I have no issue with diversity in the media but it annoys me when it is so obviously a tick box exercise with no real diversity involved. I have recently watched a spate of TV shows and films where the protagonist or antagonist is “on the spectrum” or; a term I personally abhor; “neurodivergent” and who always sees themselves as superior to the “neurotypical” characters. These characters also have to repeat this neurobollocks several times an episode to make sure we all know why they are the master detective or master criminal. Whilst I am pleased that as a society we are becoming more aware and tolerant of our differences, as someone who has apparently, albeit unknowingly, been on this spectrum thingy for 67 years; and I’ve not met Captain Scarlet or a Mysteron yet ; I am getting heartily sick and tired of it being pushed down my throat at every opportunity. My personal opinion is that these shows, with actors who portray these characters with overly exaggerated tics, rituals and social ineptitudes, do nothing to convey what it is like to actually cope with a life where these issues affect everything I do.
Looking back I was somehow always aware that I was wired up differently and my brain operated on a completely different frequency to others but I learned to live with my differences from an early age. Since there was no “spectrum” and the only defining labels out there would have had me excluded from mainstream schooling for being a “difficult child” I was allowed to grow up being just me, so yes I am different with my tics, twitches, tantrums and borderline OCD but it hasn’t stopped me achieving my potential without the mass of virtue signalling shows we see in the entertainment media today.
I was a contrary child who when told not to do something I did it anyway, and still do which is why I have tattoos. I was always at the forefront of any trouble, from deliberately pushing my sister’s pram down the garden steps to see if she would bounce to using my dolls pram as a go-kart to roll down the 3in1 hill outside our house just for the fun of it to roaming the neighbourhood letting off fireworks to frighten old ladies. And my temper tantrums were epic, one minute I was this sweet little girl; my father’s “Little Blonde Bombshell”; the next a raging monster, screaming, shouting, stamping my feet in temper and having to be restrained (cuddled) until I calmed down. My sister has since told me she used to wake up wondering which sister she was getting that day, the Evil Twin who would completely ignore her or the nice one who would take her on adventures and all manner of dangerous pursuits for hours on end; scaling bridges, climbing trees, playing around weirs, downhill cycling, scrumping; about which she enjoys elaborating and for which I was always soundly punished.
It wasn’t until I started school that my differences became more noticeable. Nothing concrete, more a feeling of not being like the other kids in my class. I was quite solitary and never had a close circle of friends or a best friend forever to whom I could pour my heart out to. I used to believe that the issue was geographical since most of my peers lived in close proximity to one another whilst I lived a good distance away from any school I attended so didn’t see them outside of school hours or that it stemmed from being a nerd with an unusual name; Leonie was an uncommon name back then and I was the only one I knew of in the whole of the city; coupled with being a teacher’s daughter to boot. I could read and write from an early age, despite one teacher saying I was too young at four years old, so I got bored easily which made me defiant, non compliant and always in trouble. I often appeared not to be paying attention; especially when other kids annoyingly couldn’t grasp a concept; and had a wandering mind. I was the bane of many a teacher’s class often being chastised for staring out of the window or fidgeting; on one occasion I even managed to scan read “Love Story” in one go during a history lesson; but I always knew what they had been saying. Because I was seen as a bit nerdy I had to endure a fair amount of bullying throughout my secondary years from peers and; to his eternal shame and may he rot in Hell; my history teacher, without once uttering a word to my parents. Like many others have done I masked my feelings by taking myself out of unpleasant situations by going to the library or viola practise instead of spending break times trying to avoid my hurtful classmates. I moved on to college where nothing changed and I struggled to find where I fit in, again always on the outside, never quite included, I simply wasn’t on the same wavelength as the majority of my fellow students. I didn’t feel comfortable frequenting the college bar or attending social events either so instead took myself off in my car and drove for miles around the area surrounding the college. Which is how I found a country pub where I wasn’t judged for being different and where I met Paul. All joking aside about falling in lust at first grope, he took me as I was; by that time a complete gibbering mess at the bottom of a deep pit with no way out. We got married, I left college and with his support life slowly became easier and my mind less fraught.
Don’t think for one minute though that our life over the last four decades has been plain sailing for either of us. It hasn’t. I continue to have epic meltdowns, usually accompanied by torrents of foul language and stomping about. The first two were on our honeymoon; once because he wouldn’t let me fly his kite and once because he wouldn’t let me drive. He actually deposited me at the roadside and drove off! Our first Christmas together was memorable only for the “she made a cake on the floor” incident following an argument caused by our sisters, the two Mandies. As we were in married quarters at the time all breakages had to be paid for so I filled a cupboard full of “pots I don’t mind breaking” for such occasions and. Wherever we lived I kept similar stocks of pots handy for several years. Another spectacular meltdown occurred not long after we’d moved in with his parents. I had lovingly cooked dinner for our first Sunday alone for months. Our weeks old daughter was sleeping in her crib so it was to be a quiet dinner for two. Except his sister turned up and invited herself to dinner which roused Evil Me. I threw his dinner across the room at him so he retaliated by throwing his coffee cup at me which bounced off the wall, caught me on the shin and landed on the floor, where it broke into several pieces. At which point I ran upstairs packed my things, grabbed Danii out of the crib and was about to leave when he came upstairs to apologise. By the time we had settled Danii and gone back downstairs his sister had finished her dinner and left, the dog had polished off the rest and all that remained was a chewed up chicken carcass. I still have the scar from that day. Over the next couple of years I continued to fly off the handle, pack the girls in the car and drive to my parents with alarming regularity but was never allowed to stay. I have ripped up maps and thrown them out of the car in the middle of France, hurled abuse at a bus in Greece, thrown chicken curry all over the caravan and kicked off in Burger King; the grandkids still talk about Curry Night and Burger Wars. In fact, family used to beg to come on holidays with us just to see Paul and I arguing, often before we’d even got to the end of our street.
Thankfully most of my family have got used to Evil Me and ignore her or tell her to shut up. Netti now walks away when I start a rant in Primark, I’m not allowed to go grocery shopping and nights out are a whole different kettle of fish. Add alcohol, especially cider, and I am prone to an even greater lack of either a filter or inhibitions. A few years back towards the end of a night out with my daughters I started ranting at the police whilst throwing my shoes at them outside a nightclub all because I was told to put my shoes back on. My daughters unceremoniously dragged me away, threw me into the back of a car and bundled me off home. I did get a rather fetching pair of pink, size 8 flip-flops and a huge bruise on my leg out of it though! These days, perhaps because of my career, I am able to control my tantrums to some degree, now it’s mostly foot stamping and chuntering, but there is still always that risk of another major outburst over some minor event which flicks the switch in my brain.
Throughout my school years my reticence and lack of ability to make friends was always put down to shyness and I was happy to hide behind that excuse but as an adult I now realise that it was more my inability to socialise and read social cues. Oddly enough I find it easy to stand up in a classroom and teach but when you see extrovert me at events flitting about the room chatting away quite happily you didn’t witness the hours of dithering about whether I should even turn up in the first place followed by my sheer panic before entering said room. I still feel uncomfortable meeting strangers, find it difficult to ask for things in shops and restaurants, participate in group activities or just approach people to say hello and start a conversation because I am always wondering if they’re really interested, or am I talking too much and they’re just waiting for me to shut up and go away, or will I say something inappropriate or offensive before my brain engages due to my total lack of a filter, particularly if Evil Me is on the prowl.
The worst thing for me personally though is the constant twitching. I don’t remember doing it as a child but as an adult not only is it embarrassing but it can be quite debilitating because when I feel the need to twitch it actually hurts not to, so twitch I must. These twitching episodes come upon me from out of the blue with no consideration of where I am or who I’m with. It worsens with stress or when some particularly unfeeling person points it out at which point my body will immediately launch into a spate of tics and twitches resembling a small seizure. In fact I’m doing it now as I write this article, probably because I’m thinking about it.
Despite all these issues I went out to work the summer after my 30th birthday; not down to any inability due to my differentness but because I was raising our young family of five girls until we realised that Paul was better at it than I; and I never looked back. Within a couple of years I had found my calling and with Paul’s blessing I commenced my nurse training at the age of 33 and ultimately became a well respected senior nurse, known for my patience, tact and diplomacy, over the following three decades. I became quite adept at controlling my filter and some of the tics and twitches until I was somewhere quiet and out of the way, the sluice room was a good place.
Over the last 48 years I have been thankful to Paul; and my girls; for their understanding, support and acceptance of all of my strange little quirks and rituals, which still hang on to this day; the peg sorting and colour coding of clothes on the washing line, the exact way I fold my laundry, my computer, keyboard and mouse must be left in the correct places, how I get into bed, the way I have to walk to make sure alternate feet touch the cracks in the pavement or coloured floor tiles, the incessant twitching, the total lack of a filter, the temper tantrums, my changeable moods and yes, even Evil Me.
I am still a solitary bird with no close friends but more often than not I am happy with my own company or that of my close family, many of whom are just as different as I. I would so much prefer it if people could just accept that I am odd or eccentric rather than trying to shoehorn me into “The Spectrum”. Unless it’s to fight the Mysterons of course!