A letter to my younger self

Doing a trend my own way at two landmark moments in my life. Leaving home to go to University and becoming a mother. Looking back through my neurodivergent lens.

Seeing a trend and doing it my own way

I have seen a trend recently. It has been done before but the most recent one is ‘Meeting my younger self for a coffee’ I have been writing a letter to my younger self in my head for a while now. And I struggled to choose the age that I would start this letter. But I have settled on two ages. One is 23, my age when I moved 300 miles away from home to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and started studying photography. The second age is when I first became a mum at 27. There were obviously many landmark moments before this. But these two periods of my life were about me finding my way as an adult, and there is so much growth and lessons to be learned when you set out on your own.

So here goes.

The Letter

Dear Corinne, I am writing to you because you have just landed in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. You don’t know it yet but this will be your chosen home for a very long time. Right now you think you will study here for 3 years and then you will head back to London. But you will fall in love with this place, the city, the coastline, the countryside and, most importantly, its people. I am so proud of you because before you headed to university you left home at 19 and lived in Brighton for 2 years. Instinctively you knew that learning to live independently before heading off to university would help you navigate the world a little bit easier.

Loneliness and a shock diagnosis

Your first year at university won’t be without a few bumps in the road and you will feel an intense loneliness that will be hard to deal with. But I promise you things will get easier if you just hold on. You will meet a friend at university who has travelled to the north from Oxford. She will be a lifelong friend and you will have lots of fun together. You will also be there for each other during the highs and lows of life and she will know you in a way that no one else will.

You will get your BA Hons in Contemporary Photographic Practice even though you will struggle with it. And in your final year at university you will be diagnosed as dyslexic. This will leave you feeling confused and you will tell people, but this is 2001 and not many people will truly understand the impact of neurodiversity. You will just struggle on to make your way in the world. But I want to tell you when you are 45 you will start to get some support for the first time through Access to Work and it will open up so many opportunities for you. You will work on some amazing projects and you will even start your own Community Interest Company. So hold on - things will become more manageable and you will do work that shows the world what you are capable of. Rather than feeling like you just don’t fit and you just don’t quite get things right. Oh, and just to mention at this time the whole world will go into a national lockdown.

Your time at university will be tricky, but you will meet some great people and you will truly fall in love with Newcastle and realise that the North East is a wonderful place to live.

Becoming a mum

Two years after graduating you will meet your husband Jim (he will become your best friend, protector and biggest supporter). Because you are you, and he is who he is, you will be pregnant with your first child 6 months into your relationship. This will be a really stressful and exciting time. You will buy your first home over the water in Gateshead. I can tell you now that 23 years later you will still be living there. You don’t know it yet but your daughter will grow up to be a super-talented musician and you will watch her play live music with her band. She will play you new songs she has written and you will cry when you hear her work out her life-lessons through her music.

As a mum you will struggle. You will struggle with postnatal depression, you will feel that you are not good enough, you will see other mothers who seem to have it together and coast through their mothering journey. You will feel isolated and you will feel that intense loneliness again. BUT, and it’s a big one, you will be brilliant at giving your children space to be themselves. You will self-correct when you have made a mistake, you will apologise when you have got things wrong, you will create a safe space for your children to speak to you when they struggle, you will be your children’s strongest ally and advocate for them when they need you. You will learn from your own childhood and give your children lots of cuddles and kisses. Your children will feel loved and cared for, they will feel confident to go out into the world and make a life for themselves. You will give them the gift of independence and the safety of home if they need it. You won’t realise how your neurodiversity affects your parenting and your children, but when you are 47 your second child will be diagnosed with autism. You will be diagnosed as ADHD when you are 48, and you will also be put on the waiting list for autism assessment. You will start to see the struggles that you have had throughout your life and especially as a mum through a new lens. You will read books that make you realise things could have been a lot worse and you will advocate for your child to make sure that they do not struggle in the same way that you have. Through Creative Heritage Studios you will create opportunities for young people like your second child and help them navigate the world and unlock their creativity and brilliance. This will also heal your inner child and will help you make peace with late diagnosis and the potential life that you could have had if you had the support and tools you have now.

From struggles to purpose

Ultimately through all of the struggles you will harness your lived experience to make a difference and in this you will find your purpose. You will get great joy from the feedback that parents give you through your work with young people. The mentees that you work with, who love your neurodivergent approach to solving problems, will make you realise that the way your brain works has value. You will love standing up in front of a crowded room (even with big emotions telling you ‘don’t do it’) to tell them your story and share the statistics that you have uncovered around neurodiversity, unemployment and the crucial role of creativity in our economy and community. People will be lining up to work with you. You will find that your neurodiversity will play tricks on you. It will make you think you can’t do the things you have set out to do, which will mean you will over-deliver. It will stop you from focusing on your mission, and you will learn about things like procrastination and executive dysfunction. But you will also learn about coping strategies and have therapy that will help you live in the present, rather than the past.

A hopeful future

I wish I could have told you all of this when you needed to hear it most. If anything this letter to my younger self proves that there is so much to look forward to in life, even through great struggles and adversity. If you have read this far, I hope this gives you hope for your future.

Corinne x