As a quiet and solitary neurodivergent child, my early attempts to fit in and navigate this world has been extremely difficult to say the least. I have to admit I just didn’t get what it was all about, let alone what most people were all about, (but then I didn’t get what I was all about for most of my life too for that matter)!
I was helped by one of my earliest (and life-long) autistic obsessions. It acted as my own personal gateway to the world, a sort of personal ‘guardian of forever’, or, as its more simply known to most people… Television.
I cannot stress enough as to just how important it was to me growing up. It opened up my mind and with that came a lot of insight, ideas, adventure and spectacle. I think as autistic children now can often now lose themselves in other special interests online and gaming, for me back then this was my equivalent, an all consuming window on the world and my absolute passion. Thankfully, (or frustratingly, depending on what side you sit on), it was really down to just three channels and limited screen time. So you can imagine my excitement when Channel 4 began in the early 1980s to add their unique, powerful and imaginative, often v diverse dramas and comedy.
Back then it was also a time without the watershed, or real proper censorship (other than Mary Whitehouse). Equally, the world itself and people’s attitudes were very different to how they are now and television programming would often reflect those more brutal or tougher views too in what was shown, or how drama was depicted. This was even the case in what might be considered ‘family’ or ‘children’s’ shows, which could still delve more into darker subject matters and ideas. So, whilst it entertained me by confronting me with many fictional monsters and scares in shows like Doctor Who, Tales Of The Unexpected or Hammer, it also revealed the brutality, horror and darkness contained in real life too.
I do recall having times with extremely bad anxiety. Not really a surprise as people on the spectrum are prone to a great deal of anxiety, but often as a child, there was a time of continual nightmares and even some of the ideas shown in the likes of supposedly more innocent child friendly shows like Space 1999, The Tomorrow People and The Children Of The Stones, would still affect me very deeply and cause many nightmares and a lot of anxiety. This was partly because I had a ‘great imagination’, but I think in reality that so-called ‘great imagination’ was really because of my own recall and how I am able to remember things as a neurodiverse person. I think it’s possible because of how I process information and connect with things I held on to the imagery and the emotional impact longer than a more neurotypical child might do..
That said, I have to admit that I have always gravitated to the darker side of life and always enjoyed challenging myself, even if it meant being terrified or scared by what was presented. True, I probably watched things that weren’t strictly meant for me, but yeah, I bloody loved it and I still do if I’m honest.
The great thing was I still embraced all of those fears too. My sister and I would even make childhood games from some of what we saw and then made up our own on top of it. I even recall us telling each other ghost stories on one holiday in Wales, where we saw remains of camp fires on the local beach. To us the fires had clearly contained dead body parts from the sacrificial meetings that obviously went on there at night. That night, as if the universe had perfectly timed it to our macabre mood, it, they had decided to re-show the adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot‘ with David Soul. This started another of my obsessions with the genius of Stephen King and his writing. Of course we were fans of David from his Starsky and Hutch days and as I said, we were also fans of having the bejasus scared out of us and it certainly didn’t disappoint. We loved it and were terrified in equal measure (especially with its spooky child vampires into the mix). That night, we wouldn’t go to sleep until we had make makeshift crucifixes from laundry pegs to surround our bed and protect us!
I have gone back to Salem’s Lot many times since and in our defence it was directed by Texas Chainsaw’s Tobe Hooper and still remains very scary and effective for a tv film mini series of the late 70s.
Equally, this was a time of real life horrors too. Growing up with war in The Falklands and a Nuclear holocaust being an almost a guaranteed outcome, it was enough for governmental pamphlets to be handed out, official public information films played on national TV. Documentaries sat alongside special news programming and dramas. It wasn’t a case of if, but when. They certainly were quite terrifying times as a child. The pseudo documentary style of Threads and other dramas played at School like Z for Zachariah only added to this. One of the most effective pieces of that time was When The Wind Blows, an animation film made by the animation company and writer behind The Snowman, Raymond Briggs. As with his other work, the cartoon comic strip story was brought to life in another seemingly quaint cartoon, but this time it offered a brutally honest look at the effects of a nuclear war on two loveable pensioners, which packed a very emotional punch and expertly portrayed by Sir John Mills and his wife Dame Peggy Ashcroft.
We even had no respite in our pop music. Whether it was Frankie Goes To Hollywoods dance pop song ‘Two Tribes’, the haunting of the four minute warning in the video of Ultravox’s ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ , or even Morrissey’s ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday‘ they often seemed to echo the fears and culture of the time. It certainly seemed like darker times as a child back then, so maybe this fascination and a sort of gallows humour was our way of dealing with it all and navigating the world as we knew it.
Well, this post has derailed a little and has gone off on a bit of horror tangent hasn’t it? Wasn’t quite the intent at the start if I’m honest, but welcome to my world, where I can go off on tangents and information overloads can come in and overwhelm, sending me off into lots and lots of rabbit holes and give me lots of things to explore. It’s part fun, exhilarating, yet constantly leaves me in a regular state of ‘oh, yeah, where was I’?
Certainly, how we view the world as neurodivergent people on the spectrum, for me, things like television, can become a big deal as a lifetime autistic special interest and obsession. Once something takes your interest as a special interest, it can quickly and completely consume most of my waking hours, 100%, 24/7, 365 days a year. Its something that can bring about continual research and all consuming deep dives to the extreme. It will push me on to explore and study it forensically, often setting me off on many a tangents in the process (as you’ve just experienced), whilst also creating many new obsessions along the way. My love of television, and drama, will be something I’ll come back to over and over, I’m sure, let alone my obsessions of many of the specific programmes too. After all, it was this obsession which led to me eventually working, researching and creating stories for that very industry.
Neurodivergent Late Bloomer 
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