I was six — maybe seven — when a guidance counselor looked at me and said words that wrapped themselves around my life like invisible threads. 

“Special.”

 “Different.”

 “Gifted.”

 “Emotional.”

 “Unstable.” 

I didn’t know it then, but those words weren’t just observations. They were codes. Warnings. Permissions. Labels that gave adults an excuse to study me without ever trying to understand me. 

But the truth?

 I already knew. 

I had felt different for as long as I could remember.

 And being told — officially — that I was?

 That didn’t bring clarity. It brought shame.  

When you know too early that something about you isn’t “normal,”

 you don’t grow into yourself — you fold into a version of what’s acceptable. 

And that’s what I did. I masked.

 I masked so much, for so long, that I lost track of who I was beneath it all. 

By the time I was old enough to crave answers, I was being told I might have borderline personality disorder. A misdiagnosis. One of many.

 Depression. Bipolar.

 Absent-minded.

 No common sense.

 Defiant. 

What I actually had was anxiety and autism.

 What I really needed was compassion and clarity. 
 

After my mother passed, something strange happened:

 I was praised for seeming “normal.”

 For functioning.

 For not falling apart. 

But what no one knew was that I couldn’t regulate my emotions. I was just good at acting. Good at surviving. 

Good at pretending not to be unraveling.  

Being a neurodivergent Black girl isn’t a diagnosis — it’s a double life.

 Because instead of being supported, we are corrected.

 Instead of being guided, we are labeled. 

And early knowing? It didn’t come with grace.

 It came with grief.  

Now, as a mother, I see everything through a gentler lens. 

I teach my children not to mask — not to shrink.

 To feel all the feels.

 To express gratitude out loud.

 To love others not in spite of their differences — but because of them.

 And most importantly:

 To love themselves without needing to be “normal” first. 

Healing in our home is messy. But it’s honest.

 And it’s ours.  

If I could speak to my younger self — that brilliant little girl with big feelings and no instruction manual — I’d tell her this: 

“You are perfectly crafted. Brilliant. You’re going to bloom, anyway — regardless of the stunted growth caused by loss, ridicule, and negativity. Bloom is your birthright.”

And if you're reading this now — and you’ve ever been made to feel too much, too different, too early — I hope you’ll sit with this truth:
 
You are not behind.
You are not broken.
You’re just early.
And you are allowed to take your time.
 
Some of us bloom later.
Some of us bloom through concrete.
But we bloom just the same.
 
And that — in all its mess and magic — is more than enough.