Woman with autism shares her experience

 

Laura James, 47, is a successful journalist and author. She's a wife to Tim and mother to four adult children.

She also has autism.

She was surprised when the idea was first suggested to her back in 2015 by a friendly nurse during a hospital stay in London.

But then she started reading about autism online. "I got to some traits of girls with autism and it was just like, 'Oh my God, that's so me.'

Laura was undergoing tests for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare connective tissue disorder, and returned to her hospital room exhausted, hoping to find the air conditioning on, a tuna sandwich on the table and some peace and quiet.

Instead, the room was stifling, the food was absent and a child was screaming nearby.

"I just had an overwhelming meltdown ... a proper explosive meltdown," she said. The nurse who was with Laura took her to a quieter, cooler room, Laura recalled. "She said, 'don't worry, we see a lot of autistic people here.'

"I had never thought about autism," she said emphatically. "I thought that autism was 'Rain Man,' I thought it was boys... All of the stereotypes I absolutely believed because there's nothing else out there to dissuade someone."

Accordingto CNN, Laura was misdiagnosed several times. Her childhood doctor was convinced that she had an eating disorder. She was misdiagnosed with hyperventilation syndrome in her early twenties. And several doctors suggested she may have generalized anxiety disorder.

Laura's eating problems and anxiety were signs of her autism but were misinterpreted for more than four decades. Hyper-focus, a common trait in people with autism that allows them to focus intensely on one thing for a long period of time, meant she often forgot -- and still often forgets -- to eat. Her sensory issues and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome also made it unbearable to eat particular foods.

Most of the anxiety Laura experiences is linked with her autism and it began early in life. "I distinctly remember as a child feeling different and behaving differently to other girls. I simply remember thinking that everybody else seemed to kind of get it. Everyone else seemed to know what to do and how to do it, like there was an instruction manual that I'd lost and they all had."

Laura is also convinced that social conditioning is a big factor in the differences between boys and girls with autism. "Boys are allowed to be louder and more confrontational, more challenging, whereas girls are taught to be nice, quiet and polite." Girls are more likely to internalize their difficulties, she thinks, which then go unnoticed.

For Laura, diagnosis was a mixed blessing. "The moment of walking out was brilliant -- I've got an answer -- but then it gets harder before it gets easier," she said.

Reflecting on how she now sees herself, she said, "I think of myself as autistic, I don't like 'with autism.' The reason I don't like it is because it's not something that's ever going to go away ... Being autistic shapes pretty much everything in my life, in the way that, for me, being female does as well, or being a mother does."

she started writing -- at first articles and now a book -- about her experiences as an autistic woman. "Odd Girl Out" is being published this month.

She reflects on how her life would have been different if she had never met that nurse or if her tuna sandwich had arrived on time.

"I wouldn't have had a terrible life -- I'd have had a very nice life -- but it wouldn't have been as rich and fulfilling, and I would have died not understanding myself."

Credit: CNN