Who or what brings light into your life?

Anna | Tauranga

Reflecting on her daughter’s autism diagnosis led to Anna’s own diagnosis, sparking a journey of self-discovery, advocacy, and finding joy in learning and living differently.

“When I found out I was autistic, it was like everything made sense and nothing made sense all at the same time. My youngest had a few global developmental delays when she was a baby. So we had to teach her to crawl and roll and all that type of stuff.

When she was about a year old, somebody said, ‘Maybe we should get her checked out for some sensory issues.’ She was diagnosed autistic at 18 months.

From there, the journey was to understand how we could help and support her. Through discussions with various people, I suddenly saw a lot of myself in how she interacted with the world. I looked back and realised, ‘Oh, maybe there’s something there.’

So I actually went and sought out a diagnosis, and straight away the lady was like, ‘Yep, I don’t even need to go through the rest of it. I can tell just by the way you’re talking, your behaviour, and the experiences you’ve shared that definitely you’re neurodiverse.’

I thought it was just because I didn’t fit that there was something wrong with me. But actually, I do fit – I just fit in a different way. And so, my passion is actually advocating for people who have neurodiversity or sensory differences, and that it’s okay. It’s okay to have that slightly different way of interacting or understanding. And actually, it can be something quite beautiful. I now celebrate that I am neurodiverse, and I love telling people.

For homeschooling, the beauty of it for us is that we can journey along together. We can support, but we can also go with the likes and the passions and the strengths, and we can shape everything around that. We do lots of things like dance parties or dress-ups or just kind of go, ‘Hey, we don’t need to take life too seriously.’

It’s actually scientifically proven that joy, laughter, and happiness open up your brain for learned experiences. If you hate something, you’re not going to learn it – you’re going to push back. So if we want to create an environment where we’re learning, we have to be joyful, and we have to laugh, and we have to have that fun.”