Christine McGuinness opens up on feeling 'misunderstood' before autism diagnosisVicky Pattison: The Secret To
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00:00 I always just thought I was odd or weird and I was so hard on myself for being different and for
00:06 feeling so different and thinking why am I like this? Why do I have to have everything organised?
00:10 Why do I insist on having white walls? And you know I just thought I'm really difficult to live
00:16 with. I actually felt like I was difficult to live with because of how I am and then once I
00:20 got diagnosed I was kind of like okay it all makes sense now and I can have a laugh about it,
00:25 you know, we'll joke about it but as a teenager I really struggled. I ended up with an eating
00:30 disorder. I left school really early. I partied a hell of a lot, drank a lot of alcohol from the
00:37 ages of 14 to 19 and then I absolutely stopped and I've never drank since but in those years
00:44 I was massively misunderstood and I didn't understand myself. Had I been diagnosed earlier
00:50 I'd like to think a lot of that wouldn't have happened but you know I'm diagnosed now and
00:55 in the last couple of years it's changed my life for the better. I think you go through a bit of
00:59 a grieving process when you get a late diagnosis of something because you kind of, you know,
01:05 you can't help but think about what life could have been, you know. If I would have had that
01:10 extra support at school I might have gone on to sixth form, I might have gone on to university,
01:14 you know, who knows what I would have done but I'm here now and I just get on with it most days
01:20 and I think knowing about yourself and understanding yourself is massive. It's key to happiness, to