For me, dancing was a primitive release, and I remember the liberation and the joy – the pure and intense joy – that it brought (and still brings). That I wasn’t any good was inconsequential: it was the experience, the deep and profound connection to music and movement that made me feel graceful, and beautiful, and made my heart beat to a new rhythm…
When I was seven, I knew – with a clarity that has carried me through my whole life – that I wanted to spend my life immersed in history. Medieval history to be exact. It was – and remains – my passion, one of my best friends, my intellectual release, my delight, and my pleasure. It relaxes me and excites me in equal measure, it invigorates me and soothes my soul…
When I was eight, I recited Wordsworth poetry to my class for show and tell. I don’t think I really understood the meaning, but his words took me away, the minute details of a vivid landscape painted indelibly in my mind’s eye…
When I was thirteen, I learnt the harp because the music was so haunting and ethereal it felt like the notes could reach inside me and lull my frantic mind. I had no talent for it, but the feeling of caressing the strings, the comforting weight of the instrument, and the gentle melodies appeased my fractured emotions…
When I was fifteen, I was a budding thespian (I can still quote Prospero’s monologue from The Tempest). Shakespeare transported me to another place, another time, with language that was carefully – and magnificently – crafted, and meaning that could be studied, probed, explored without censure…
When I was in my twenties, I completed my PhD. Far from finding it stressful, the thrill of being totally immersed in my passion day in, day out, filled me with great joy, and peace, and satisfaction…
Now I am in my forties, and I help others to see the beauty in their – and their children’s – Autism…
Of course, there are challenges, and moments of self-doubt or isolation or exclusion, and there always have been.
At high school, I slept little and read compulsively to escape from the bullying and isolation and loneliness, from the social burden of my difference. Reading was escapism, it helped me to distract myself from peers who didn’t accept me and who actively disliked and shunned me. A teenager’s version of imaginary friends, if you will.
My parents were my social life. And they took me to doctor after doctor to try and explain the paralysing physical illness I experienced every morning before school, the crippling sickness that struck me each day. I now know it is my anxiety, which still manifests bodily.
As an adult, I have used alcohol as a social crutch to allow me to function socially. And I accept the post-socialising migraine as just a part of life.
I wear aromatherapy jewellery to allow me to function without retching at other people’s smells, their perfume or aftershave, the scent of banana or onion or coffee on their breath. I am that woman who can’t control her gag at your cigarette smoke, who has to fight down vomit at the smell of your body odour, who avoids freshly cut grass.
I have developed techniques that help me control my anxiety if I am running late – or someone else is. But my heart still beats too fast, and I still feel suffocated by the panic I feel when I just might be late.
I now recognise the tingling feeling like electricity in my fingertips as a need to stim, and I indulge and feel better.
I make lists compulsively to help me feel like I am in control.
But, then, sometimes I can’t ‘do’ because I need to ‘list’. Sometimes my listing is so obsessive, it controls me.
I know it’s not the usual or ‘done’ thing for a woman in her forties to laud her own beauty, but that self-knowledge has been hard earned and long denied, and my well-being needs that kind of self-acceptance.
And there, finally, is that word: acceptance. Autism acceptance is not about denying the challenges. But… it requires you to look for – and then to see, truly and genuinely – the beauty and joy of and in Autism. Because it is there to see, if you care to look.
NB: This blog was originally published in 2018 by Plumtree Children’s Services as an April Autism Acceptance post.
The Reframing Autism team would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we have the privilege to learn, work, and grow. Whilst we gather on many different parts of this Country, the RA team walk on the land of the Amangu, Awabakal, Bindjareb, Birpai, Whadjak, Wiradjuri and Yugambeh peoples.
We are committed to honouring the rich culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this Country, and the diversity and learning opportunities with which they provide us. We extend our gratitude and respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and to all Elders past and present, for their wisdom, their resilience, and for helping this Country to heal.
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