Feeling Like Everyone Else Got the Instruction Manual to Life | Am I Autistic or something?

I spent my early adulthood completely lost. I questioned everything — why society is organized the way it is, why people believe what they believe, who makes the rules, and how anyone is supposed to know right from wrong. It felt like everyone else was handed a secret user manual for life… except me.

Growing up with a single mom who was never home and a father who taught me almost nothing. Then, at age 10, moving from Japan to Canada — suddenly having to adapt to a whole new culture while feeling like a perpetual outsider. Being bullied, misunderstood, and constantly observing from the edges made me build my entire sense of reality from the ground up.

I share how this mix of minimal parenting, cultural whiplash, and immigrant experiences left me deconstructing every social norm, belief, and system just to make sense of the world. Was it autism? Was it trauma? Or was it simply what happens when you’re given no scaffolding and forced to figure it all out yourself?

Looking back at my old journals from 17 years ago, I see how intensely I questioned everything — and how that painful process eventually became one of my greatest strengths: an independent mind that doesn’t blindly accept “because that’s just how it is.”

If you’ve ever felt like you missed the manual to life…If you’re a 1.5-generation immigrant, Third Culture Kid, or anyone who had to rebuild their worldview from scratch…You might relate.