I’m Allie

I currently live and work on a small holding, raising a flock of friendly sheep in a beautiful, peaceful setting. Like many women of my generation, I spent most of my life not knowing I was autistic. I navigated work, relationships, motherhood, and menopause, often overwhelmed, often masking, and quietly wondering why life felt harder than it seemed for everyone else.

Discovering I was autistic in my late fifties changed everything

It wasn’t a neat or gentle revelation. It was profound, disorientating and at times overwhelming. I had lived nearly six decades with one understanding of myself, and suddenly everything needed re-examining.

It took me a couple of years of therapy, reflection, difficult conversations and an enormous amount of emotional energy. I had a long marriage, adult children, grandchildren, friendships and business commitments woven through my life.

Learning about my neurodivergence meant bringing the people closest to me alongside that journey too.

There was grief.

There was relief.

There was anger.

There was deep re-evaluation.

Alongside all of that came recognition of my strengths — my creativity, my pattern-noticing and my depth. It wasn’t about becoming someone new, but about growing sideways and allowing a fuller, steadier version of myself to emerge.

Before I had the language to understand my own neurodivergence, I led an initiative called The Extra Smile Project, supporting women in crisis over more than a decade.

It taught me the quiet power of listening without fixing, expectation, or agenda.

Lived experience, not a framework