One of the elements of how Aspergers presents differently in girls than in boys that amazed me the most was the types of special interests that seem to appeal more to girls on the spectrum than to boys. I think most people know, even if they are not very familiar with autism, that boys on the spectrum often become obsessed with things like trains and timetables. Girls however tend to have more socially acceptable interests and two that I found listed again and again were animals and classical literature. Animals and classical literature were the two driving forces that took me through from my pre-school years right the way to university.
Animals, or more specifically animal welfare, is without a doubt my original obsession. At the age of 3 I began to realise for the first time that the fish fingers on my plate were made out of real fish taken from the sea. I began to ask my mother more and more questions about meat and where it came from, and bit by bit I began to refuse to eat it. By the time I was 4 I was a complete vegetarian and would be for the next 19 years of my life.
When I was 9 years old I began my own animal charity. It was called TAC (The Animal Club) and I roped all the neighbourhood kids in to help me raise money for various animal charities. We tended to focus on helping endangered species and would raise the money by holding car boot sales, carol singing in Whitchurch village, by doing sponsored bike rides, Penny for the Guy and so on. When I was 11 years old I entered a competition and won the title of Young Animal Welfare Person of the Year 2011 for the whole of the UK. My prize was to travel to Canada and visit the baby harp seals on the ice and be awarded my trophy by Brian Davies, founder of the charity IFAW. This was a crazy time for me. I was photographed, interviewed, my story was on Blue Peter and I made friends with Princess Aga Khan who would write to me and send me Christmas cards. I even started to get letters from people who had heard of me in Europe, America and Australia congratulating me and asking for advice in setting up their own charities.
Though these years my focus on animal welfare consumed me. Of course my intense focus on this topic didn't cause my parents any concern at all, only pride as I built up my charity and won awards for it. Eventually, however, the attention I was getting began to take its toll on me, and the assumption everyone had that this would be the focus of my entire life irritated me and the interest fizzled out.
I replaced it with literature. I had always been an avid reader and was reading Enid Blyton paperbacks when I was 6 years old. As I entered my teenage years I developed a strong love of the Classics. Shakespeare, Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer, Dostoyevsky, Homer, Henry James and so on. I needed to read them all. My appetite for these books was so great that I could barely stand to only read one at a time. I would usually read three at a time and I would read one chapter from one, one chapter from another one and one chapter from the third one, then I would rotate through them again in the same order for another chapter each. Shakespeare was my greatest love and I couldn't get enough of his work. I have always been a light sleeper and have always found it extremely impossible to shut my brain down to sleep. When I was younger if I couldn't sleep I would give up and spend the night reading a Shakespeare play instead.
I took this love of literature through to university where I studied English Literature, although unfortunately the systematic tearing apart of these books that I loved ultimately destroyed my love of them and I don't read Classics anymore.
Since then I have had various other special interests: Egyptology which I took on as an extra course to study in my free time in Uni (who does that?), Scuba Diving when I worked in the industry in Greece 2003-2004, The Ironworks of South Wales in the early 1800s which I wrote my latest novel on. I love to learn, and every time I become interested in a subject or an activity it completely consumes me to the point that it is a real struggle to think about anything else, and to carry on with normal day to day things that have to be done. As a wife, a mother and someone who has a full time job, these days I have to be very careful about not allowing myself to fall completely into the hole of my latest obsession, because once I am focussed on it, it is very very difficult to pull my attention away to anything else. I also have to be careful in conversation that I am not boring people to death with constant non-stop talk about my special interest. I have been guilty of doing this on many occasions.
Thankfully my current obsession fits into my current life style very well and serves my son very well too. My current obsession is Autism. I need to know everything about it and I am incessantly researching the subject. Thankfully the majority of the people I now mix with in my free time are themselves parents of Autistic children, and so I am able to indulge in talking about my favourite topic without appearing too strange. Sometimes I do wish I could wipe the word from my brain so that it could have some peace for a while, as I drive myself nuts with the constant research that I do, but it's like a compulsion.
My brain is a non-stop machine that craves knowledge and purpose and rarely gives me a moments peace, even when I am asleep. Although it can be exhausting, and I know that from time to time I am guilty of boring people, it can also be extremely satisfying. It is this focus on my special interests that has led to the greatest achievements and experiences in my life. When something gains my interest I have an incredible drive to learn, to achieve and ultimately to better myself, either through a greater understanding of the world or through learning new skills. I would not change this part of me. It is without a doubt the greatest part of having Aspergers.
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