"My husband is the only person who's seen me unmasked" | Inside Our Autistic Minds

foreign this is the last place I would expect to find another autistic person thank you slowly overestimate how tall I am let alone see improv might not be my cup of tea I'm impressed by Flo's confidence and wit it's often said that autistic people struggle in large groups but the audience are eating out of her hands hello all right okay now I am here why weren't you before I was incredibly nervous a lot of people who meet you I think will see a confident young woman who's on the stage doing comedy in front of a large audience of people these are not things that people would normally associate with autism no why are you comfortable to do improv I think for me any conversation at any point in time is improvisation so improv comedy for me is exactly what I do when I go to the shop and the person behind the counter is asking me about my day the way that I hope to communicate with that person is usually based on rules I love rules in a conversation I love small talk because if someone goes how are you doing how was your day I can go it was great thank you how was yours I know what comes next if that isn't really you that's something that you've created in order to be able to exist in that environment yeah so typically we would describe that as masking and a lot of autistic people use that um I mean the eye contact that I'm making with you now is you're conscious of it yeah so am I yeah yeah it's weird isn't it and I'm not looking at your eyes I'm looking here yeah yeah so would you say then that being masking or camouflaging is when autistic people consciously copy the behavior and mannerisms of others whilst keeping anything Society deems unusual hidden away I'm never speaking my native language and it is exhausting I'm really tired I've burnt out from work I've burnt out from friendships I isolate myself sometimes and that happens you know more frequently than I would like it to what percentage of your life do you think is that added part you've built around your personality so that you can be socially functional I'd say 95 of my time that I'm awake I am masking when I'm with my husband Duncan I'm not under the same pressure I think he's the only Human Being Alive who's ever seen me unmasked what about your parents no this is shocking but sadly not uncommon did you grow up around here then Flo I didn't my mum in the last few years has lived here with my stepdad Ian hello because if there's one person in the world and she'd really like to open up to it's her mom yeah Flo wasn't diagnosed as autistic until her early twenties yeah I've got loads of photos of flow just a couple then just a couple so I'm curious whether there were any clues in her childhood yeah I mean I'm in a lot of boxes and that's me at my birthday very very anxious yes didn't like that at all did you I didn't want I didn't want the attention I don't think here's a difficult question to ask a mother as a percentage how well do you think you know your daughter I will say 93 percent okay very precise I love the Precision I won't ask what the difference between two and three that's a very high percentage Yeah okay Flo now you've got to be honest as an autistic person what percentage do you think that your mum knows you probably 70 percent okay um yeah yeah there's a 23 difference there is a bit of a difference yeah you feel the uh chat with your mum want them I want to you know embark on being more open with her about what it is like having autism but I'm afraid that I'm still afraid that she'd be upset or disappointed um if she saw both sides of me or the whole me you don't think the good were that way I'm not going to say it's bad the other I think it probably would I think it's just difficult for me to get there it felt like when I was born I wasn't given the handbook on being a normal human being and I I hated myself still something that I struggle with to be honest it's one of the things that gets me up and makes me want to talk about these sorts of things I still feel that there are teenagers people in their early 20s out there in their bedrooms beating themselves to death quite frankly because they there isn't an option for them in that moment and we've got to say to them you know there is and it does continue to get better

Channel: BBC

Views: 59,395

Keywords: BBC iPlayer, United Kingdom, British TV, British TV Shows, Watch UK TV Online, Watch British TV Online, Watch British TV Shows Online

Id: i0fO9GDltlA

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2023