Celebrity inspires and gives confidence to those with Aspergers - including me!

Hello, how are things.

Did you have a chance to watch the BBC2 documentary/film with Chris Packham "Asperger's and me". My son, who is on the spectrum recommended it and I was so glad I watched it. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Reviews I found on line said it was "stunning, brave and ballsy, utterly fascinating and incredibly moving".   Absolutely!

I am in awe of all he has achieved in his life in spite of (or perhaps because of )his Asperger's. Being a celebrity and being on camera most of his working life and in the public eye given that he is likely to find social interactions difficult and painful and needs a lot of solitude is astounding to me. I have found that if I am really passionate about something - an environmental campaign I ran, selling Mental Health First Aid to the bosses in my work place - then I can push myself to speak in front of other people but this is a once a year type of thing, not every day.

I am outwardly sociable and am told I can be good company and very funny but I find it exhausting and it makes me anxious to socialise for very long particularly if it involves groups of people. Going to a concert or (in the past) to church, parties, big family gatherings, weddings, funerals, training events, work meetings. I really struggle with them all and find I can be exhausted afterwards often with a migraine and need to head to bed at 6 or 7 in the evening and will sleep for 12 hours or more. I find I just want to shut down my brain completely - no books, no TV, no people. I struggle to say no to invitations and hate appearing rude or unfriendly either by not going or by my behaviour at the event. I don't like upsetting people at all.

But I do admire Chris in the programme. At one point his stepdaughter wants him to come to her graduation and he stands up for the fact he won't enjoy it and doesn't want to go. He also doesn't live with his long standing partner and lives alone in a beautiful, isolated rural location with his dog. He stands up for himself in terms of what he needs and what he finds difficult or painful to do.

He has given me more confidence in protecting myself.  I firmly turned down too many big social gatherings this Christmas. For example I have recently struggled with two new potential friendships going horribly wrong and it made me quite down until I realised that I have enough close relationships in my life - and realised I don't have to push myself continually to make more if it is at such a cost.

Chris had a huge response to his programme. Below is the link to his reply to everyone.

http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/news/aspergers-and-me-thank-you

I love where he talks about people who worked on the programme. "These people deserve more praise than I do . . . all I did was go on, and on, and on about birds, battles, art, cars . . . more birds . . . aeroplanes . . . books . . ."

I agree wholeheartedly with everything he says. In particular that each person with Autism, Asperger's or ASD is different and that we owe it to each other to talk about it. This is certainly a key motivation behind my blog. Even if I help just one person along their journey of discovery it will have been worth while.

I hope you enjoy watching as much as I did.

All the best
Caroline

Keywords: Autism, ASD, Spectrum, Asperger's, Social Anxiety, Wildlife, Friends, Exhaustion, Confidence, Help. celebrity inspire ballsy

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