Reasons I thought I may be autistic: Childhood Signs Edition - Part 1

In the process of my diagnosis, I elected to write a voluntary dissertation of 10,000+ words, in one non-stop 6-hour session, as to why I might be autistic. Guess the assessment wasn't really needed.

Last summer, on the waiting list for my autism assessment, I decided to sit down and write down as many reasons as I could about why I thought I might be autistic. I’m sure the bemused looks on the psychiatrists’ faces when I turned up with those thirteen pages in a binder defined the moment they telepathically agreed: “there’s no way in hell she isn’t on the spectrum”.

In my quest for discovering what on earth was making everything so bafflingly difficult - when everyone else just seemed to be getting on with it and not having nervous breakdowns every eighteen months - I found other peoples’ first-person accounts of their autistic experiences to be life-changing. So I thought I’d share mine.

The experiences below are by no means universal; the saying goes: “if you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism” - but I hope some may resonate with you and be helpful in your own journey.

Last time, it was sensory differences, this week it’s childhood signs:

• Supermarket meltdowns. Something that only came to light in the midst of my autism research/exploration, but I used to have full blown meltdowns in the supermarket as a child, with very little apparent reason. My mum sometimes would hide in the next aisle due to embarrassment until I calmed down 

• Touch avoidant. I was not a particularly tactile child - but I’m not sure whether this is a result of having a suspected-ASD dad and a self-professed ‘unmaternal’ mum

• Very independent and introverted. My mum recalls being upset on my first day of school as I just ran straight into class without turning to wave, whilst my younger sister had a full on nervous tantrum and had to have the headmistress peel her off of my mum 

• Bizarre social obsessions. I would fixate on very random things as a child, such as the velvet headband that my Year 3 teacher would wear, to such an extent that my mum once brought it up to her thinking it was cute at a parents’ evening. I was understandably mortified. In Year 4, I took a liking to a young male supply teacher, who I found out was a fellow cat-lover (long-standing special interest) and orchestrated a group of girls to create this huge A2 encyclopaedic scrap-book of cat breeds, to present him with when he left the position

• Accidental bluntness/not reading social cues. At Disneyland (aged 13), my nana had hinted that she really liked a little keychain in one of the shops - it was cheap and, in hindsight, she clearly would’ve liked it as a keepsake gift for bringing myself and my sister there. Without realising at the time (I didn’t realise for another decade or so), when she said “aww isn’t this nice?”, I just responded emphatically with “yes, you should buy it!”. Despite the fact I can now recall her seeming upset at the time, I didn’t put the two together for a long time afterwards

• Not fitting in with other girls. I technically had a ‘friend group’ in primary school, but I always knew I didn’t quite fit in. I always wanted to organise and almost categorise all their dolls’ clothes, rather than engage in any imaginative play. When we did, I was always clumsy and tended to break things - which did not go down well - e.g. playing horses in the playground with the summer dresses that had waist-ties, and managing to be so overzealous that I ripped one of the girls’ dresses. I always felt a bit too much when I tried and too little when I tried to only observe

• Preferring to socialise with adults. On the days where I got temporarily ousted from the friend group for one of my many well-meaning mishaps, I would gravitate towards the school dinner ladies/playground monitors/teaching assistants, finding that conversations with them made so much more sense and could often be centred around niche things. E.g. We had a teaching assistant (not the aforementioned supply teacher) who really liked Siamese cats, so we would spend lunchtimes exchange nerdy facts about cats. I suspect looking back that he was also on the spectrum, but I cherished those interactions in a world that was otherwise pretty lonely whenever I thought about it for too long

• Hyperlexic. I devoured books as a child and was classed as ‘gifted/talented’. I was offered a scholarship to a private girls’ school, but turned it down as I was concerned that my working class background would cause me even more social issues than I had already experienced in a standard school setting

• Peculiar interests. When I was in the last year of primary school, we had to write a biography in English about somebody we admired. All the girls in my class chose someone suitably en-vogue at the time - a Spice Girl, or Britney Spears - but I chose… Dido. I was absolutely obsessed with Dido - particularly the unique vocal inflections she sings in her songs - and the lyrics. Once when my cat died, I reworded one of her songs to be about the cat… I think that’s a good place to finish

Again, all to be taken with a pinch of salt insofar as true indicators of being autistic go - as we’re all individually weird and wonderful - but those were some elements of my childhood experience growing up undiagnosed. I hope some of it may resonate. There will be a part two for this one…