Speaking With Writer Laura Richmond — THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM
In another life, author Laura Richmond might have been a medieval vowess—but in this one she is a writer, parent, and autism and mental health advocate. She writes for The Daily Tism, and her book is All My Worldly Joy. We talked with Laura about being misunderstood for much of her life before her adult autism diagnosis. We also talked about her book, and her comedy work. We hope you’ll find her as delightful as we do.
Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA): It sounds like you had a childhood that allowed you to be delightfully yourself, especially in collusion with your Nan. Do you think such a childhood would have been possible if you’d been diagnosed autistic as a child?
Laura Richmond: This is such an interesting question, and I think many of us late-diagnosed autistics wonder how things might have been different if our autism had been identified earlier. In some ways, it feels cruel to have been denied that understanding of ourselves, and that potential for understanding and support from others. ‘If only I had known…’ I often think.
But the reality is that neurodiversity and neurodiversity-affirming approaches didn’t really exist in the 1990s and 2000s. When I finally received my diagnosis in 2022, the psychologist congratulated me. He said that I was part of a wonderful community of people. I would certainly rather hear the news like that, than have it framed as a deficit, or as something that was wrong with me.
On one hand, if I had been diagnosed in childhood, I wouldn’t have received so many other, incorrect diagnoses or been drugged into oblivion like I was. That did me real harm. On the other hand, I might have been subjected to ABA-style ‘treatments’ that would have harmed me differently. So, who knows, really.
I was fortunate to grow up in a family where I was generally allowed to get on with being myself. My food aversions and various quirks were accommodated, and I was considered eccentric and highly-strung, but I wasn’t persecuted for that. (School was a different story, mind you.)
I know some other late-diagnosed autistics had a much more stressful home life. At the same time, I didn’t have the understanding and support that I needed. My additional needs went unmet, not because the adults around me didn’t care, but simply because they didn’t know. That caused real problems further down the line. In a way, that’s what All My Worldly Joy is about—those problems, and how they were resolved.
TPGA: You have been through so much, including teen mental health hospitalizations, the incredibly traumatic birth of your son, and then postpartum depression. Now that you can view those experiences in hindsight, what are some ways in which family and professionals can better support neurodivergent people in mental or physical crisis?
Richmond: Another great question, thank you. I think these would be my top five tips:
- Understand that distress might look different to what you expect. Take it more seriously, not less, because of this.
- Learn about alexithymia and dissociation and understand that we may not always realise, let alone be able to tell you, when we’re not okay.
- Support and facilitate our inbuilt coping strategies like stimming and special interests and recognise that more ‘universal’ strategies like mindfulness or talking therapies may not work for us.
- Educate yourself on common neurodivergent experiences, and then talk to your autistic loved one or patient about how these things might show up for them.
- At the same time, don’t worry that you’re not an expert. Just be kind and be human. I hope that, in All My Worldly Joy, I’ve demonstrated real, concrete, practical examples of people being enormously helpful and supportive, despite having no clear idea what was going on!
TPGA: Suicidality was another struggle for you. And you wrote that now, despite having experienced extreme traumas, “I am thankful to be here.” Can you talk about how you keep yourself centered, and the graces you try to give yourself during low points?
Richmond: I find that, since my autism diagnosis especially, I am more patient with myself when I struggle to communicate, or to manage emotions, or when I become intensely anxious about things that most other people would take in their stride. I shouldn’t need a diagnosis for that, but I can’t deny that it helps.
(By the way, self-identification is absolutely valid, but because of my history with mental health services, I needed someone with a clinical background to tell me on behalf of all their historical colleagues, that they had got it wrong.)
I create a sort of platform of baseline stability for myself by knowing what my sensory needs are and accommodating them automatically, keeping to a routine, creating a comfortable home environment, giving special interests a central role in my life, and limiting social contact.
As I mentioned earlier, I really believe that, as autistic people, we have real challenges and vulnerabilities—but we also come inbuilt with the tools that help us to manage them. I mean things like stimming, routine, and special interests. Unfortunately, what society often does is to strip us of those tools. For me, it was less about learning new skills and more about reclaiming old ones.
TPGA: You had several other diagnoses throughout your “lengthy and eventful career as a psychiatric patient,” and yet wrote that “neither I nor anyone else ever considered autism” until you were well into adulthood. Why is that, and do you think things are changing for the better for (potentially) late-diagnosed autistic people?
Richmond: I know, it’s a bit staggering that no one considered it. It wasn’t subtle.
I think it’s partly because I’m female and, in the 1990s and 2000s, autism was a male diagnosis with an incredibly specific and stereotyped presentation. Of course, in reality, autistic people are a diverse bunch, and they identify with all genders and none. I also think it was because people working in mental health services, even the very senior and highly paid ones, were not equipped with the information or the tools that they needed to do their jobs well.
Laura Richmond
I do think that things are slowly changing for the better, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. If I’d been born a quarter of a century later, I would have been diagnosed in childhood. As a parent, it’s interesting to see what’s changed and what hasn’t. There’s so much more awareness, but at the same time, school seems more demanding for children now than it was for us. In our generation, autistic children like me were misdiagnosed with mental illness, but there were lots of others who simply flew under the radar. It wasn’t much fun for them, and they weren’t living up to their potential, but they got by.
Now that school is so much more demanding, those children can’t get by anymore. So, here in the UK at least, we have lots and lots of children being diagnosed autistic and/or ADHD. We have support staff in school for special educational needs and disabilities, which is amazing because there was nothing like that in my day, but those staff and resources are completely overwhelmed. It’s a crisis.
TPGA: One of your doctors talked about a mental health “pipeline” that often ensnares undiagnosed autistic women and girls. Can you tell us a little more about that, and why you think it happened to you?
Richmond: That was the psychologist who diagnosed me as autistic. I can’t remember his exact words, but my understanding is that undiagnosed autistic girls tend not to get their additional needs met and, as a result, things like self-harm, eating difficulties, and intense anxiety are common. Parents, teachers and doctors see that, and they don’t think autism, they think mental illness. So, autistic girls are funnelled into mental health services, where they are medicated and treated for mental illnesses they may or may not have. Their autistic distress continues to be misread by the people around them, and it continues to intensify. For me, this was traumatic, and it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It made me ill!
TPGA: A benefit of being autistic is that you now contribute to the satirical and beloved autism site The Daily Tism. How did you join up, and what humor topics do you like to target?
Richmond: This is a fun topic. Thank you for asking about this. When All My Worldly Joy was being prepared for publication, I was looking for endorsements to go on the cover. I approached autistic comedy writer Sara Gibbs and she generously agreed to read it. Funnily enough, I had read Sara’s memoir, Drama Queen, a year or so before, and spent the whole time thinking: if I knew this woman, we would be friends. Well, we became friends! She diagnosed me as a comedy writer and asked me to join The Daily Tism writing team. I still can’t quite believe that I get paid to sit and cackle at my own jokes every week.
I think my favourite target is myself! It’s healthy to laugh at yourself sometimes, and self-parody is enjoyable partly because you don’t have to worry about hurting your subject’s feelings. I love when people feel ‘seen’ by my writing too. It’s why I write. There are authors whose work has touched me deeply, changed my view of the world, and become part of my inner landscape. I want to reach other people like that and enter their lives. We’re all wired for connection and belonging. Sometimes it’s not easy for me to connect with other people in conversation, but in writing, I find I can do that better and more meaningfully.
All My Worldly Joy is available with free shipping to the USA from Blackwells, and is also available at Bookshop.org.
