened up about my feelings, I was told I was a burden. Too much.

I gave the benefit of the doubt until there was nothing left of my doubt to give.

I had wanted to remain friends at the end—I really did. I had truly believed that the ending of our relationship hadn’t been so bad that we lost all respect created during our months together But when he said we never even got the chance to be friends, he was right in a way he didn’t intend: he truly had never been my friend.

• I stood by him when he feared losing his job.
• I stood by him when he worried about deportation during his “divorce”.
• I stood by him even though I had admitted I was scared putting my health at risk, And I paid for that abuse.
• I even stood by him when he floated the idea of not wanting a monogamous relationship.

That last part became a pattern: The pattern where the feeling of safety eventually vanished. every time I named a boundary or confronted disrespect….. he sounded like he heard me until the next day after I raised an issue, his mood shifted and all of a sudden, it was MY turn to be the bad guy. Any problems discussed now all of a sudden felt swept under the rug and it became all of my fault. Something I said bothered him and the apology was undone, taken aback, like it never happened in the first place. He tossed out non-monogamy, then pivoted to breaking up. Suddenly, other people looked better. It wasn’t about partnership; it was about having his cake and eating it too.

And let’s be real: why else would someone only buy sex furniture as “gifts”? Why would someone go out of their way to talk about the gifts they WANTED to get me “I thought about getting you a Costco membership for Christmas” and give nothing instead. Go on a sky trip, give others gifts and hand me a keychain and say “I got this for you” as an after thought. It’s not a gift for your partner if you’re stockpiling it for others. The timing of the final breakup—right before a big trip—said everything about priorities. The people who warned me were right. It was on him. He never had the desire to make it work.

What I mistook for complexity was inconsistency. What I tolerated as “miscommunication” was erasure. I normalized the ache because my nervous system was trained to survive on crumbs.

Diagnosis, Boundaries, and Coming Home to Myself

Getting evaluated didn’t rewrite my past, but it reframed it:

• My meltdowns weren’t moral failures; they were nervous system overloads.
• My hyperfocus wasn’t obsession; it was how I love and learn.
• My difficulty with “let it go” wasn’t stubbornness; it was justice-seeking wired into me.

Treating trauma and understanding my ADHD and Autism didn’t make me smaller; it made me steadier. I stopped begging to be believed. I started believing myself.

Every brain is unique, but gendered expectations shape how traits are noticed and labeled. Here’s what resonated with me and many women:

Masking and camouflaging:

Women and AFAB folks are often socialized to perform “okay.” We script, observe, mimic, and people-please to survive. It hides autism traits until burnout or crisis.

Many of us become “the capable one,” which conceals executive dysfunction.

Special interests and routines:

Interests may look socially acceptable (beauty, wellness, animals, books), so they’re not flagged as “intense,” even when they’re just as deep and regulating.

Routines can be framed as “healthy habits,” when they’re actually essential scaffolding.

ADHD expression:

Hyperactivity often turns inward: racing thoughts, restlessness, anxiety, overtalking in safe spaces—but perfectionism and quietness in public.

Inattentive features (distractibility, time blindness, forgetfulness) may get labeled “flaky” or “emotional,” rather than ADHD.

Social dynamics:

Many of us become emotional managers—tracking tone, smoothing conflict, absorbing pressure. That “skill” can hide autistic processing differences and exhaust us.

Sensory sensitivities (clothes, lights, sound, smells) are dismissed as “picky” or “dramatic,” not neurological.

Misdiagnoses and missed diagnoses:

Depression, anxiety, or CPTSD may be diagnosed first. Treating trauma can reveal what’s left—often ADHD and autism that were always there beneath the alarm bells.

These aren’t rules; they’re patterns. If this resonates, it’s okay to seek evaluation—or simply more self-knowledge

What I’m Taking With Me

• If someone can’t be your friend, they can’t be your partner.
• “Options” isn’t the same as “freedom”—not when your needs are treated like inconveniences.
• Gifts meant for a fantasy aren’t gifts for a person.
• Boundaries are love for the self that keeps showing up, even when others don’t.

One year later: what changed when the labels were right

After trauma work and proper evaluation:

My ADHD shifted from severe combined type to inattentive ADHD. The hyperactive storm eased as the trauma quieted; what remained was attention, initiation, and working memory—now manageable with supports.

I’m learning to work with autism, not against it. I build sensory-friendly environments, use scripts for hard conversations, and honor my need for predictability.

I separate signal from noise:

Autistic needs: sensory breaks, clear plans, fewer transitions, generous buffer time.

ADHD needs: externalize everything (lists, timers, visual cues), body-doubling, single-tasking in short sprints, novelty in safe doses.

I live by boundaries:

No secrecy. No double lives. No “tests.”

If you mock what I love, you don’t get a second audition.

If I leave a conversation feeling smaller every time, I leave for good.

What I Wished I Had known Sooner

Consistency is love’s native language. If actions and words don’t match, believe the actions.

Questions aren’t accusations. If someone treats your curiosity as an attack, they’re protecting a story, not a truth.

Masks crack under pressure. If someone only “likes” your interests when they control them, that’s manipulation, not compatibility.

“Too much” usually means “too much for them.” I am not universally excessive; I was specifically under-cherished.

Diagnosis is not a destiny—it’s a map. Trauma treatment didn’t erase me; it revealed me. ADHD and autism didn’t break me; misunderstanding did. And it hurt more from someone who also claimed to be neurodivergent themselves. Even more so I think.

I had wanted to keep a friendship, but a friendship requires care, consistency, and respect. He was right: we never had the chance to be friends—because he never chose to be one. And somewhere along this journey, I knew I couldn’t choose what didnt and doesnt choose me back.

I didn’t just “get diagnosed.” I came home to my brain, my body, and my boundaries. That’s the real ending—and the beginning.

The last word is this: I am ADHD and Autistic. I am not a secret. I am not an experiment. I am not a rebound. I am not a burden.

After a year of telling the truth—to professionals, to friends, to myself—my life is different. My ADHD is inattentive and manageable. Without medication. My autism is a way of being I can honor, whether I’m disliked for being me or not. My boundaries are firm, my voice is steady, and the person I love most in this world is the one I always needed: myself. 💛

If you’re in the thick of it, here’s the gentlest reminder I can offer: you are not “too much.” You were asking too little from people who gave you less.

“Five Songs From the Front”

Back row, where the bass first finds my ribs,
I inhale deep, a breath of neon anticipation.

In my palm, a comet on a leash—
lighted flowwhip, river of photons,
I let it orbit my shoulders,
a soft galaxy sluicing down my arms.

My flowwhip is a river of sparks,
cursive light uncoiling from my wrist—
and my bodysuit blooms like a second dawn,
color on color, skin of kaleidoscopes.

With Eyes closed, I map the room by intuition.

I Feel the snares like a zipper of stars,
bass notes dissolving old winters past chills in my bones.

The kick drum knits my scattered edges;
my cartilage learns the word yes.

The crowd is a breathing organism,
hundreds of hearts sharing one battery.
I slip between bodies like silk through ringed fingers,
flowwhip sketching halos—
cerulean, magenta, ultraviolet vows.
Someone laughs, someone howls,
and I grin in the dark because I can hear colors here, taste the tremble of a sub in the back of my throat.

Then the floor tilts— Energy shifts:
a mosh pit opens like a weather system.
We are storm and shelter both,
bumping, ricocheting, rebounding into joy. Release.
I am lifted by strangers who know my name only as rhythm,
we spring, we shed gravity in loops,
jumping all feral and free,
our platforms scuffing fire from the night’s moves.

Still eyes closed, I thread the living labyrinth,
light whipping rainbows in soft parabolas,
breath syncing to four-on-the-floor prayers.
Past hurts loosen like knots in wet rope,
they slip away with the drop—
and the drop, god, it widens me;
I become hallway and hurricane,
a body that remembers to open.

From the back to the lip of the stage,
I arrive by pulse and trust and phosphor.
Subwoofers purr against my sternum—
now I’m face to face with the architect of the quake,
my favorite alchemist of wobble and warp.
I keep my eyes closed to see better.

A year ago I was a shattered mirror—
every piece reflecting a different goodbye.
Tonight the beat gathers the shards and sets them singing,
soldered by sweat and breath,
I learn my worth one measure at a time.

Five songs left—
one for the hurt I once carried inside of me,
one for the hands that steadied me, and carried me
one for the voice inside that learned to sing when others wanted to silence her volume.
one for the child made of lightning, of loyalty, and for love, even if that love was returned to sender.
And lastly, one for the future I dance into.

The crowd is an ocean, the ocean is a mirror,
the mirror is a window, and through it I see:
the person I kept searching for in every drop,
every chorus, every outstretched hand—
was waiting under my own ribs.

I require nothing else when I am this whole—
not a promise, not a perfect ending,
just the honest voltage of becoming.
I accept myself, and the strangers glowing around me, each of us allowed to be exactly what we are.

The flowwhip writes our names on the stale smoke clinging in the venues last breathe of the night.
We jump until the gravity forgets us,
until every beat has flushed the dust from my lungs,
until the last chord lands like soft rain on hot stone.

Five songs from the front, I meet my favorite artist.
Five songs from the front, I meet my favorite self.
In a year, the world changed shape around me,
and the one I love the most—the one I always needed—

When the lights come up, I open my eyes,
and I am newly spelled—
color alive, body fluent,
the night still glowing where it touched me.