Grace Liu - Approaching Autistic Adulthood: The Road Less Travelled

Approaching Autistic Adulthood

First published in 2021 by

Panoma Press Ltd

48 St Vincent Drive, St Albans, Herts, AL1 5SJ, UK

www.panomapress.com

Book layout by Neil Coe.

978-1-784525-48-4

The right of Grace Liu to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright holders written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers.

This book is available online and in bookstores.

Copyright 2021 Grace Liu

To autistic people across the spectrum who know how lonely autism can be in a neurotypical-dominant world, and to the neurotypicals who listen and stand by us.

The message Graces book brings to autistic people is: youre not alone.

Laurie Morgen, author of Travelling by Train The Journey of an Autistic Mother

Its best to learn from autistic adults. Graces book shows theres always more to learn about autism and yourself!

Thomas Henley, YouTuber at Aspergers Growth

Graces authentic writing reminds us that experiences that sometimes feel alienating are what make us beautiful and unique.

James Pratt, host of Silent Superheroes podcast

To my parents Helen and John. Thank you for fighting for my diagnosis and for getting me through years of isolation, miscommunications with neurotypicals, and struggling to accept myself. Thank you to Mum for getting me through a parental divorce and moving countries and for raising Rhian and me on your own for as long as you did. Thank you to John for becoming a full-on dad to us, helping out with studies and various life skills, and for helping me with the practicalities of this book, despite being an awkward bastard about it at this stage (your words, not mine).

To my sister Rhian. Thank you for your support of my endeavours, your tough love, and all the wacky childhood anecdotes we have shared. Also, thank you for your unintentional but major role in my childhood development always needing me to play with you so that I had to learn how to interact with neurotypical children!

To all my extended family. Thank you for all the support youve shown me and my work, no matter the distance.

To my university mentor Laurie. Thank you for getting me through my first year at university, for all your support since and for helping me as much as you have with this book.

To all the other autistic adults who have contributed their anecdotes to this book. Thank you for agreeing to be a part of this and for inadvertently helping me feel less alone in my experiences.

To the friends I have specifically mentioned in this book. Thank you for all the anecdotes I have written about and for all the ones I havent. Special thanks to my friend known in the book as Lizzie for playing such a key role in my coming out journey.

To my Creative Writing and Journalism lecturers from university. Thank you for helping me get my writing skills off the ground.

To Kev, my hairdresser. Thank you for giving me a much-needed post-lockdown haircut just in time for my back cover photo.

To Deb, Bernard, Hester, James, and family. Thank you for your hospitality, support and for treating me as one of your own.

To Charlotte. Thank you for all the laughs we shared at work and for understanding autism better than any other neurotypical person in the company.

To Lucy, Chris, Rooster, and Nelly. Thank you for sharing your house with me for a year.

To Ann, my mentor during my internship. Thank you for seeing me through a very socially demanding year.

To Alicia, my second-year college LSA (Learning Support Assistant). Thank you for all your support at college and for getting back in touch with me over the past couple of years and for supporting my work since.

To all my cats, past and present. Thank you for years of companionship and laughter and for not holding me to neurotypical human standards.

Last but definitely not least, to Mindy, Emma, and the rest of the team at Panoma Press. Thank you for your faith in my writing, for answering my many questions about the publishing process, and for publishing this book.

When I was nine, my parents (my mother and stepfather they married the previous year) had something to tell me after years of me misunderstanding my classmates social rules. We had moved into my stepdads house in a different town, and I was enrolled at a school where my struggles were spotted with the eyes of a hawk. This was a sharp contrast to my previous school, where nobody seemed at all curious about why I constantly misunderstood the social rules my classmates picked up effortlessly. And now, I was facing a diagnosis.

Something called Aspergers Syndrome, on the autistic spectrum. Something which meant I was made a little bit differently from other kids. Something which meant I would be given extra help at school from now on.

I remained silent for a moment. I had some thinking to do. Then I asked outright the question that was uppermost in my mind, Can I have a piece of cheese?

Lets go back a few years. I was born on 17th March 1993 bang on my due date in Taipei, Taiwan. From England, UK, my mum was working as a dancer in Taiwan, having graduated from ballet school. My father, from Taiwan, was a bouncer at a club where my mum worked for a while, and within a few years, they were married. My early memories of my parents fighting and Mum locking herself and me in their bedroom are testaments to how badly it went. A few days after I turned four, and three months before my sister was due to be born, Mum took me and got on a plane back to England. We moved in with my grandparents, my sister was born, and within a year, we were living in a Housing Association flat, where we stayed until Mum married my stepfather. My mum knew I was different pretty early on. Maybe starting from the day my kindergarten teacher in Taiwan tried to teach us how to make clay pots, and I decided to make penguin feet instead. Or a couple of years later, during African week at school, when wed been given African bags to draw on, and I drew a snowman on mine.

But my differences could have been put down to any number of circumstance-driven reasons. In Taiwan, I was half English, being raised knowing two cultures. In England, I was half Taiwanese, living in a single-parent family, having lost contact with my biological father, and left everything that was familiar to me. Mercifully, I was oblivious to my teachers telling my mum I was odd, slow, and strange. And to other childrens social rules. And to the fire alarm going off while I was engrossed in a particularly captivating piece of writing Until my diagnosis.