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Mom: It took us a long time. She was nine before she was diagnosed,
so I think as early as three is when I was sort of like, “Oh, you’ve

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got some stuff that sort of makes me think you’re sitting somewhere
on the spectrum.” But for Evelyn, it came out a lot like anxiety,

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so she was certainly having, like, some emotional regulation challenges—more
so than most three- and four-year-old peers. Umm but . . . but it

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really was looking like anxiety. She was rigid. She had challenges
when we would umm—

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Evelyn: I was a dry noodle.

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Mom: Yeah, that’s the analogy that we use: That like the . . .
a noodle that is, like, too rigid because it’s not cooked—

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Evelyn: Or a soggy noodle.

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Mom: So you have to be flexible sometimes. But you had trouble
with that, even from little ages. But I . . . I really was like,

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“Oh, it’s the anxiety stuff that seems bigger to me. It’s, like,
the more forward part of all of this.” So we pursued things to try

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to see if we could help her develop some coping skills around that.
Umm, different types of, like, play-based and then later on talk

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therapy and counseling and just trying to help see. Umm, you also
have to think about the timing of all this. She was five when the

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pandemic happened, so then I was like, “Well, every kid is dealing
with anxiety. We’re all dealing with anxiety.” So we really struggled

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through the pandemic. All of our routines were gone. But I sort
of thought to myself, like, “I can’t see what’s happening in the

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midst of this really weird circumstance.” Following that, Evelyn
had a brain injury, umm, from slipping and falling and hitting her

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head—

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Evelyn: Out of the bathtub.

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Mom: Then we were sort of like, “Well, okay. We still think this
is in the background, but, like, these other things are a lot more

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pressing.” So it . . . it wasn’t until she was nine that we really
actively started pursuing, umm, an autism evaluation. And then the

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challenge in my mind was I was like, “How do I find a community
provider who understands autism in girls—especially girls—umm, who

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have, you know, like an average or higher intelligence?” Like, not
everybody is equipped for that type of diagnosis. And especially

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when we knew at that time also, we suspected ADHD and anxiety were
in the equation. And so it’s like, “Well, who . . . who can really,

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like, actually kind of help us parse this out and understand all
of this? So—

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 Evelyn: I liked the person who did it.

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Mom: We found the best person. It ended up being wonderful. Umm,
but it was . . . it was challenging and it was frustrating. And,

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you know, dealing with insurance who didn’t end up paying for the
evaluation at all and all of those sorts of things were just really

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a complicated part. What’s cool about that process I think, though,
was we got to talk about autism and neurodiversity for years—

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Evelyn: Yeah.

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Mom: Before you had a diagnosis.