When I was 16, my world transformed in two profound ways. I became a mother, and I began the journey of raising a child who—like me—experienced the world through a neurodivergent lens. Neither of us knew it then, but we were both autistic, navigating a world that wasn't designed for minds like ours. ## Two Space Cadets Finding Our Way They called me a "space cadet" long before I understood what it meant. Lost in thought, missing social cues, overwhelmed by sensory experiences others barely noticed—I lived in a different orbit from my peers. When my son came along, I recognized familiar patterns in him, though his autism expressed itself differently than mine. He was a bit less on the spectrum than me, but together, we formed our own constellation. What we lacked in traditional guidance, we made up for in understanding. When he couldn't bear the feel of certain fabrics, I didn't need an explanation. When I became overwhelmed in crowded spaces, he instinctively knew...
I got one amend today.
Just one. And yet it feels like it cracked something so deep inside me that I’m still picking up the pieces.
This is what happens when you’re married to someone in recovery, and you both have enough trauma for ten lifetimes. This is what happens when your husband hands you a confession you already lived—and denied—three years ago.
He cheated. Back in 2022, when I still trusted him, when I still thought “that’s just my trauma acting up.”
Except it wasn’t just trauma.
It was my intuition.
It was my neurodivergent pattern-recognition: knowing what’s off, picking up the subtlest energetic shift, feeling the truth in my bones even when the evidence says “move on.”
It was my gut screaming “something’s wrong.”
But trauma plus gaslighting? That’ll make you doubt your own mind every single time.
This isn’t the first betrayal. It’s one of a kagillion. But this one broke something in me, because it isn’t just the cheating—it’s the years I spent apologizing for what I knew to be true.
You see, I remember the nights I started a fight “for no reason.”
The arguments where I “assumed the worst.”
The late-night spiral of “What if I’m just broken and paranoid?”
And yet—I was right.
He said sorry today. He made his amend. Twelve steps, clean slate.
Except for me, there’s never been a clean slate. There’s cumulative trauma.
A running tab of wounds he can apologize for, but never erase.
And when he said it? My first response was despair.
Because—how am I supposed to survive a whole book of these confessions?
How do you brace yourself for another avalanche, when you’re still clawing your way out from the last one?
The Neurodivergent Difference
People don’t get what it’s like when you’re autistic, ADHD, and have a trauma background:
My threat detection system is always running hot.
I know when something is wrong—I just can’t always name it.
When I’m lied to, I fall apart because my internal compass has always been the only thing keeping me safe.
Gaslighting doesn’t just feel like “being fooled.” For ND folks with trauma, it’s like being unmade—questioning time, memory, identity, reality.
For three years, I built my sense of safety on a story I was forced to accept. I shoved my own knowing aside. I believed his truth because it would have cost me too much to trust mine.
Now the truth is “out.”
And all I feel is lost.
What Despair Looks Like (Today)
Ragged breathing, heart pounding, body in fight/flight/freeze split like a broken mirror.
The spiral of “What else did I miss? What else did I forgive without knowing?”
The shame of remembering the self-blame, the apologies I made for accusing him (when I was right all along).
The grief for younger me, who deserved better than this.
He’s making amends. He’s doing “the right thing.”
And I cannot stop crying.
What I Wish People Understood About Amends and Trauma
One amend is never “done.” The harm stacks, layers, asks to be revisited every time the trust cracks open.
Gaslighting is violence. It’s not just a lie—it’s a quiet murder of intuition.
ND folks know things. We sense patterns, shifts, emotional currents. We’re called “paranoid,” “too much,” “crazy.” And then, when the truth comes out, we’re expected to just be relieved?
All it does is reopen every scar you made us doubt ourselves for.
What I Need (But Don’t Have Answers To)
How do I listen to a thousand more amends and not completely lose myself?
How do I trust my own knowing again, after gaslighting taught me to betray it?
Is it possible to heal from a mountain of betrayals, when your entire nervous system is built on hypersensitivity and memory?
How do you forgive someone when your bones haven’t even stopped shaking from the impact?
Will I ever have all the pieces to our story? Can I survive with or without them?!
What if he never learns that honesty truly is the only policy?
What I Know (A Little)
Maybe I’ll never get all the answers.
But maybe the point of amends isn’t reconciliation—it’s finally being able to say:
I was right. I was never crazy.
And maybe that’s where my healing starts: not in his words, but in reclaiming mine.
If you’re reading this and you know what it is to be “crazy right,” to be gaslit out of your own reality, to hear a thousand amends and not know what to do with them—
I see you. You’re not alone. And whatever you feel (rage, grief, numbness, self-doubt) is valid.
Want to connect or need support? Join our community—sometimes the only amends that matter are the ones we make to ourselves.
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