Autism was a condition I knew nothing about and as I was born in the mid seventies, I heard very little about it when I was young. My first awareness of autism was when my son was diagnosed at the age of four. He not only had autism, but learning difficulties too. I faced so many challenges over the years to get the best support for him. He was a great kid, but to be honest, my family isolated me, as nobody seemed to know how to deal with it.

Image by Chen from Pixabay

Discovering I was autistic was a shock as I was diagnosed in my late forties. I had lived my whole life thinking of myself as having one identity, then to discover it was something different was difficult to make sense of. I remember feeling mass panic realising that the reasons things in my life were always going wrong were likely because I had autism. It was difficult to understand how I had gone through all these years and been unaware I had this condition. I knew that my life could have followed a completely different path if I had known. I would have not been hard on myself and the same with others around me. Some could not understand why I did not behave in a way they thought I should. The reality is there was not the same knowledge of how to spot people on the spectrum that there is today.

When I was at nursery, I did not speak to anyone and the same when I moved into primary one when I started school. The school tried to understand what was going on. I remember it well, being at an appointment arranged by the school where I was playing with two dolls. I filled them with water and watched in fascination as the water streamed out of the bottom of each doll as my mum stood behind, discussing me with another woman. To be honest, I am not sure what they were thinking then, but it likely wasn’t autism.

I love spending time on my own, but I do like to spend time with people too. I suppose that is the case with all of us, but for me I get exhausted when I don’t get long breaks from socialising. I wish it wasn’t so difficult, having to use so much brain power trying to understand why people do things the way they do and me not always getting why they do it.

I hope my writing will help readers to understand. People on the spectrum are all different, so this blog is one way it can present.