Christine McGuiness: Unmasking my autism

I've just finished reading her book too, 'cos I am obsessed with reading the bios of other autistic people.  I find them affirming.  Christine's book gives a great perspective on the vulnerability of autistic women, as well as being and autistic parent of autistic kids.

I've been following both for ages they are so inspirational! At school autism isn't the most popular thing but since this it's a bit more recognised which I'm really happy about.

Thanks Dawn!

I watched this last night. I waited until I had the spoons to properly take it all in and allow time for reflection afterwards. What an important program and very well presented too. I’m hoping that between this and the Chris Packham episodes, awareness and understanding will start to build.

In pursuit of understanding from those in the outside world, I have used these shows as a way of explaining my experiences of the world. On reflection, I feel this may be a somewhat flawed strategy though. Whilst these shows can serve to highlight some of the invisible challenges I face on a daily basis, saying things like “my experiences lie somewhere between person a and person b” when discussing how the shows apply to me is perhaps doing my individuality a disservice, as well as a disservice to the people being spoken about. Something to work on perhaps. Or maybe an indication that there is scope for more to be done. I think we could all do well, as a society, to listen to each other a little bit more.

Anyway, back onto the topic at hand. I really respect what Christine has done here and thank her for sharing in such a relatable way for so many of us.

We had to adapt and mask heavily, it was survival mode. We do act differently, we couldn’t freely express ourselves as autistic children are now able to. This is an extract of something I read a few days ago.

I think I've been searching a long time for another autistic person who I can 100% relate to. Books, youtube, tv, blogs etc. I've now realised this isn't going to happen because everyone is different, has different backgrounds and lives. I think we seek some sort of validation from others because, as later diagnosed adults,  we haven't felt accepted for so long (whether this is by ourselves or by others). I am just me really and autism explains how I process the world. There are a lot of autistic people just going about their daily lives who have found other coping strategies or been lucky enough not to have had such shitty things happen to them. But that doesn't make interesting tv.

Alice-nice-Alice said:

“when you’ve met one autistic person you’ve met one autistic person

You are totally right, we are all different, I’m an older person, I never had an eating disorder, growing up in a 1970’s household definitely wasn’t a democracy.  You had to eat what you were given, I became more selective with food as I got older. We are all uniquely autistic. I found the Chris Packham programs interesting, I didn’t relate to some of the people shown, it did show how huge the spectrum is. Personally Flo is about 80% me, I did understand how Christine felt with planning a day, I had an appointment moved yesterday by 4 hours, it sent me into a tailspin. I read one of your posts where you mentioned bipolar disorder, I have a neighbour who is about your age, my wife goes dog walking with her. My wife often pairs up with her, they find the rest of the group too loud and tend to talk about inane nothing. She told my wife that she was diagnosed as bipolar years ago, I have only met her a few times, it’s quite obvious to me, she’s autistic. She is very good in business, home life is much harder for her.
Sorry I’m rambling now, we have a lot of years to look back on and wonder the  “ what if’s “ we are all just different, it doesn’t make any of us less autistic, we just have different needs.

Take care.

I thought it was excellent and another good contribution to the growing awareness of autism in women, however I didn’t actually enjoy it and didn’t truly feel connected with her or most of the young women portrayed. Afterwards I had to resort to one of my go-to coping strategies- tidying and aligning, in this case my collection of old bottles and the drinks mats in my library.  Part of I couldn’t connect is that I’ve never experienced an eating disorder, nor sexual abuse or rape and at 64 I’m generations older than those featured. , I’m not diminishing it’s important contribution though at all, it just wasn’t me.  I preferred the Chris Packham documentaries and the phrase he used “when you’ve met one autistic person you’ve met one autistic person!”  

I have now seen the programme. It was an eye opener regarding the suffering some have gone through.

For me personally it added another layer to my self realisation. I have begun to see more of what was autism when I was at school, but just wished these things were not so hard for me and others not understanding. For so long I felt like I was odd but not something you discuss.

Christine's comments about smell were interesting too as I wondered for years why others weren't concerned about smells I observed. Interestingly I can only recall meeting one other woman I was aware was autistic.

It also helped me to understand the unmasking I have done in the last two years. I have been wondering what the connection was with this and the pandemic, apart from my realisation of autism at this time. I have concluded that the prevention of socialising helped to give myself permission to accept that it was ok to avoid it at times when it felt too uncomfortable.

The best bit - "what if you don't show up for your own life?"

I really enjoyed this. As someone who is recently diagnosed it was refreshing to see women with such warmth on there and hugging (which has been a great source of imposter syndrome for me). I definitely related to the lady who said she freaks out if someone invites her to coffee the next day - like that is no time to process!!

I escaped that by a hair's breath I think. I had the same misdiagnosis as her. Thank god I refused the meds, I could have ended up seriously I'll physically

I thought it was all very well presented, the pattern of how autistic teens are treated is now unfortunately so predictable. When she opened up about sexual abuse I saw myself in her chair, I only opened up recently to a professional, I explained, I was a young teen and didn’t know I’m autistic and didn’t understand the rules. It was explained to me that, I didn’t understand the rules but people who do these things do, I was a child, they are adults. I wonder how many autistic children are sexually abused. The figures I’m sure are quite high. 
It’s little things that make a difference, the woman Christine visited asked if it was okay to hug when greeting her. I would love to see a program follow the journey of a 50+ person.

I thought this programme raised some important issues which need to be addressed and the people were brave in sharing.

What I particularly thought about afterwards was how those lessons about relationships should be taught in all schools across the board.  I wish someone had taught my younger self about coercive and manipulative relationships.

I forgot this was on I’ll definitely have to watch it later

Very much so. I just finished watching it.....was clearly very difficult for Christine to share some of her experiences but credit to her for doing so. 

I can't remember the young womans name who had been sectioned but could relate to her most as i was sectioned myself in 2017 and spent 5 years in psychiatric units i should never have been in

They both did us proud

Thanks Dawn, i completely forgot this was on. I really warmed to Melissa when i watched her Now I Know video. I'm hoping NAS do more of them in the future