Marty has lived many lives and gone by many names for over half a century on this planet.

She is not shy about her age because, within a few years of her personal half-century mark, Marty was diagnosed with multiple discoveries that made her fifty years before coming into focus.

As a curious child, Marty danced and sang before she walked and talked, finding a rhythm to her life in the music both of her parents enjoyed. Having divorced when she was a small child, her parents didn’t agree on much besides their love for their children and a love for the music and singing that they instilled within both of their children.

Creativity and several special interests marked Marty’s childhood and teenage life. Although Marty loved writing poetry and essay assignments in school caused her more joy than pain (unlike her peers), making a living from writing wasn’t easily conceptualized by her neurodivergent brain that vacillated between being a compulsive rule follower to rebelling against every demand.

She chose occupational routes fulfilling special interests, but her body couldn’t endure them long. Marty loved working as a back office nurse, a phlebotomist, and then as a computer programmer, but in 2005, she was forced into medical retirement.

Unknown to Marty, she had been born with several co-occurring conditions. Marty has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (a genetic connective tissue disease) as well as combined neurodivergence (ADHD/ASD), Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD), and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Through a life highlighted by multiple traumas, Marty developed Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). 

Although Marty knows she wasn’t the mom she wanted to be, she is taking the opportunity of her mental health treatment to try to become a better grandma.

Marty expanded her social media presence to include TikTok (@NeurodivergentGranny) in 2021 and found that many of her followers were the same age as her teenage grandchildren. Marty enjoys providing a safe place for others to process their trauma as she processes some of her own.

While in disability retirement, Marty found herself without a home for seven and a half years. Marty’s first memior, The Car That Ran on Prayers, explores her final year homeless, living in a 1983 Volvo Sedan with two dogs as she traveled across the country to graduate from college and to watch her daughter become the first in their family with a college degree.

Marty is queer and uses the pronouns she/her/they/them.

Marty lives with her dog, Ruger Bear (who she has also written about!) in Olympia, Washington, and uses many mobility aids and supports to help her in this world, including a powerchair and caregivers.

Marty is an open book. Most of what she is processing, she has written about. Marty believes in helping others obtain the support they need to advocate for their own best healthcare.

If you don’t see something you are looking for here on her main blog, check out one of her other sites:

A Good Herb In Its Time: Cannabis information and recipes

My MEs Blog: Marty’s exploration into the world of her DID

Slightely Maggie: Marty (then Maggie) discusses her life, including her health self-advocacy in this short-lived podcast.

Marty’s first book, The Car That Ran on Prayers, is well on its way to being finished. To read the essay that started the journey to this book, check out this link: The Car That Runs on Prayers (Longform Essay).

Thank you for your interest in Marty and their writing!

~Love and Lighte from Marty Slighte~

All photography except where noted is by Maggie Slighte. (Another special interest of Maggie’s is photography)

Love and Lighte from Maggie Slighte!