Odd Girl Out

by Laura James

  This room is always busy. People meet here before and after meals, before and after group therapy and before and during the long evening hours when nothing much is happening. Everyone carries books and folders. The books are all about improving oneself. They have titles like Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.

  I have brought my own books with me. What Katy Did and Mallory Towers are hidden in the chest of drawers beneath my clothes. I don’t want the others to think I’m a baby, reading books like that, or that there’s something wrong with my brain. I brought them because I find them comforting. I don’t think anyone else will understand that. They are ‘working the programme’ and there’s no time for self-indulgence.

  I light a cigarette. Pretty much everyone smokes here or eats chocolate. I met a girl last night called Sara, who was a veteran of places like this. She was my age, but this was her third attempt.

  ‘When I was in rehab in the States,’ she says, her accent sort of mid-Atlantic, ‘we weren’t allowed to have caffeine, cigarettes or chocolate.’

  She looks at me accusingly. I’m aware of the half-eaten bar of Dairy Milk and mug of coffee in front of me and the half-smoked cigarette in my hand.

  ‘It’s much purer there.’ She expects a response.

  ‘Why don’t you go back then?’ I want to say this, but I don’t. Instead I just nod and look serious as if I am contemplating what this must have been like.

  A male person comes in. I feel awkward calling him a man. I don’t know why, but it’s one of the words I don’t like. He’s not a boy. Not like my friends. He’s older than us. Maybe thirty or so. Often I settle on ‘guy’ when trying to describe someone like this. Men are old – at least fifty. Boys stop being boys at around twenty-five and I don’t know what to call the ones in the middle.

  This guy is holding a can of Diet Coke and a copy of the Telegraph. He sits on the sofa and starts doing the cryptic crossword. I like the look of him. I want him to be my friend. He looks less scary than the others. His clothes aren’t fashionable. He isn’t a rehab veteran. He looks as awkward as I do. I smile at him and he smiles back.

  ‘Fuck,’ someone says. ‘It’s ten o’clock. We’re going to be late.’

  People shuffle out of the kitchen on their way to their various groups. I report to the nurses’ station and tell them I’m ready for my next set of pills. This time it’s sleeping pills. Part of my treatment is to sleep for twenty hours a day for the first two weeks. I am clinically exhausted, they say. I hate taking the sleeping pills as they don’t always work and I am left tired and stressed, as I was last night.

  A nurse walks me back to my room and I take the pills. When she leaves I put my pyjamas back on and get under the covers. I look at the copy of The Road Less Travelled someone has left by the bed. There’s a sticky note on it. Thought you might like this, luv Sara xx. I open the book and begin to read, but soon the words are swimming on the page and my eyelids feel heavy.

  I wake at 7 p.m. I’m thirsty. I climb back into my jeans and sweatshirt and, not bothering to put on any shoes, I go to the kitchen to make some tea. Thankfully it’s empty, everyone must be having supper in the conservatory downstairs.

  I miss my girls. I feel so guilty leaving them like this. They are so small. Tatti is only a month old. Lucie is just three. They are coming to visit at the weekend. I feel close to tears. I have let them down. My hand shakes as I pour water over the teabag and heap in three sugars. I need it to help me wake up. I grab a Bourbon biscuit from the open pack on the worktop and sit down at the table.

  The guy from earlier comes in. He sits opposite me. He’s still got the can of Diet Coke and the newspaper. I see the crossword is almost all filled in. He doesn’t say anything. I hate silences like this.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. He doesn’t look up from the paper.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m Laura,’ I persist.

  ‘Tim,’ he replies.

  ‘I’m just going to drink this, then I’m going downstairs to get some food,’ I tell him. I am sure he isn’t in the least bit interested.

  ‘I fancy a Chinese,’ he replies. My mind darts to chilli beef, sweet and sour chicken and egg fried rice. My tummy rumbles.

  ‘They don’t have that here,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, I know. But I’m allowed out. So I’m going to get a takeaway.’

  ‘Gosh, you’re so lucky,’ I say.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he replies as he leaves the room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  November 2015

  I’m on my way to London. I follow my usual routine. I arrive at the Wells Deli, just as it opens at 8 a.m.

  ‘We could set our watch by you,’ says Jason from behind a counter filled with delicious-looking cakes and muffins.

  I laugh, but inwardly feel trapped by the fact that he’s right. I am a prisoner to my routines. Why can’t I be like normal people and go to the coffee shop at different times? It has to be this way otherwise I cannot get on with the rest of my day. It would feel as wrong as going to a meeting in a bikini or eating supper first thing in the morning. The fact is, if I don’t go to the coffee shop at 8 a.m., 11 a.m. and 4.50 p.m. my day is ruined. It is having a map for the day that makes me feel safe. But it’s also a prison I have built for myself. Within its walls, I feel claustrophobic and sad. My habit is also expensive and I’m trying – and failing – to save money.

  I love the coffee shop. Nothing changes. The blond wood floors are always clean. The tables, with their mismatched chairs, are always in the same place, never moved around like in some other restaurants. Every interaction is the same. As I arrive whoever is on the till will ask whether I’d like my usual and I will nod. Waiting for my coffee, I will sit on a high stool by the counter and look at my phone to answer emails and texts, and to see what’s trending on Twitter. These interludes in my day regulate my anxiety. All is fine if I am where I am meant to be at the right time.

  After my coffee has been made, tested, sent back for less froth and more milk, I go to catch my train. At the station, which, with its cafe, honesty library and colourful station-master, is like something from a 1960s children’s storybook, I pick up a copy of the Daily Telegraph. I have a story in it today. It’s my coming-out piece.

  My train is not due to arrive for another ten minutes. I stand against a wall at the far side of the platform and nervously flick through the pages until I see it. A picture of me taken in the dining room at home takes up practically half the page. I slam it shut, in the way you quickly close a door when you see a spider scuttle across the floor.

  I slowly open it again. My face is still there, looking back at me. I wander out into the car park. Suddenly I need more space around me. My phone is pinging, even more than is usual, but I’m juggling coffee, bags and the newspaper, so I try to ignore it.

  The feeling stirred in me by seeing the article is a new one. It feels a little like scared, but different from the usual, almost omnipresent, fear. Maybe it’s because coming out has left me exposed. Perhaps this is M’s vulnerable.

  Tim and I talked about feelings last night. He’s begun to ask me more questions recently.

  ‘What do you feel when you see a spider in the bath?’ he asks.

  ‘It activates the get-help protocol,’ I reply.

  He laughs.

  ‘What do you feel if I surprise you with a new grey jumper? And God help me if it’s not grey.’

  ‘It makes me feel overwhelmed,’ I say. Tim looks at me and says nothing. I think he wants more from my answer. ‘I think it’s because I haven’t had time to accommodate the idea of this particular jumper in my life. It’s different when I buy it myself because in the shop I will have considered how it will fit with my other grey jumpers.’

  He hasn’t yet asked any big questions about emotions, such as how I experience love. The truth is it frightens me. What if I don’t love people properly? What if I’m missing out on the most essential part of life. Love is seen as the driving force of our world.
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  I wonder if I was alone in having real sympathy for the Prince of Wales when he uttered whatever love means in the famous interview he gave with the then Lady Diana Spencer on their engagement. Do I love Tim? I think so. I am used to him and his presence often helps me find my emotional neutral. I like to know he is there. He is certainly the only person whose presence I can tolerate for extended periods. I imagine telling him this. Telling him that I think I love him because he helps me achieve neutrality. Years ago he would have stormed out; now I think he’d just laugh.

  How do we know what love is? As a child I was hugely frustrated by not knowing if everyone experienced colour in the same way I did. Just because we all call something blue, how do we know we see it in the same way? When I learned of colour blindness I was enchanted. It, along with spontaneous combustion, became one of my early special interests and I would ask everyone I met if they were colour blind. Isn’t it the same with love? How do we know if we all feel it the same way?

  The train arrives and I get on. I find my usual seat, halfway along a middle carriage, to the left by the window. I unpack my iPad, put my phone on the little pull-down tray table and place my coffee next to it. It’s cold now, but I don’t mind; it can take me three hours to finish a coffee and I like it at every temperature as long as the initial recipe is right.

  I open the Telegraph again and flick through to my feature. The picture shows me in a crisp white shirt, one hand resting under my chin. My glasses are next to me on the dining room table I painted during a brief obsession with make-do-and-mend and I am looking over my open laptop. Behind me – perhaps significantly, perhaps accidentally – are two doors: one open, the other closed. The caption under the picture reads: Laura James was diagnosed with autism as an adult, years after constantly feeling she was different from others.

  I can’t quite believe I have written it. That I have bared my soul in a national newspaper. Logically, I know I did it for good reasons. As a journalist, I recognized it was a good story. When I tried to find other autistic women like me, I couldn’t, so this was a way to reach out to others like me, to tell them they are not alone. I wanted to tell people in my life about my diagnosis and couldn’t find it in myself to do it over and again. This was a way of doing it in one hit.

  Looking at the newspaper now, it feels like the worst idea I have ever had. I feel exposed, as if everyone on the train knows my innermost thoughts. There’s a man in the aisle opposite reading the Telegraph. Eventually he will find his way onto my pages. Will he read them with interest or will he flick past, writing it off as a woman’s piece? Which is better? I don’t know.

  I’m ignoring the bleeping of my phone, something I usually find impossible. It is part of me. A symbiotic, love/hate relationship. An addiction. I am at once brilliant and terrible at answering messages. If I am engaged with someone I will answer immediately, so quickly they can’t keep up. If I am unsure, I will take days, sometimes weeks, to return a message. When I am in that confusing stage of trying to work out if I want to build a friendship with someone, I can take months to answer. This alone is one reason I struggle to maintain friendships.

  The train trundles through Cambridgeshire, then Hertfordshire and eventually makes its way into London, whizzing past Finsbury Park until it slows down at the Emirates stadium, home to Arsenal. I am always puzzled by sport, football in particular. How can it ignite such passion? I lack the competitive gene. Maybe it’s because I was so clumsy at school and was always picked last for a team. Maybe it’s because I have never felt a team spirit, have never been linked to anyone in the primal way sport seems to join people. Who knows? The idea of supporting a team is alien to me. How can you feel part of something that has nothing to do with you?

  The train stops in the tunnel on the approach to King’s Cross. I hate it when this happens. I feel my heart rate rise and sweat prickle on the back of my neck. My breathing becomes faster. I look out of the window to assess the gap between the side of the train and the tunnel wall. Another train is stationary next to us. There seems to be no gap, no way out. My claustrophobia overwhelms me. I am gripped with fear. I cup my hands over my mouth and breathe in deeply. What would happen if we became stuck like this? How would they get us out? Would they walk us to the front of the train? But this train coupled to another at Cambridge. I am in the back section. No one has ever been stuck on a train forever – right? My breathing is too fast. I try to slow it, but can’t. My heart is beating irregularly. I feel too hot. I tear off my coat. I put my head between my knees. I think I might faint. I’m aware I am drawing attention to myself, a feeling I hate, but I just can’t stop. I get up and walk up and down the aisle, trying to calm myself.

  Just when I can take it no longer the train groans and begins to move. I try to slow my breathing. We pull into the station and I stay in my seat to avoid the rush to the door. Once out into the fresh air, I take a deep breath in and feel my mind slow down. I stand in the taxi queue, hoping I won’t get one of the new claustrophobic Mercedes taxis. When this happens I let the person behind me go in front. I simply would not cope with being trapped in a metal box where the windows don’t open and someone else is in charge of whether I can leave or not.

  I get a good cab and within fifteen minutes or so am walking through the door of the private members’ club I use as a base when I’m in London. It’s a solution Tim and I agreed was right; it is cheaper, easier and a whole lot nicer than renting an office.

  I immediately feel at home. The staff know me well. It’s never too hot, too cold or too noisy. The menu rarely changes, the tea is good and they know how to make my coffee. I have an hour to go until my meeting. I like to be early whenever I can as it gives me the opportunity to transition in peace. The journey from Norfolk to London takes around three and a half hours door-to-door and I am on my guard the entire time. Waiting for a delay, a stopped train, a lack of cabs, a traffic jam.

  Sitting in my favourite seat, upstairs in a quiet corner, drinking a cup of tea and trying to decide if I can face a chocolate biscuit, I look at my phone. The home screen is full of messages. My eyes graze them. There are smiley faces, kisses, WOWs and lots of messages of congratulation, literally hundreds of them. Some of the names I recognize, many I don’t.

  Autistic women – or those who suspect they might be on the spectrum – have messaged me on Twitter, on Facebook and via email. My phone rings and I jump. It’s a producer from BBC Scotland. He asks if I’ll talk about my autism on the next day’s breakfast show. I tell him I have no Scottish links, but he says it doesn’t matter – they’ll get someone from a Scottish charity on too. The next call is from BBC Hereford and Worcester. I’m not even sure I could actually pinpoint Worcester on a map, but still they feel my Telegraph piece is interesting. I feel pleased that my instinct was right: it was a story that needed to be told; autistic women cannot continue to be invisible. We need to be seen and heard.

  I stare at my phone, reading the things people have written.

  We have always known there was something different about our daughter, who is now 13. My wife and I have taken her to many doctors, but have been made to feel as if we are making it up or are overbearing parents. Reading your article in the Telegraph today was like looking at my daughter. I sent a link to my wife who agrees and we are now going to make an appointment with our GP. Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention.

  As you probably know, I have a son with Asperger’s. Last time I saw you, at Sarah’s birthday, it occurred to me you behave in a very Aspie way. As your life seems so good and you always appear happy, I didn’t feel it was right I should say anything. Now, though, I just wanted to say I’m pleased you have the answers you’ve been looking for. Perhaps next time I spot someone on the spectrum, I’ll try to raise it in conversation.

  I receive an email from a freelance journalist I know. It says: In just one little article you will have given such relief – and such hope – to so many women. Sometimes makes the job feel so worth
while doesn’t it?

  A designer I work with emails: Fascinated to read your Telegraph piece. Lovely to hear you feel you know yourself a bit better now.

  M messages me: Congratulations, Laura – the article looks great!

  The daughter of a friend who has been struggling with depression and has recently been diagnosed with ADHD emails. It says: My mum sent me the link to your article. Great to see someone being so honest and brave to talk about themselves as you do! So well written too! Congratulations!!

  No one says anything negative. I start to breathe a bit more slowly. This might be OK after all.

  I have come out and I am relieved. When anyone asks about my diagnosis, or my story, I will be able to send a link to the piece, and there is an elegance to this as a solution that I really like.

  My meetings pass in a blur. Until the last. It’s with Louisa, the press officer for the National Autistic Society. I like her immediately. I am so grateful to have someone so plugged into the autism world all to myself for a couple of hours. She was a huge help with background information for my piece and tells me she’s received a number of calls about it. I start to feel a little more comfortable with what I have done. The messages show that I have touched a nerve, that people are finding it helpful, that autism in women and girls is a subject that needs and deserves more attention.

  I’m exhausted when I arrive back at King’s Cross. I begin to feel a telltale prickliness inside. It begins in my chest and radiates through my arms. My senses are heightened. The sound of a man coughing is rebounding around my head. The scrape of suitcase wheels on the shiny station floor. The station announcements. The lights are too bright, the sounds too loud. The smell of fast food is cloying. I feel like I can’t escape.

  This is a safety announcement. It is not permitted to cycle, skateboard or rollerblade within the station building.