Christine McGuiness: Unmasking my autism

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!”  

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.

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.