Being an #OwnVoices author is a rollercoaster.

People are so accepting & compassionate. But I feel like an imposter some days because, for the first 25 years of my life, I kept my full self a secret. My family don't talk about it. Most of them didn't know until the book came out

My many doctor visits and occupational therapy sessions as a kid were never fully explained to me. I didn't have the language to understand why I was different, I just knew I was. No one told me it was okay. No one told me it was natural. No one even told me what *it* was.

I've had people from my past apologise to me since reading the book, which I never expected. I've had family members get emotional. But it's still an unspoken thing. I'm not throwing around some marketing line when I say I wrote the book for an eleven-year old me. It's the truth.

I gave my main character the gift of knowing and loving exactly who she is. I gave her a fictional mentor who had all of the answers. I gave her a home where everything was understood. I took out 95% of the ableism.

And, spoiler alert, I gave the story a happy ending.

I know who I am. The whole of me. The parts that were so intricately hidden for years. The parts that were told to quieten down. The parts I was told were not enough. Writing this book was like meeting myself for the first time. All the specific pieces that had been written out

I wrote them all back in.

I wrote every one of them back in.

And now I'm free.