why 'Strong Female Character' by Fern Brady is so important.

From first suspecting I was neurodivergent to reading this book, I've learnt a lot about being autistic. Mostly that my experience is all too common.

I’ve never written about a book. Music is very much my comfort zone for writing: I’m passionate about it and rarely have to think about what it is that I’m saying - it just happens. This is the first time I’ve felt equally passionate about a book. I knew by the 10th page that I would write something once I had finished it.

It took me 15 years and a lockdown to realise that I was very likely neurodivergent. I’d always felt there was something ‘up’ but given I’d been told I was always a very anxious child I put it down to that and moved on. That was until I couldn’t leave the house or see anyone in person for 6 months and had to spend an unfortunate amount of time alone with my brain.

My experience in education has been painfully typical of an AFAB (assigned female at birth) autistic person. I excelled in primary school, specifically in English and reading. I remember when I was 8, there was a box of about 20 books from the Enid Blyton series ‘The Five Find-Outers’ in our classroom. For the next month I took home a book every single day, read the whole 200 or so pages and brought it back the next day to get another one. This academic performance continued into the first few years of high school. I never had to try in assessments, it just came to me. School continued being easy for me for the next 3 years. Year 10 was when the mask slipped. We got sent home from school ‘for two weeks’ at some point in March and didn’t return to education until that September. I remember having a meltdown barely a month into quarantine. The lack of routine and complete uncertainty knocked me sick and the amount of work we were given felt impossible. I think I had about 2 pieces of work to show for that entire first lockdown.

I have no recollection of what made me investigate neurodivergence, but I spent a lot of that summer poring over articles about ADHD and autism, watching TikToks and reading Instagram infographics in a desperate attempt to understand what was happening in my brain. I didn’t bring up my findings to anyone for probably another 6 months following this as in truth I don’t know that I was confident in my new suspicions. My non-existent success with therapists, counsellors and medical professionals over the years had filled me with self-doubt and I felt stupid for even considering it. Just before I left high school, I was re-referred to a counsellor I had worked with when I was younger who happened to specialise in neurodivergence in young people. I very casually mentioned that I had been doing research into ADHD and felt that a lot of puzzle pieces were falling into place. (I then proceeded to talk about the Chernobyl disaster for 20 minutes. Very casual, Bee.) To my surprise, she agreed with me, and we began the very arduous process of putting together a referral to CAMHS. My high school were entirely unhelpful, telling me that they would not send out forms to my teachers to collect evidence as they didn’t believe I was neurodivergent. Their reasoning for this being because I was achieving grades 7,8 and 9 in most of my subjects and according to them that meant there were no problems.

By November of 2021, I had gotten confirmation of my first CAMHS appointment. I could write an entire book on my frustration at my time with CAMHS, but instead I’ll try to keep it about as short as the experience itself. My appointments were every 2 weeks over teams, I had 5 sessions and was discharged due to there being no evidence of any of the issues raised. I didn’t seem depressed because I attended every appointment with eyeliner on, I didn’t seem autistic because I ‘made eye contact’ throughout the sessions, I didn’t appear to have ADHD because I sat still during my appointments. What they couldn’t see behind the screen was me sat staring at the window behind my worker on the terrible green screen to avoid eye contact and being sat on my hands to try and stop the constant fidgeting. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more defeated. CAMHS is made out to be the place that, if anywhere, will help you. I thought that someone was finally going to hear me out. My mental health began spiralling instantly - I avoided college as often as I could get away with and would frequently leave during the day crying.

I completely ignored the subject until June 2022. The rejection from CAMHS genuinely crushed me and I felt so embarrassed for bringing it up and even more embarrassed for believing that this time, maybe something would be different. Following a particularly bad mental health episode, I ended up in A&E. I was angry, I wanted to be dead, and I just needed someone to realise how bad things had gotten - I never seemed to be able to verbalise those things. I was so tired of everything being shit all the time, never being able to understand why and I felt I’d exhausted all other options. I had really, really tried and despite my best efforts all I did was go backwards. I came downstairs two days later to find my mum on the phone to the aforementioned counsellor. She had told her about my misfortune with CAMHS and for the first time I felt like someone shared my anger. It was decided we would start the process over again, but with me now being at college I could get evidence from teachers that I was more familiar with, and we were able to get in contact with a triage worker for the neurodevelopment pathway at CAMHS. (I don’t entirely know what these words mean or what this did to help but at the time I was told this was good and important.) This was the point that autism got seriously brought up for the first time. The way the CAMHS assessment works (to my understanding from what I have been told) is that it looks for traits of neurodivergence in general, so they would be looking out for traits of ADHD and autism in my case. I was given a set of spreadsheets as part of the evidence for the referral that reminded me of the RCADS questionnaires I’ve filled out countless times, but this time there was a sensory profiling one. I scored the maximum for ‘sensory sensitivity’ and ‘sensation avoiding’ as well as higher than most for ‘low registration’. I’m moving to Edinburgh for University in September, so was promised I’d be seen before my 18^th birthday. I’d like at least one part of my time in education to not be disastrous.

I’d love to be able to tell you that I’d even heard from CAMHS at all in the 9 months since my referral was made, but it’s CAMHS after all so of course I haven’t. After a conversation with my counsellor, I decided to properly research into autism and in some bizarre way it was so refreshing and so heart-breaking. I caught myself smiling at what I was reading. I didn’t feel like some weird insane alien for the first time in probably my entire life. Everything began making sense and even though I was aware the prospect of a diagnosis was going to be a while away; I actually had some hope. The initial comfort from this new information was followed by a wave of anger and intense frustration. Why had nobody picked up on any of this for 16 whole years. I remember very little from my childhood up until about the age of 10, but after some conversations with my mum I think we both realised that a lot had flown under the radar. I’ve been a fussy eater for as long as I can remember and there are some foods I have never eaten and never will. I would cry when my mum bought the school socks with the glittery stripes in them because they made my skin feel like it was on fire, and I couldn’t pay attention to anything else. I’ve always hated hugs or any physical contact with people and I never wanted to be held as a child. I never know what to do when people cry. I have meltdowns over things that seem tiny or that I can’t explain, and I go mute when I get overwhelmed and anxious. It’s a really strange experience to write all of these things out and acknowledge them in a piece of writing that other people are going to read, but it feels incredibly cathartic at the same time.

Tiny Bee, circa 2006.

I’ve written about myself for over 1500 words now, so I should probably explain what this all has to do with Fern Brady’s book, ‘Strong Female Character’.

I first became aware of Fern towards the back end of 2022. Taskmaster has been one of my favourite shows for quite a few years now and I began discussing the upcoming line-up back in September with my friend Dan and he pointed Fern out to me immediately - praising her comedy as well as suggesting I follow her social medias given how open she had been about her autism diagnosis. Watching the show became the thing I looked forward to every week and seeing someone on TV being so authentically their autistic self – specifically openly stimming while completing different tasks – made my heart so happy. After the first episode aired, I quickly followed Fern’s Instagram and began watching any bit of stand-up that I could find on YouTube. I unfortunately missed out on tickets to Fern’s UK tour, ‘Autistic Bikini Queen’, but I wasn’t too bothered once I realised that she had a book coming out in February. At the time I had absolutely no money and hadn’t been assigned a shift in 2 months, but last week I managed to get my hands on it. (Thank you Dan)

As soon as I opened the parcel, I abandoned my revision for the evening to sit down and read it. I knew from the first couple of pages that it was going to make me feel a lot of emotions. I never annotate books, and for that matter I rarely read but I sat with a pencil in my hand for the whole thing this time. Every couple of lines I sat there in quiet disbelief – it felt like I was reading a book about myself. This is the most understood I have probably ever felt, and it also taught me quite a few things about myself. I felt like I now had both the vocabulary and ability to talk about autism - something I’d never really had until this point.

I cried quite a lot throughout, sometimes for reasons that I didn’t even entirely understand. I could give you probably 50 examples but the one I’m going to go with is ‘The flipside is that music lights up every nerve in my body like a Christmas tree.’ This was certainly one of the more confusing cries, but I have done my best to work it out. I’ve loved music since around the age of 4 according to my parents. My first ever favourite song was ‘Fireflies’ by Owl City and the chorus still gives me the same euphoric feeling in my whole body every time I hear it. Now, music has become my lifeline. I love the fact that sounds and words can give me the ability to feel such a wide variety of emotions, and the ability to explain to other people how I’m feeling. I have a playlist full of songs that light up every nerve in my body and it truly is one of my favourite things that my brain does.

I finished the book in less then two days, but before I’d finished the first chapter, I messaged both of my parents and asked them to read it. My dad replied shortly after saying that he had downloaded the audiobook, and my mum said she would borrow my copy once I was done with it.

Towards the end of last week, I’d had a meltdown at college and left after my first lesson. I was exhausted and agitated when I got home, and my mum made me go for a walk. This is the first time I’d ever had an open conversation with her about autism and I was genuinely amazed at how well it went. I talked a lot about high school – she always knew I hated it but we never really went into why. I didn’t feel like I had a stable group of friends that I belonged in until year 11, after which we all split off to mostly different colleges, I was bullied for the first 3 years for being a ‘nerd’, and even when that stopped, I still felt like everyone thought I was a massive weirdo. I didn’t exactly help that when I dyed my bright blonde hair black over lockdown and got called a goth for a whole year but hey, look at me now. It was so refreshing for her to ask me questions and to have a genuine interest in what I was experiencing, and she even told me how she found it frustrating sometimes that she could never fully understand which took me by surprise.

I see my dad every other Friday either when he comes to pick us up or when he just comes for my brother. This week I stayed at home, so we had a conversation in the doorway while Teddy gathered his things. At the time I think he was only a couple hours into the audiobook, but this was enough time for him to have some questions for me. First, he asked how much of the book I identified with and seemed genuinely happy that I’d gotten so much out of reading it. He’d clearly held on to the idea that neurodivergence is likely inherited from at least one of your parents, as next he asked me which one it was, and I replied ‘well obviously it’s you’ without any hesitation. I’m not entirely sure he expected me to already have an answer, but his reaction made me laugh.

Since beginning to suspect I was neurodivergent, this is the first time I’ve felt that my parents have tried to understand me and been willing to learn more about autism. I wasn’t sure it would ever happen, but I now feel more comfortable being open about it. I think this may be the only memoir I’ve ever read, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done for both my own understanding of my autism and my relationship with my parents. Thanks, Fern.