What does autism mean to you?

If you hear the word ‘autism’, what is the first image that springs to mind? That will depend on your exposure, won’t it.

I was in my 50s when I was diagnosed in 2023. Autism or signs of autism start to show from around 2 years old, but when I was that age, autism was viewed very differently. PubMed is a database of clinical publications and research. Clinical journals from as ‘late’ as 1978, the year that I started in senior school, were still using words phrases like ‘severely dsyfunctional’ or ‘retarded’. Yet, in primary school, where we were streamed according to academic ability, I was in the top set. When I started in my primary school, I remember being tested for my reading ability at age 8. The school used a series called “Through the Rainbow”. At age 8, I was on to the top books in the range, the Silver and Gold readers, which were not to be taken home as the child was believed to be advanced enough to not need practice.

So, how did that equate with words like ‘retarded’? Quite clearly, it did not, particularly considering that I passed my 11+ test at the age of 10, and started senior school a year early, one of five girls in my year.

From age 12, I had a list on my bedroom wall of what was required to be a solicitor. My parents had decided that would be my career. I was a good girl, quiet and studious, and quite different to my ‘bold as brass’ sister. I didn’t question that path. I didn’t question when we ‘chose’ our O levels, which leant heavily on Arts, with no s wince whatsoever. My A-levels were chosen from that same list. I remember I was sitting in the barbecue area of the pub car park, when I opened the results envelope, knowing I needed two Bs and one C to study Law at Leicester.

Well, I didn’t go to Leicester.

I recall feeling that I had disappointed my parents in a big way, and that it was my fault. Can you imagine what it feels like to sit down for a History exam and be unable to remember a single date?

Of course now, we would refer to this as burnout. But back then?

Back then, it wasn’t called burnout, not for me. My mother suggested a secretarial course, as there would always be a need for secretaries. How things have changed.

One year later, one Linguist Secretarial course later, and I was ready to enter the workplace at the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge.

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