Fern Brady - Strong Female Character

If youve ever been on a night out where you got blackout drunk and have laughed the next day as your friends tell you all the stupid stuff you said, thats what being autistic feels like for me: one long blackout night of drinking, except theres no socially sanctioned excuse for your gaffes and no one is laughing.

Praise for Strong Female Character:

Ferns book, like everything she does, is awesome. Incredibly funny, and so unapologetically frank that I feel genuinely sorry for her lawyers
Phil Wang

Of course its funny its Fern Brady but this book is also deeply moving and eye-opening
Adam Kay

It made me laugh out loud and broke my heart and made me weep...I hope absolutely everyone reads this, and it makes them kinder and more curious about the way we all live
Daisy Buchanan

Glorious. Frank but nuanced, a memoir that doesnt sacrifice voice or self-awareness. And it has brilliant things to say about being autistic and being funny
Elle McNicoll

Fern Bradys book is alive in your hands. Brave doesnt cover it and Im not sure what will. Fizzing with intelligence, it will hit you in the heart, lungs and liver. Youll laugh, cry, be still and if youre not autistic
by god youll learn. If you are autistic youll be seen, heard, held, rocked and loved here. A set text for all of us in 2023
Deborah Frances-White

Fern is a brilliant, beautiful writer with a unique voice and even more unique story. Astute, honest and very, very funny
Lou Sanders

This book has the potential to truly change the way people think about people
Alex Horne

So funny and brilliant
Holly Smale

Dedicated to Conor

This memoir is my truth but to protect the privacy of others I have changed names and other identifying details throughout. If you think you recognize someone in here, trust me, you dont.

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What constitutes a problem is not the thing, or the environment where we find the thing, but the conjunction of the two; something unexpected in a usual place (our favourite aunt in our favourite poker parlour) or something usual in an unexpected place (our favourite poker in our favourite aunt).

Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

A couple of times a week Id have long phone chats with my dad as he commuted the two hours back home from his job in London. It was on one of these phone calls that I told him something I had dreaded bringing up since Id found out a few days before.

So I got diagnosed with autism on Tuesday.

Who told you that? His tone implied disbelief.

A doctor at the Lorna Wing Centre who specializes in diagnosing adult women with autism, I said, already irritated that he thought someone had just mentioned it in passing or that Id done an online quiz.

Oh right. Traffic in Londons mental, eh?

(One time my granda had had his leg amputated and Dad mentioned it as breezily as you would if you were making small talk about the weather: Grandas in hospital and we think hes getting his leg cut off. This was followed by a call the next day with a matter-of-fact Well, Grandas deid.)

I paced back and forth around the kitchen trying to keep my cool, my phone still pressed to my face.

You know, I actually had a dream where I told you about the diagnosis and you were so uncharacteristically compassionate and nice about it that I woke myself up laughing.

Oh right. I had a dream that there werent enough blankets on the bed, and I asked Julie to put more on cause I was freezing.

I began to load the dishwasher while he continued telling me about his dream, oblivious to my lack of interest. I waited for him to finish before I said: Well, they say autism can be inherited from one parent, so I guess thats answered the question of which one.

Who? Your mother? he asked in earnest.

I slammed a knife into the dishwasher in frustration.

Are you kidding me? Its you! Its you, ya maniac! Have you ever noticed youve no ability to read social cues or peoples emotions?

Dad and I were similar in that wed both run into trouble at work for pointedly telling people when they were in the wrong. We both had odd ways of communicating.

I tried to picture his response. I knew he was driving calmly, glancing blankly at the satnav, totally unbothered by any of it.

Mildly, he added, I dinnae even know what a fucking social cue is.

Right. Well, itd be like if your daughter phones you up and says shes just been diagnosed with autism, a normal person would go, Oh, and whats prompted you to get diagnosed? How do you feel? Are you okay? You know? Any kind of response like that?

I was shouting now. I liked talking to my dad because whereas I had to tiptoe around my mums unpredictable moods, I could shout at him and his emotional response would still be flatlining.

Well, I hope they went up and arrested your mother.

I didnt know why I kept putting the same information into this computer and waiting for a different output. He wasnt capable of it.

Why would they do that? Mums feeling guilty about it, about how yous never got me help when I was younger.

Shes the bloody autistic one! Dad is now throwing the word around joyfully, like a child whos discovered a new swear word.

I dont think so. Shes had a pretty normal, human response about the whole thing and been dead helpful.

Right, he said, sounding distracted. I could tell from the change in tone he was checking his texts.

Actually, Mum had been crying a lot since taking part in the assessment. She was full of guilt and had been going over and over how obvious my autistic traits were: like not wanting to be held or cuddled as a baby; or having special interests, such as teaching myself Danish when I was eight; or having violent meltdowns over the sensation of my own clothes on my skin. She felt bad the signs hadnt just been missed but were viewed as me being deliberately difficult. Growing up, Id been told repeatedly that I was very, very clever but also very, very bad and yet neither of my parents understood why I now enjoyed doing a job that involved people alternately cheering or booing at me.

Im still waiting for you to say one normal thing about this, Dad. Theres still time.

I could hear the cogs turning in his brain on the other end of the phone while watching the satnav.

There was a pause.

... What did you have for dinner tonight? he offered.

I leaned my forehead on a kitchen cupboard, opening and closing a drawer Id smashed repeatedly over the years and had never been right since.

Pad Thai.

Never heard of it.

When Id first got depressed, at 15, Dad had found me crying hysterically one night and had shouted to Mum in a panic, Shell be put in bloody Carstairs! Carstairs was a high-security mental hospital in Scotland for serial killers, where they put away people whod done stuff like skin people alive. Instead, I was given a half-arsed diagnosis of OCD and depression by my family GP after Id asked him, I have obsessive routines and feel bad if I cant do them; is it OCD? The GPs notes to the consultant psychiatrist in the referral read: Says shes always been strange.