I was at a book launch last week – not one of mine but one for my friends Graeme Simsion (or the ‘Rosie Project’ fame) and his wife Anne Buist – also a wonderful author. They were launching their latest book, the best-selling The Glass House, set in a psychiatric ward and the protagonist of which is a registrar psychiatrist. I did a sensitivity read for the book – and can strongly recommend it by the way! My friend, neurodivergent advocate, co-author and all-round legend Barb Cook was there too, and we went out for dinner after the launch. While we were having a very tasty dinner complete with some very decent wine, I reflected that twenty years ago if you had told me I would be having dinner at a wine bar in Canberra with a group of three fellow authors I would have been, well quite surprised.
Twenty years ago was 2004. I was not an author; I did not live in Canberra, and I certainly didn’t have dinner with bestselling authors at a wine bar and to be able to navigate a menu at such a place. In 2004 I was living in public housing, I had a stalker among my neighbours and most of my socialising involved getting utterly trashed with my alcoholic neighbours. I wasn’t really an alcoholic myself in the usual way but I was desperate to be accepted socially and my neighbours were alcoholics so in order to fit in I drank excessively – impressively excessively! It was a difficult time. I was coming out of many years of criminal behaviour and drug use, and my life was something of a challenge.
However, I was also aspirational. I had ruined my life ten years previously by getting involved with a criminal and ended up in jail. It turns out to be very easy to wreck your life but a lot harder to get it back on track. In 2001 I decide dot make for myself an ‘ordinary’ life (such as having a job and a mortgage) and by 2004 I found myself in two worlds – the criminal / druggie / alcoholic world inhabited by my neighbours and my past self and the very different world of university and aspiring to get a career and move out of the ‘ghetto’. In 2004 I was in my honour’s degree of a Fine Arts course. I was getting some renown in the Melbourne art world. I had some memorable experiences where I invited my alcoholic neighbours to high-end galleries for openings of my exhibitions.
I knew what I wanted: I wanted my life to magically transform into one where I was financially independent and where I was respected and could wear nice clothes. The odd thing was that this was actually just around the corner. In 2004 I was asked to participate in a training course with 20 other autistic people to be able to deliver talks about autism to school students. Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (the central character of which is an autistic boy) was on the Year 12 book list at the time. The local autism employment service saw an opportunity to find employment for its clients in giving talks in relation to the book. I went to the course and was amazed. I had never been around groups pf autistic people before. It was just wonderful and I felt at home. One of the other participants was an autism world celebrity, autistic advocate and author Polly Samuel, author of many books including the bestselling Nobody Nowhere. I was instantly entranced by Polly and her books. We became friends and soon I had the best mentor and aspirational autistic person could ever have.
Polly said I should write my life story. People had said this in the past and I always thought no way. I really didn’t need a bunch of people judging me for my dodgy past life and poor choices. However, Polly convinced me by saying that if I wrote my life story it would be for the parents of autistic young people who get caught up in the criminal justice system and who feel ashamed to engage with the other parents. Of course this related to my own parents, so I wrote the book.
I thought the book would make me a millionaire instantly. It so didn’t. I mean it REALLY didn’t! However, it did something better in that it changed my life, and it changed how I viewed myself. Three months after it came out, I applied for professional roles in the public service and was successful.
Nineteen years later and here I am. Friends with lots of other authors, proud of myself as an autistic and ADHD author and advocate, someone with a large following and with lots of respect in the neurodiversity and Queer communities. Twenty years ago, the life I have now would have seemed utterly preposterous, but it happened, and I am mostly quite enjoying it. I now have 17 published books with a further four planned, I have given talks all over the world including two for TEDx Canberra. Not many people have two TED talks! I am mostly in a good place and I like who I have become. My thirty-year-old self in 2004 would have been pretty happy with where they ended up, I think. I used to want to be ‘ordinary’. I wanted to be like all the other people in the world who hadn’t been in prison and abusing drugs and alcohol. I actually don’t think attaining ‘ordinary’ was within my capability. I suspect that these days I could reasonably be called ‘extraordinary’. There is an old song that I like, ‘What a difference a day makes….’ For me I guess it is what a difference twenty years makes. I am actually quite proud of how I ended up getting a life beyond my wildest imaginings. Oh and did I mention that I have a wonderful cat? I do.
…And while I am here, buy Graeme and Anne’s book because it is awesome!!
Yenn Purkis Autism Page 