folio

Most people with my condition, I am told, are never diagnosed. They just go through like with an unsettling feeling that they’re not quite right.

Others eventually find out, sometimes as late as at sixty, at which point something clicks and they sigh, “Now everything make sense.”

I learnt of the very basics, aged twenty-seven. It would have been helpful to know about it a decade earlier, for living with some of its manifestations at seventeen was pretty awful.

A diagnosis in infancy would have been even better, if it had enabled me to access interventions and treatment. Of course, it was not to be, but at least it seems I was one of the lucky ones.

For sure, I was blessed to marry aged twenty-four. Up until I met my wife-to-be, I had been starting to wonder if I would ever find someone to share my life with at all. But, alhamdulilah, God provides.

It’s only really in the past year that I have come to properly understand the condition myself. In the intervening years, I was more concerned with practical matters: work, home and family.

It’s not something I have to worry about in order to educate others, as it’s not an inherited condition, or one that can be inherited from me. It’s just something you have to understand for yourself, in order to make sense of your life to date, come to terms with, and ultimately get over.

Learning more about it over the past year has enabled me to be more forgiving of myself. For decades I blamed my younger self for my shortcomings today. If only I had studied hard in my youth, I’d say, I’d have a better job, higher income and thus have access to nicer stuff.

Now I know that the narrative I believed for so long was probably only partially true. My developmental delays, general weakness and pervasive lethargy may not have been my fault after all. They were just part of the package.

So, alhamdulilah, I recognise now that I am doing okay. I no longer feel guilty for pressing on with marriage despite the misgivings of those around me, because it was the answer to the prayer of one who would otherwise have struggled to connect.

And, alhamdulilah, all things considered, I am doing okay. Nothing to complain about really. Life is good. Blessings all around us. Alhamdulilah, over and over.