Introduction!

 Hi there,

I am Mansi. Welcome to my tiny, little corner on the internet. I don’t know how you quite got here, but I am glad that you did. 

Whenever I start reading someone’s work, especially someone new, I often have to stop midway and read about them first. I feel like I understand and absorb their knowledge much better when I have the slightest bit of understanding of who they are. So, in that spirit, let me introduce myself. 

Ah! Introductions are hard for me, always have been. For one, I struggle with keeping things brief 😅. I struggle with what parts to keep and what to skip. You see, I believe we all are these big, bulky books, maybe even a sequence of books, like Harry Potter or Lord of the rings etc, and it is so hard to summarize it in less than 500 words. But over the years, I have come up with a system. I keep only the most, most basic. And I let everything else be a mystery. A mystery you are more than welcome to uncover, if only you have the luxury of time, and abundant patience. Because once I start, I go deep. Anyways, here we go.

As I already stated, I am Mansi. At the time of writing this (Jan 2024), I am 30 years old. I work in tech, and I genuinely do enjoy my job. I live in India with my husband and 2 kids. Twin boys who are 4 and half right now. When they were about 2 and half (exactly 2 years ago), we found out they were autistic. Since then, or maybe even before, I have had the chance to be on this incredible journey. Incredibly challenging, and incredibly fulfilling. I had the textbook knowledge about autism, because I was interested in psychology from a young age. 

Side note - Funny thing, I clearly remember one cold December afternoon in 2010, when I was staying in Kota, preparing for my IIT-JEE exams (an entrance exam to the most prestigious engineering colleges of India, and indian equivalent to Ivy League), calling my father and telling him how I wanted to switch and do a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. I had prepared my case. I told him why I felt I was the right fit for that, and why this course was a right fit for me. He heard me out patiently, and at the end, said the most Indian dad thing ever. He said, “That’s great. Do your B.Tech first and then you can do whatever you want.” Haha! There was no arguing to that. So I did B.Tech, got a job in Tech, and continue doing that. But over all these years, my love for psychology never died down. On the contrary, it only intensified. So I kept reading and learning whatever I could get my hands on. All this to say, I had a textbook knowledge of autism.  

But it was when I was handed my boys’ diagnosis, that I truly started to understand what Autism meant outside of books. What Autism meant in real life. And somewhere along this journey, thanks to a random stranger on the internet asking me to get an assessment myself after reading my rant about how one of my kids scratching makes me feel, I realized that I am autistic myself. Now, I don’t really have an official diagnosis, if you are looking for proof, yet. I may get that in future, but I don’t have it yet. All I have is this strong intuition, this gut feeling, the same that I had for my kids, months before their official diagnosis. When I tell someone that I am autistic too, especially someone who has known me for a long time, their first reaction is that of disbelief. They don’t believe I can be autistic, because that’s not what autism “looks like”. Some tell me they have known me for a long time. And I tell them, you know me, but you don’t know what autism looks like in adults, especially adult females. Your exposure to autism has only been through a child. And autistic or not, usually adults don't act like children, and vice versa.

Someone recently asked me, what has this (self) diagnosis given me. I told them that it feels like I have been Clark Kent my whole life. I have always had this acute knowledge that I am different (not better, not worse, just different), that I don’t fit in. And for the longest time, I kept asking myself, why? Why am I the way I am? Or more realistically, why am I not like others? And then someone whispered in my ear, that's because you are a Kryptonian (autistic), and suddenly, all my differences made sense. I made sense to myself. I was able to understand my unique mixture of strengths and weaknesses, and I was able to refine my strengths and make them stronger, while acknowledging my weaknesses and putting in the right accommodations to make them less weaker. This diagnosis has been the key to my ciphered self. I love this clarity, and I wish everyone gets it for themselves too. 

On top of it, looking at things, past experiences, my entire childhood, from an “I am autistic” lens, has given me this unique perspective into my kids’ minds. I am able to relate to them better. Better than I was doing in our first year after the diagnosis, where I still did not have the knowledge about my own autism. In retrospect, that was one of our hardest years yet. It made me doubt if I was even the right person to be a parent, let alone parent to 2 special needs children. 

Anyways, I digressed.

This blog started when someone told me that I have a gift with words, and that I should start one. I hesitated, because I have previously had a bad relationship with validation, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to expose myself like that again. But a friend said that I can do it as a service to me, and to all the other parents of autistic children who will come after me, to share my personal experience, my story, my journey, and my learnings with them. And that struck a chord. So I told myself, I will do this, but on one condition. The only validation I am allowed to look for is that of my own.

And, here we are. Welcome, once again. I hope you find something worth your time here. Whether you are autistic yourself, or you have an autistic kid, or know someone who does, I hope you find what you are looking for. It could be empathy, hope, understanding, or just support, that you are not alone. And for me, this is my way to document my journey about Love, Growth, and Autism. ♥️

-Mansi