CW: References to self harm, suicide disordered eating, abuse and rape

Christine McGuiness (34) model and television personality, wife of comedian and television presenter Paddy McGuinness and parent of autistic children. She like many in later in life was diagnosed later in life as autistic, she describes being highly sensitive to sound and smells. This documentary aired on BBC One on a prime time slot sees McGuinness address the gender inequalities in autism and autistic people and the challenges for women to be recognised and identified as autistic. 

She starts at an awards event for a national diversity awards charity describing the sensory experiences she finds in what can be an overwhelming space for people. Following on from that the documentary shows her meeting up with an expert, she states speaking to autistic people is easier and not as scary as experts ;Something many can relate to. She asks why is autism goes unrecognised in autistic women, which the expert responds with the differences between gender stereotypes of specific focused interests where as for women and girls its referenced it can be more socially normative interests e.g movie, fashion or music. Then she goes on to say that autistic traits in women maybe seen as just shy, nervous and anxious. To combat this people start masking as we, as autistic people learn to social scripting.

It comes as no surprise that when people like Christine McGuinness and Melanie Sykes come out as being autistic that its not something that would be visible or I’ve seen and thus no surprise, is a somewhat surprising with their diagnoses. For any woman who comes out as autistic during their media career its no surprise that to get where they are is done on the basis of masking and thus why conversations are needed, stories to be told.

She references the fact that there is estimated to be over 1 million autistic people in the United Kingdom and there is now an increase of women being diagnosed. On camera thumbing through her Instagram page of when she came out online as being autistic and doing this documentary she talks about the reaction from people online from autistic women and girls. This documentary is for those women that should’ve been able to have diagnoses at school and where it was a negative experience for Christine. It’s a space where neurodivergent people may not want to learn and thats alone to autism.

The documentary moves on to chat to a boxer on her experience with meltdowns and her misdiagnoses as how as a teen she had diagnoses of social anxiety and then possibly bipolar. This is something that strikes me from Fern Brady’s memoir ‘Strong Female Character’ telling her story and about the experience women have with autism. She talks of having being misdiagnosed as a teenager with OCD even though she suspected and referenced to the doctor that she knew and thought she was autistic and in mental health unit in the United Kingdom, she suspected that many of her peers who had been in the unit with experiences of mental health conditions and had self harmed or had experienced suicidal ideation were most likely autistic. The boxer through her medical referrals was referred for multiple therapies. This experience maybe common for autistic people the feeling of being alone, angry and having challenges with mental health because not having a the word you needed to know about yourself.

Christine talked to her mother who said her daughter was struggled with sensory issues and was salutary and seemed content in her own company but seemed very secretive and quiet and felt signs were there. As things got bad where her daughter had self harmed, suicidal ideation and had attempted unaliving herself. Saying that her daughter has been detained under the mental health act been in units for adults and children.

Autism isn’t a mental health disorder but the trauma can cause mental health disorders. It was her mother that mentioned the word autism after the mislabels of bipolar, personality disorders. This speaks volumes of how it takes so many hurdles for psychologists, mental health teams, general practitioners to get a diagnoses and for your words to be taken very seriously. Christine says she has been let down but the NHS hasn’t yet been able to be there for autistic women. With lack of government funding and support for mental health and psychologists teams within the NHS this has proved a systems problem is nowhere to being fixed. How many lives have been lost due to not being able to get a diagnoses and the right support?

The boxer states someone she knew from hospital was diagnosed first with personality disorder and later with autism but then she died by suicide. She now wants to speak for those who don’t have a voice, yet or will never will. It is thought to be the biggest causes of death within the autism community is suicide.

Masking and seeing it as a male disorder has allowed women and girls who are autistic gone hidden and unnoticed. This leads to many collecting up so many different labels before the word autism.

Christine moves on to tell her childhood experience of how her autism went unnoticed. She describes herself growing up as a loner and would have in school outburst and meltdowns were would shout or throw chairs and find the canteen big and noisy. She didn’t eat in school, she didn’t eat and went on a path of having to live with an eating disorder. This for Christine was triggered by the sensory issues of food, eating mostly plain and beige food.

She chats to a young woman with anorexia and autism who had panic attacks in school and would collapse and bounced between healthy and being very unwell. Calorie counting and eating healthy became a focused interest around food, touching base of the negative and harmful focused interest. She gets scared around new foods and eats and gets concerned around different changes in routine.

It was a lightbulb moment the word ‘autism.’ Discussing how it can seem impossible to live without routine and structure.

At the largest mental health hospital in the United Kingdom, Proffesor Kate Tchanturia decided to screen and asses all patients at the hospital with eating disorders for autism or autism like characteristics to see if she could find a link, a third passed the criteria for autism. The hospital is focused on the sensory issues and focused on what helps and understanding what could harm the patience if their needs and experiences were misunderstood. When referencing the beige food diet of safe taste and texture Professor Tchanturia said ‘as long as the brain and body can function as it should, that’s fine’ as Christine confessed to eating beige foods. 

If for a third of eating disorder patients suspected to be autistic, the current national eating disorders treatment and support programme needs to be questioned of is the current support working for autistic patients. Its obvious that as many women and girls still remain undiagnosed that the research is vitally needed to better inform of what signs and traits doctors at local surgeries should be looking for and are the services they referring their patience can understand how to help autistic people. This is where with a third targeted support and better funding is necessary. 

Going back to the experience of autistic girls at school and focusing now on the experiences of girls transitioning from secondary school to comprehensive school which occurs in the UK around the ages of 11 or 12. As school breaks become less around play and around socialising and as around the typical ages of when puberty happens the hormonal changes can be challenging for autistic people; epically with Alexythima. Neurodivergent traits of people with conditions like autism and ADHD may be seen as naughty or disruptive.

Modelling Christine fitted in given a role, structure and routine and with the sense of making someone feel happy with what she had done. Now her role is now as a mother and wife most of the time. She has been with her husband since she was nineteen, she doesn’t have a clue of how to date, doesn’t know a time of being single. She describes a challenging seperation and how she has found being isolated. She goes to speak to someone who can help as diagnosed in early thirties and the experience of thirty something autistic women. Like herself she chats to a woman who was has found out from her children’s own diagnoses noticing as well as her son her daughter was too autistic. She seen the struggles reflected with her children and to the shock her husband was diagnosed autistic. A true autistic family and household. They have a chuckle about the over analysation of social exchanges.

Now Christine finds herself as a single woman after fifteen years of marriage and at a struggle to find how to move on as change is like many autistic people challenging. The small things are very challenging and the big almost overwhelming. She now recently getting a diagnoses is now finding herself for the first time as a single autistic woman. Feeling fortunate about her diagnoses and how that can learn to live her life as a single woman and adapt with the stresses and work with best support as an autistic woman without having to hold the mask up.

Moving on in the documentary they discuss the ADOS test which stands for the autism diagnostic observation schedule and how the results from this differentiate between men and women who have taken the assessment. In conversation, that in diagnoses and assessments it can be picked up that women and girls may have and have referenced in questions to having previous relationships with sexual abuse, assault, rape and controlling and abusive relationships. Christine anxiously and bravely comes out and says that prior to being in a relationship she had been abused and the relationship she had with Paddy had been a period where she felt safe and it has been challenging and it is hard to become single with the anxiety of change.

In the end she felt unhappy, wanted to keep it together. She emotionally details her sexual assault and how she after didn’t want to live being scarred by the assault. She talks as abuse beginning as young as nine. Christine made a visit to a school exclusively for autistic girls, the only in the United Kingdom, as a discussion of consent and focusing on the ways autistic women can in relationships, by people can be coerced and manipulated. In the school the girls have a community, knowing all are autistic they don’t feel alone. It’s can feel life changing having like-minded peers that you socialise and work along with as you don’t feel alone. 

She then manages to go to meet a group of autistic mothers and chatting to other autistic women with an empowering conversation of their experience.

The Takeaway

Ending on a comforting conclusion that after all the trails of trauma Christine has the verve, spirit and skip in her step to keep going in life and is looking forward to her future as a single parent to autistic children. To come out smiling from a life where you had to face adversity it takes strength to come up with hope and optimism. But as the documentary hinted this isn’t the same for all women and girls who from the trauma of rape, suicidal ideation and eating disorders still live and breathe the struggles today, and sadly death by suicide continues to happen.

Documentaries have to be made and stories have to be told. McGuinness remains fortunate and has a privilege that shouldn’t exist of whereby have been able to receive a diagnoses and now gain support which not all are granted. As there has been blossoming growth in women telling their stories minorities of queer and persons of colour are yet to be given the same platform. 

Like all documentaries and work on the subject of autism should be an active piece of work closer to change. The documentary highlighted CAHMS and the NHS flaws and cracks in supporting and recognising autistic women and girls. With third of patience with eating disorders showing signs of autism and suicide the highest cause of death within the autistic community the understanding of autism for eating disorders and targeted therapy is urgently needed and for mental health services to know how to support autistic people.

With her targeted eating disorder screening and therapies and consent lessons for autistic girls it should be universal and not a post code lottery. This should highlight that all neurotypical or autistic should be educated on consent that is reflective and inclusive of autistic people that addresses the high numbers of sexual assault and abuse for women and girls who are autistic

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