I Thought I Stopped Writing

For almost fifteen years, I thought I had stopped writing.
Life happened.
Marriage happened.
Children happened.
Business happened.
Deadlines happened.
Laundry definitely happened.
And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that writing was something I used to do.
Something from a previous version of me.
A younger me.
A freer me.
A me who had time.
A me who wasn’t responsible for keeping tiny humans alive, managing a household, running a business, helping care for aging parents, and trying to remember why she walked into a room in the first place.
So I quietly placed that dream on a shelf.
Not because I wanted to.
Because life got loud.
And for many years, I genuinely believed the story I kept telling myself:
“I used to be a writer.”
Then something unexpected happened.
While rebuilding my digital life recently, I started digging through old files.
Old Facebook posts.
Old Trello cards.
Old notebooks.
Old OneNote pages.
Random Word documents hiding in forgotten folders.
Half-finished thoughts.
Tiny stories.
Reflections.
Poems.
Observations.
Personal essays.
Little pieces of myself scattered everywhere.
And suddenly I realised something.
I never stopped writing.
Not once.
I just stopped calling myself a writer.
The evidence was everywhere.
Thousands of words.
Hundreds of entries.
Fifteen years worth of captured thoughts.
Some polished.
Some embarrassing.
Some heartbreakingly honest.
Some written at 2 a.m. while everyone else was asleep.
Some written while waiting in cars.
Some written between homeschooling lessons.
Some written during seasons where I was barely holding myself together.
But written nonetheless.
Then came another discovery.
At 45 years old, I was diagnosed with ADHD.
Not long after that, I began understanding that many of my lifelong experiences also aligned strongly with autism.
Suddenly, entire chapters of my life started making sense.
The exhaustion.
The masking.
The sensory overwhelm.
The feeling of being different but never knowing why.
The decades spent trying to force myself into systems that worked for everyone else but somehow never worked for me.
Including writing.
Especially writing.
For years I tried to write the way writing experts said I should write.
Follow the formula.
Follow the framework.
Follow the content strategy.
Follow the algorithm.
And every time I did, something felt off.
The words were there.
But I wasn’t.
It took a burnout I never saw coming to force me to slow down long enough to ask a difficult question:
What if there was never anything wrong with the way I write?
What if I was simply trying to wear somebody else’s voice?
That question eventually led me here.
To this website.
To this little corner of the internet.
To JyllWrites.
So what is JyllWrites?
Honestly?
I’m still discovering that myself.
But I know what it is not.
It is not a personal branding machine.
It is not a content funnel.
It is not a carefully curated highlight reel.
Instead, think of it as a living library.
A place where stories, reflections, observations, lessons, questions, mistakes, discoveries, and unfinished thoughts are allowed to exist together.
Some posts will be about homeschooling.
Some will be about neurodiversity.
Some will be about motherhood.
Some will be about business.
Some will be about faith.
Some will be about burnout.
Some will simply be strange little stories about fish, fried chicken, MRT stations, sensory overload, or conversations that refuse to leave my head.
Because that’s what real life looks like.
Messy.
Connected.
Human.
If you’ve found your way here, welcome.
Maybe you’re a fellow late-diagnosed neurospicy adult.
Maybe you’re a parent.
Maybe you’re homeschooling.
Maybe you’re rebuilding yourself after a season that nearly broke you.
Or maybe you simply enjoy reading the thoughts of a woman trying to make sense of the world one story at a time.
Whatever brought you here, I’m glad you’re here.
Fifteen years ago, I thought I wanted to become a writer.
Today I know something different.
Writing was never the destination.
Writing was always the breadcrumb trail leading me back to myself.
And after all these years, I think I’ve finally found my way home.
Welcome to JyllWrites.
Let’s see where the story goes next.

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