Sections within this post
Listen to this post
For my first ever blog post, it made sense to start from where it all began - with autism being a lifelong and present condition and all. I was diagnosed as an adult, into my third decade - so what was life like leading up to the diagnosis moment? What signs were present without me or anybody else knowing or noticing?
Childhood
I can’t remember as far back as being born (does anyone? That’s something to Google later…) but do remember displaying symptoms quite early on in my childhood. Being in a school environment, learning to fit in to the world around me meant a lot of traits were probably masked or ‘dumbed down’, to avoid any further ostracisation (which happened anyway).
Quiet and shy
If I had a pound / dollar / Euro for every time I have been described as either of these words in my life (by myself or others) then I wouldn’t need to be working a full-time job right now.
Friendships were quality over quantity for me - I stuck to one friend like glue inside and outside of school. The poor person had to endure my bossy tendencies and infodumps on obscure special interests. Furthermore, I relied on the same peers and authority figures over and over again to speak on my behalf, or stand up for me.
I also didn’t like having an audience, at all. Any form of presenting, reading out to class, standing in front of a group of people etc. At one point, I was put through dancing lessons and did perform on stage a couple of times, but always at the back within a huge group (less people could see me clumsily fumbling the moves that way too). The other times we had to be on stage (and even school swimming lessons, despite being a strong swimmer), I flat out refused to take part.
Much like the dance class, I was encouraged to go to a weekend social club and to take part in kids’ clubs on holidays (vacations) - the weekend social club was just-about bearable as I had a close friend there, but as for the holiday clubs, I would spend the entire holiday desperately wishing to join in with the other kids, but only actually would get the courage to do so on the day before going back home.
Being an only child, but not realising I was autistic and struggling socially as a result of that, these were means to get me to mix with other kids. Being an only child was definitely a reason for not being diagnosed until much later in life - my ‘quirky’, bossy and fiercely independent behaviours were chalked up to me having no siblings. However, meeting other only children throughout life proved otherwise.
Control, structure and rigidity
Throughout childhood, and even beyond that, I was quite fearful of getting into trouble, authority figures and breaking rules. Fear of criticism definitely came from having a lifelong perfectionist trait. One time at school, someone got me into trouble and I cried and cried after being told off and for the unjust nature of doing nothing wrong but getting the sole blame.
Play time was my pretend play, my rules, and my special interest. I was this character, you were that character, and this is what we are doing. No budging. Looking back, it’s no surprise that I ended up playing alone most of the time.
A love for control and organisation also bled into an obsession with stationery - filing things neatly, colour-coding etc. and lining up toys and books in an order that if anyone disrupted it, all hell would break loose (I hated anyone touching my things in general).
Sensory issues
The most overt sensory issues I had were surrounding food, smells and noise.
As an incredibly fussy eater, vegetables were off the table and ‘beige food’ had to be separated out so that beans were in a bowl and not making the turkey dinosaurs go soggy (fast forward to modern day, I am now vegetarian, believe it or not).
Growing up in an era where smoking indoors was commonplace, the aversion to the smell was enough to make me never try smoking (anything, or vaping) in my life.
Social anxiety on top of noise and lack of control meant I often cried at my own birthday parties. Almost every year. Without fail.
‘Savant skills’
Yes, I hate the term too - but as a child, I was hyperlexic and well ahead of my peers in reading, writing and comprehension. Despite diabolical mobility skills (physical education and sport was living hell - I cried often in gymnastics), drawing and writing were no issue and I was the first in the class to earn the rite of passage of a ‘handwriting pen’ rather than a HB pencil to write with. I devoured books meant for those a couple of years older, got full marks on spelling tests on every occasion and was in the ‘top set’ for everything (writing those pained me as someone who has non-existent self-esteem and lives for self-deprecation).
Special interests
One of the most overt signs that I was autistic but was thought nothing of, was the intensity of interests I had as a kid (and still nowadays). These surrounded anime shows, dolls, video games and musicians. Pokémon led to Yu-Gi-Oh! led to Hamtaro and into BeyBlade. Barbie became Bratz, Steps became Busted.
My close friends at the time really had a lot of patience to listen to my endless infodumps and obsessing over these interests over the years. The poor souls probably still to this day don’t know what characters they were meant to be portraying in our pretend play sessions.
As a kid, terms for gender identity were far less commonplace, and so I was often referred to as a ‘tomboy’ - my interests arguably spread across the whole gender spectrum. My interests also did not specifically fall under the ‘stereotypical autistic interests’ umbrella - but they were still intense and all-encompassing, all the same.
It isn’t all just ‘black and white’ (it is, I’m autistic)
Looking back at photos and video tapes of me as a child, I was either really happy and smiley, or really grumpy-looking in them. Seemingly, my moods were very much ‘black and white’, much like my thinking patterns. Chances are, the really happy times captured were the times I was in control, and spending time with special interests and / or my safe people.
Start of teenagehood
The transition from primary (junior) school to high (middle) school was difficult and incredibly stark. I wasn’t ready to grow up, or put away my dolls just yet. Leaving behind ‘childish’ special interests was painful, but eventually, I found newer, ‘age-appropriate’ ones. Social dynamics got even more complicated, and social mishaps were far less forgiving.
Thank you very much for reading this blog post. I appreciate you spending time here on my corner of the internet. Hopefully you got something out of reading the essay above.
Stay tuned for the next part in the series and be the first to read it by following me on the social media links, in the menu bar, to know exactly when new posts are published.
Until next time,
