In this meeting of The Late Diagnosis Club, Dr Angela Kingdon welcomes Tara for one of the most difficult and important conversations the Club has held.
⚠️ Content notice: This episode includes discussion of violence, sexual abuse, child harm, and coercive control. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Please pause or skip as needed and take care of yourself.
Tara is a late-diagnosed Autistic woman, a mother, and a survivor of severe childhood abuse, abduction, and exploitation. She shares her story not for shock, but to illuminate how Autistic girls and women are uniquely vulnerable — especially when they grow up without protection, language, or recognition of their neurodivergence.
Together, Angela and Tara explore survival as an Autistic trait, truth-telling as both a strength and a liability, vulnerability to cults and exploitative systems, and the long road to healing through prolonged exposure therapy. Tara’s story is harrowing — but it is also a testament to resilience, instinct, and the life-saving power of being believed.
🪑 Attendees
Chair: Dr Angela Kingdon — Author, community-builder, and Autistic advocate
Guest: Tara — late-diagnosed Autistic woman, mother, and survivor
You: The Listener!
🗒️ Meeting Agenda
🧾 Minutes from the Meeting
1️⃣ Opening Remarks
Angela opens the meeting with a clear trigger warning and an explanation of the safeguards taken to ensure this conversation was shared safely and consensually. This episode is framed as difficult — but necessary — for Autistic people, particularly women and girls, whose experiences of abuse are often misunderstood or erased.
2️⃣ Member Introduction: Tara’s Story
Tara describes knowing she was different from early childhood — hyperlexic, highly intelligent, sensory-sensitive, and deeply compliant. As a CODA, she was placed in adult responsibilities far too young, acting as her mother’s ears while navigating an unsafe home environment.
Family members responded to her Autistic traits with punishment and violence rather than protection. Tara was repeatedly locked away, beaten, and labelled with slurs — experiences that primed her for later exploitation.
At 14, Tara was abducted by adults known to her family. She was held, tortured, and left for dead. No search party was launched. No justice followed. Tara survived through instinct, dissociation, and an extraordinary will to live.
3️⃣ Discussion Highlights
4️⃣ Key Learnings
📣 Club Announcements
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