A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

One woman’s decades-long journey to a diagnosis of autism, and the barriers that keep too many neurodivergent people from knowing their true selves

Marian Schembari was thirty-four years old when she learned she was autistic. By then, she’d spent decades hiding her tics and shutting down in public, wondering why she couldn’t just act like everyone else. Therapists told her she had Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, sensory processing disorder, social anxiety, and recurrent depression. They prescribed breathing techniques and gratitude journaling. Nothing helped.

It wasn’t until years later that she finally learned the truth: she wasn’t weird or deficient or moody or sensitive or broken. She was autistic.

Today, more people than ever are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Testing improvements have made it easier to identify neurodivergence, especially among women and girls who spent decades dismissed by everyone from parents to doctors, and misled by gender-biased research. A diagnosis can end the cycle of shame and invisibility, but only if it can be found.

In this deeply personal and researched memoir, Schembari’s journey takes her from the mountains of New Zealand to the tech offices of San Francisco, from her first love to her first child, all with unflinching honesty and good humor.

A Little Less Broken breaks down the barriers that leave women in the dark about their own bodies, and reveals what it truly means to embrace our differences.

Marian Schembari is a writer whose essays about travel, friendship, money, and love have appeared in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and Good Housekeeping. At thirty-four years old, Marian was diagnosed with autism, which she chronicled on the lifestyle site, Cup of Jo. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and daughter.