Generational Neurodivergence: How an Autism Diagnosis Helped My Family Connect

About the Author

Jay Eveson-Egler, (they/them) is an Autistic self-advocate and parent. They’ve worked with neurodiversity-based organizations and individuals in a variety of age groups and stages of life. They have a depth of knowledge of LGBTQIA2S+ issues in the Autistic community. They have prior experience founding and facilitating neurodiverse peer support groups and remain active as an advisor with the Neurodiverse Students Association at Mount Holyoke.

I grew up knowing I was different but not knowing why. The answers had been there all along, hidden in school records and whispered concerns from educators. When I was younger, my school conducted an assessment and tried to bring their concerns to my mother. But my mother, a German immigrant, struggled to understand what they were so worried about. Through her cultural lens, everything they described—my differences with socializing, my sensory sensitivities, my rigid routines—seemed entirely normal. In her experience, these were personality quirks, not signs of neurodivergence. And so, the book was closed on the topic, for a while.

It wasn’t until I was 19 that I began piecing the truth together for myself. Like many Autistic people assigned female at birth, I had already accumulated a handful of diagnoses whilst trying to pinpoint the cause of my struggles and find appropriate treatment: Nonverbal Learning Disability, Sensory Processing Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and PTSD. Despite these labels, something still didn’t feel right, and the therapies, medications, and programs that were thrown at me to try and “fix” me weren’t really effective. It still felt like there was a piece missing. I kept searching for an explanation that truly fit my experience.

Then, buried in old school records, I found it: a diagnosis, or at least an estimate of one: Asperger’s. While that label is no longer used in diagnostic settings, in favor of a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, no one had ever told me that I had received it. No one had ever explained what it meant. And yet, it had been there all along. Eventually, I went through the process of getting an official autism diagnosis, and doing so changed everything.

One of the most profound changes was in my relationship with my mother. For so long, there had been misunderstandings between us—disagreements that neither of us could quite articulate. I remember distinctly the many times I tried to explain to her that I felt like my legs were bricks, or that I was frozen in the face of certain tasks, which I now understand to be executive dysfunction and task paralysis. I can vividly recall the arguments we had around that being an excuse, and accusations of laziness. She had raised me with the best of intentions, but without the framework to understand why I struggled the way I did, everything devolved into arguments. When I finally had the language of autism, it was as though a door opened between us. Suddenly, we could see each other more clearly. Where I struggled with executive dysfunction, she desperately needed routine and structure; where I sought sensory input, she needed sensory breaks.

Through my own advocacy, my mother started to recognize herself in my experiences. Though we did have stark differences, she struggled with many of the same things I did: sensory issues, difficulties with socializing, and a strong need for predictability. When I expressed my belief that she, too, might be Autistic, something clicked for her. The realization explained so much about her life, from childhood to adulthood. The recognition alone was enough to change how we related to each other.

With this understanding, we have become more empathetic toward one another, more mindful and accepting of each other’s limitations. Where there used to be frustration, there is now recognition. Where there used to be confusion, there is now clarity.

This newfound awareness has also transformed the way we parent. I now have a neurodivergent two-year-old, and with this generational knowledge, my mother and I have been able to break cycles of misunderstanding. She sees her grandchild’s behaviors through a lens of compassion, recognizing the sensory needs and communication differences she once struggled to acknowledge in me. As a grandparent, she finds it easier to remain calm—she’s less overwhelmed than she was as a parent. While some of this comes with experience and the different role of grandparenting, the recognition of neurodivergence has also given her a new level of patience and understanding. In our own relationship, we’ve learned how to provide advice and support to one another without making each other feel pressured to respond in any specific way. We’re able to calmly pause conversations, and recognize when we are getting overwhelmed or feeling rejected. Because of that, we can voice those concerns to each other and work through them together instead of escalating things into an argument.

The realization that neurodivergence runs through our family has given us the opportunity to reframe our differences not as deficits, but as natural variations. We likely have other forms of neurodivergence in the family, particularly ADHD, and introducing the language, understanding, and information has allowed us to celebrate our differences and grow closer as a family.

For many late-diagnosed Autistic people, the discovery of their neurodivergence is not just a personal journey—it’s a family story. It reshapes relationships, redefines childhood memories, and offers a path to healing. In my family, it has brought us closer together, helping us rewrite old narratives with newfound understanding.

Neurodivergence has always been part of our family; the difference now is that we finally have the words to describe it. And with those words comes the power to nurture, to support, and to build a future where we can truly thrive together.