“That Was Touching and Informational.”
On a homebound, “jammy Sunday” afternoon in 2019 my phone buzzed in the kitchen. My 8-year-old was freshly armed with her first apple device and was giddy to flex her newfound texting autonomy.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Do people grow out of Autism? Can they?”
“Nope. It’s not a disease or an illness. It’s just a unique brain. You can’t outgrow something that isn’t broken.”
“Ok, that was touching and informational.”
“Thanks for the feedback.”
While my kiddo has always had a propensity for deep, existential curiosity, the brain she was texting about that day was her own. Years before I was an “Autism Expert” and decades before the dawning of my own late diagnosed AuDHD, I was a 30-something School Social Worker, single parenting two young, and wildly different kiddos. K was my brilliant, creative, outspoken, dog loving and very sensitive little girl who introduced me to the world of what sure as hell didn’t look like Autism to me at the time.
My girl was chatty, adventurous, and always down for an animal encounter. K was socially fearless while her clumsy, baby body was impulsively reckless: walking at 8 months, running two days later, potty trained by 1, and reading fourth grade novels by 5. K was truly a force of nature from the moment she arrived in my world, screaming helplessly for far longer than I thought was normal…likely due to the cold operating room, the too bright lights, the transition, and unexpected, rude shock of being born into this neurotypical world. She had a smile that could light up a room, and a nervous system that always seemed to be at odds with the world around her. We’d spent years auditioning a rotating cast of “less-than-helpful” helpers, trying to decode what made K… K. Our ever-evolving professional squad took us on a diagnostic tour that began with “everything seems normal,” visited sensory processing disorder, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and arrived at Autism.
And while the “A-word” terrified many parents at the time, it landed in my lap like a relief. It was no secret that the Autistic kids on my caseload were my favorite. I didn’t initially see it in K, but in the early 2010’s, there wasn’t much talk of Autistic girls. I trusted our helpers, and her struggles and strengths seemed to make sense in this framework.
So, I did what moms do: I became obsessed with Autism books, podcasts, trainings, and internet research, put a trampoline in our living room, a swing in her bedroom. I made it my mission to understand her brain, a decision would eventually transform not just my parenting, but also my career, my life, and my own lifelong struggles.
Autism is genetic. Her brain would lead me to mine. It was the BOGO deal of a lifetime. For the low price of $3500, one Neuropsychological report would transform our lives on a dime, redefining our entire lineage for free.
Real life Autism is nothing like what you see in the movies. Once I let go of stereotypes, outdated medical model frameworks, and the white, cis male version of Autism I’d been trained in, it was evident that this was never pathology to begin with. Understanding Autism as a neurotype was like flipping on the lights in a room I’d been stumbling around for my entire life.
Suddenly, my grandfather wasn’t cold when he escaped his entire family to build clocks in the basement on Christmas Day. He was overstimulated. My favorite family members weren’t rude. They were direct and gloriously unfiltered, which I had always preferred. My childhood memories would reorganize themselves with clarity as my awareness grew: the isolation, the intense passions, the struggles with relationships, and the lifelong anxiety. Autism as a neurotype gave me a new lens. One that explains years of trauma. One that softens the anger I held onto for far too long. It didn’t heal the harm, but it reframed it. It didn’t rewrite the history, but it contextualized it.
I would come to see myself in this framing, not as a failed version of who I was supposed to be, but as part of a lineage that was many, many apples deep from a very unique tree. A tree of artists, engineers, feelers, builders, creators, and “obsessors.” Some who thrived. Some who didn’t. But all of whom deserved a world who could see them clearly.
This understanding didn’t just change my relationship to Autism, it changed how I related to my daughter, my family, my clients, and ultimately myself. When I look back at that text from my daughter, I am proud of how quickly I responded, and how sure I was of myself. But I’m even more proud that it was true. You can’t outgrow, heal, prevent, cure, or fix something that isn’t broken. You can only stop pretending that it is.
What’s Spreading isn’t Autism
In 2025, K is a thriving teenager, well supported with academic accommodations, a network of friends, a newfound love of volleyball, and copious amounts of time at her job, as a volunteer at the SPCA. Although much has changed since the first time, I explained to her that her brain wasn’t broken or diseased, I don’t worry about how she views her Neurodivergence. Our love language is built on humor, capybara Tik Toks, and discussions of “Love on the Spectrum.” K knows who she is, and her neurodivergence is not one of the most interesting things about her. But if there is a disease I’m worried about, it’s the disease of hatred, ableism and exclusionary mistruths that are being spewed all around her, and all of us in 2025.
If anything is causing danger to our children and families, it’s the steady unraveling of progress. Just months ago, I was glowing with the buzz of palpable change. Federal agencies, large corporations, therapy practices, and treatment facilities were hiring neurodivergent consultants. They were hiring me. They were hungry for better hiring practices for Neurodivergent applicants. They took notes, as I presented a steady stream of PowerPoints on how to create a Neuro-affirming workplace. Managers were learning about sensory accommodations, better communication, ableism, and ways that all of us could make the workplace safer for ND brains. Therapists were finally getting trained to recognize Autism in women and gender-diverse clients. After each talk, I’d receive emotional emails thanking me for making invisible struggles visible. For making people feel seen.
And then, almost overnight, it stopped.
Those same initiatives have been gutted. In some federal spaces, you can’t even say the word inclusion. Training budgets for neurodivergent-affirming workplaces have dried up. Government employees are being told to sit down, shut up, and stop asking how to do better. Budgets slashed. My presentations canceled. At the FBI Academy in Quantico, the word “diversity” was removed from our core values and literally painted over on the walls. It was erased from a mural that once included words like fairness, compassion, and integrity. Our DEIA programs and Employee Resource Groups have been forcibly disbanded, as if equity itself became too offensive to name. The wave of destruction is crashing insidiously, and my multiply marginalized clients are under attack for being disabled, for being female, for being queer, for being trans, for needing supports…and the list goes on and on. And today, in the middle of it all, our US Secretary of Health and Human services is a man who failed the bar exam, with no medical, psychological, or therapeutic training. And he is telling the world that our brains are tragedies.
Meanwhile, my caseload of high-masking autistic adults is suddenly facing categorical denials of the accommodations that allow them to stay employed. These aren’t entry-level roles or niche outliers. These are physicists, linguists, engineers, computer programmers, app developers, intelligence analysts, cybersecurity specialists, architects, data scientists, and more. All highly specialized. All highly sought-after. All tax-paying professionals whose brains power critical systems. Oh, and they’re all Autistic. They now risk being pushed out, not because they can’t do the job, but because we’ve denied them the ability remain supported enough to do the work.
For a moment, a few months ago, it felt like we were catching up. Like visibility was finally turning into action. Like maybe, just maybe, the world was getting ready to meet us where we are. As my daughter stepped into her adolescence with pride and self-awareness, and as I stepped further into a career shaped by clarity and conviction, a different kind of shift began for our country. One that is no longer opening doors, but is slamming them shut.
The danger of “they’ll never.”
Control is a fallacy. None of us can predict the children we will have, the person they will be, or the struggles that will face us all. Any good therapist will tell you that the unpredictability of life is what keeps us in business. Mental health professionals revel in the beauty of growth, resiliency, and hope found in people that commit to showing up for themselves. Hope may be the most valuable gift we can give our clients. For those of us who are cringing and outraged at RFK Jr.’s recent declarations regarding Autistic children, we know the dangers of falsely believing that people can be categorized, pathologically labeled, defined, confined, and limited. Autism advocates know more than most that this framing is not only wildly inaccurate, but it is also incredibly damaging.
"Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this," he said. “These are kids who will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted." -RFK Jr.
This kind of language, the “never will” kind, isn’t just inaccurate. It’s cruel. It strips Autistic people of their complexity, their capacity, their self-determination, and their dignity. It paints them as burdens, not as full humans who deserve support, accommodations, and agency. And it’s the kind of language that historically precedes harmful policy. When we tell the world that a kind of brain is a public health crisis, we open the door to treating people with those brains as problems to be solved rather than people to be understood and supported. This kind of rhetoric isn’t just offensive, it holds power to shape public opinion and policy. Framing Autism as something that “destroys families” feeds into outdated, ableist stereotypes that cause considerable harm. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients who are Autistic and raising Autistic children, and I can tell you: our families are whole. Our lives are valuable. And our differences are not a tragedy.
Our government is rapidly taking jobs and reasonable accommodations away from Autistic adults. So, if our leaders see Autism as a crisis, why are they doing everything possible to remove supports for the Autistic people who exist right now? If Autism is an “epidemic”, what do you have to say about those of us are thriving? And for those of us with high support needs, who live full lives, with assistance, where do you draw the line of human value? Children do not pay taxes, and we plan our entire lives around supporting them. Willingly. Happily. Retired adults no longer work full time jobs jobs. Do they too lose their value when they are no longer a cogs in the capitalist machine? What does baseball and toileting have to do with human value?
Yes, some individuals need more support. That's not just a reality of autism, that's a reality of being human. Bodies and brains exist in many forms and capacities. None of us should have to prove our worth to exist. So let’s talk about funding, access, inclusion, and real services to support those who need it. But blaming mold, food dyes, or ultrasounds doesn’t get us any closer to helping actual people. It just distracts from the truth: Autistic people have always existed. We’re just finally being seen.
Autism is not caused by ultrasounds, food dyes, or pesticides. It is genetic. This is not a fringe opinion, it’s a well-established, evidence-based reality that’s supported by decades of research. The rise in diagnoses reflects better awareness, expanded criteria, and the long-overdue recognition of Autistic people who were previously ignored, especially women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and BIPOC communities. We have been forced to seek our own care through social media, and online spaces because our medical system, run by people like RFK Jr. is so dangerously lacking.
Today, people are flocking to get diagnosed, often later in life, because they’re finding that diagnosis can lead to something truly important: acceptance, understanding, and accommodations. Everyone deserves to have what I was able to experience when I realized what Autism actually meant for me. When I looked back at my struggles and successes with Autism colored lenses, I didn’t just “find myself”; I found that I actually like myself. Not the self I presented to others in the effort to make them accept me, the self I found when I stopped forcing my own conformity. The quirky, intense, creative, emotional, sensitive, fast-talking, always moving, forever thinking, nerd that I am. I like her. And when I welcomed her, I also found a framework to understand my challenges and, better yet, tools to navigate them, and better helpers to sit with me in my struggles. When Neurodivergent brains learn to properly accommodate themselves, everything changes. Safety, connection, peace, and even success can be found in places many of us thought were off-limits.
The genetic aspect of Autism continues to be a powerful force of healing. Once you know what you’re dealing with, memories, confusion, trauma, and the people in your life get a second look. Suddenly, things you never understood, people you couldn’t quite “figure out,” start making a hell of a lot more sense. With understanding, we can often find empathy. And when a confusing world can be decoded for both Neurotypical and Neurodivergent people, we often find that the empathy and acceptance can heal in both directions.
For years, people thought the full scope of Autism was represented by the predictable way it was shown in the media-generated, male characters. You know the stereotype of the savant, like Dustin Hoffman’s character, Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man, Sam Gardener from Atypical, or Dr. Shaun Murphy on The Good Doctor. But Autism in women and other “non-male” genders is often undetectable to the untrained eye, and that outward invisibility has kept multitudes of people from being recognized and understood. Their Autism, and mine is outwardly subtler, masked, hidden in layers of careful mimicry and an intense focus on “fitting in.” Many Autistic women and gender diverse adults learn to blend in so well that they don’t even realize they’re assimilating. We’re often trying to survive in a world that feels confusing, unfamiliar, and even “off”, but we’re told it’s us who needs fixing.
Autism isn’t new. It was never caused by vaccines. Neurodivergence is a part of your wiring, and this is the reality of your human experience from the day you are born. Neurodivergence is passed down through your genes. In essence, it’s caused by your grandpa, the “straight shooter who is a business owner/professor at Georgetown, loves clocks, woodworking, reading, is a master craftsman, and "doesn’t get all caught up in his feelings” who married your grandma, a backyard pottery expert, who makes her own wool yarn from sheep on her farm, is an expert in dozens of unique blends of artistry, and then goes on to breed rare Australian dogs. That’s where it’s from. Your family. (The aforementioned example is literally the origin story of my family.) Autistic adults like the ones in my family today are regularly called: quirky, intense, crafty, unusual, a little off, emotionally immature, narcissistic, Bipolar, Borderline, OCD, an addict, and weird. All of these labels detract from the fact that they were born Neurodivergent. Before they were “off”, before they picked up a drink, before they took on unique hobbies, puns, and obsessive interests, their brain was different. Some unique brains become famous. Some kill themselves because the world has failed to support them. Both fame and suicide have come for many in my own family. And as the helpers, the professionals, we haven’t been trained on these brains enough to figure out how to prevent the latter.
The current increase in diagnoses isn’t due to some epidemic of mislabeling, or environmental poison; it’s because we’re finally looking for Autism where it’s always been. All around us. The diagnostic criteria continue to be based almost exclusively on cisgender, white boys, leaving countless individuals unseen, uncounted, unstudied, unmedicated, unsupported, unwell, and unaccommodated.
Autistic brains were Zebras that are becoming horses.
Dr. Theodore Woodward famously coined the phrase, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” He shared this with students at the University of Maryland School of medicine to remind them that doctors should prioritize the obvious and common explanations before considering the rare and unusual. Sometimes the answer is right in front of you, uncomplicated, and clear.
Autism is no longer a mysterious anomaly whispered about in the halls of special education. What we once thought was rare, unusual, and visibly distinct, is actually common, predictable, and all around us…just like horses. Back in the '80's and ’90s, Neurodivergence was feared because it was misunderstood. And for the first time, the “zebras” are finding their herd, not because they’ve changed, but because the understanding has. They were never zebras at all. They were horses, standing in plain sight, waiting for the world to see them as they’ve always been. The label doesn’t make them different; it makes them visible. And visibility changes everything.
And here’s the paradox: we, neurodivergent people are everywhere. We are the business owners, the CEO’s, the scientists, the doctors, the therapists, the government agency leaders. We are the public speakers, the entertainers, the authors, the comedians, the creators, the tech gurus, the code writers. We hold high-level positions in every industry, often unnoticed or misunderstood. We’re both thriving and dying silently in plain sight. But we’re also burning out, dropping out, and dying at higher rates than our Neurotypical peers. The difference between those who thrive and those who barely survive often comes down to one thing: accommodations. Autistic people are not a puzzle to be solved. We’re a population to be supported.
The push to find a single environmental culprit of mold, pesticides, vaccines, or air pollution might seem like science-driven curiosity. But it’s rooted in the belief that our existence requires an explanation. Yes, there are complex interplays of genetics and environment that shape every human brain. But you don’t need to find a villain to justify our existence. You need to fund services. You need to make classrooms more inclusive. You need to train clinicians in neurodiversity-affirming care. You need to listen to autistic people when we tell you what helps and what harms.
The Epidemic We Should Be Naming
If there’s an epidemic, it’s the epidemic of misinformation paired with the death of empathy. We can’t dress up fear mongering and call it advocacy. I am not an epidemic. My family was not taken out by wave of environmental toxins that made us anxious and socially unique, any more than mold gifted us our curious minds and creativity.
So no, Mr. Kennedy. We are not your epidemic. We are not your tragic cautionary tale. The quirks in my family, the mental health challenges, the struggles, and the successes go back as far as we can remember. And as a person WITH qualifications to speak on this, the same is true for all of the families I support. We are not interested in being “prevented.”
And frankly, your presence behind a “magic” podium makes makes you no more qualified to dictate medical advice than Jenny McCcarthy in the 90’s. You, yourself have acknowledged a vast history of recreational “toxin use” but suddenly draws the line at life-saving vaccines, the same vaccines you hypocritically gave to your own children.
So here is my promise:
I’ll keep doing what I do best, offering safety, acceptance, accommodations, and real support to my family, my clients, and community. And me, along with every single passionate helper in the Autistic community will be out here pushing back on every harmful word you say. Now. In September. And for as long as we need to.
I will not be quiet with the truths of “actually Autistic” people.
I will not “wait and see.”
I will not let this go unanswered, because I am listening.
We are raising the first generation of Autistic kids who know that they’re not broken.
We are healing Autistic adults who are learning they never were.
Many of us are “answering the texts.”
So, I’ll say it again for you, and anyone else who’s been broken, not by Autism, but by bad research, untrained helpers, and a system that has failed to support them. If your administration is truly concerned with efficiency, let me save you some time: revisiting outdated, debunked research is the real waste of resources.
We are not a disease. We have beautiful, unique brains. And we can’t and don’t need to cure or outgrow something that isn’t broken.
