The Girl I Had to Be

This one is for the adult looking back — at the girl who masked, performed, studied other kids to copy them, and tried so hard to be normal that nobody noticed how hard she was working. She was missed, and she paid for it. This is a space to see her clearly and make some peace with who you had to be to get through.

The performance

Who I had to be to get by as a girl — the roles I played, the masking, the rules I taught myself

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What it cost her

What that performance cost — then, and carried forward

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What she needed and didn't get

What would have helped, if anyone had seen and understood her

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What I'd tell her now

Speak to her directly. She's still in there.

What I want that girl to know

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She did an extraordinary job: With no map and no name for any of it, she survived. You're allowed to grieve what she went through — and you're allowed to stop performing now. She doesn't have to keep working that hard.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

• Masking and Camouflaging, from The Autistic Woman. What autistic masking is, how girls learn it early, what it costs — exhaustion, anxiety, lost identity — and the CAT-Q.
• You Were Never Broken, from The Autistic Woman. Discovering you're autistic as an adult woman: the relief and grief of late discovery, and the reframe from 'broken' to differently wired.
• Women, Hormones, and Neurodivergence, from The Neurodivergent Brain. Why autistic women are missed — the internalized, camouflaged presentation and how hormones shape it.
• Grief, from Self-Identification. For the childhood that had no explanation, the years of trying harder, and the version of you that got blamed.