I Watched the New Documentary 'Girls with Autism' and Saw Myself

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

"Girls with autism want to have friends, but friendships, like all things, are not straightforward," says one of the teachers at Limpsfield Grange in Oxted—the only state-run school in Britain for girls with autism—in last night's ITV documentary Girls with Autism.

There's still a misconception that autism doesn't affect girls, and understandably, that can be damaging and dangerous, forcing young women into denial about their condition. As a woman with autism who wasn't diagnosed until into my teens, I was intrigued by the documentary and (despite its late-night slot) pleased to see that those like myself were being acknowledged.

Watching the girls on screen, I recognized a lot of myself at that age. I knew all too well the craving for friendship—the implicit approval it offers, the company of another person, and its sudden power to make you feel less weird.

At ten years old, my weirdness became apparent, setting itself apart from the cute oddities displayed by all children. Suddenly, the way I was treated by others changed; people started giving me strange sideways looks that I could not read. My inappropriate behavior (once taking my knickers off because I was too hot) was no longer that of a child, and I was told I should have "known better."

I went to a sleepover at the house of my best friend, Sally, and cried to go home because I was scared "something bad would happen" if I didn't.

Soon after this incident, I was jilted, left heartbroken in the dinner line when Sally went and stood with someone else. "It's nothing," said a teacher—but Sally and I knew otherwise. We had been inseparable since six, and her rejection was deliberate, symbolic, the end. It cut me to the quick.

I remembered this when Katie, the charismatic 15-year-old "star" of GWA was pictured devastated, watching her ex-boyfriend with another girl at the same school. "It's just one of those things," said a teacher—but for a child with autism it's never "just one of those things."

It must be difficult for a teacher to identify those formative moments in a child's life that will remain with them all their lives—there are so many playground squabbles, so many tears, that they must feel weary, as though they have seen it all before. For any child a rejection can be loaded with significance, but for an autistic child it can be devastating, shattering their fragile sense of self (based as it is on a desperate need for approval).

Like Katie I was intense, planning a lifelong friendship from the moment I met someone, and not hesitating to tell them so. I demanded equal enthusiasm and felt hurt and perplexed when they did not feel the same.

Unlike Katie I didn't have Facebook as a child—a site that enabled her to save more than 1,100 images of the same boy and form an unreciprocated attachment to the head teacher's son who came in to help with lessons, before she was "blocked, by the Facebook police." Probably for the best.

"We can't let her out of our sight," says her mother.

Katie is portrayed as boy-crazy, because "boys are cute and have deep voices." At the school disco, where the girls from Limpsfield Grange meet the boys from a neighboring school, Katie grabs one, exclaiming, "He's my boyfriend," despite the fact they've only just met.

However, it is never mooted in the program that her desire for a boyfriend is not simply "boy craziness" but rather a deep-seated yearning for approval and companionship. For me at least, a boyfriend was a social symbol—having one said, "You fit in—you have worth and a place in the world."

Throwing yourself at boys at a school disco is one thing, but in adult life that kind of forthright neediness can make a woman with autism an easy target for those who want easy sex.

I went through a promiscuous phase around the age of 20 after the breakdown of my first relationship, mistaking sex for acceptance, a seal to say I was worth something, though ultimately it made me feel like shit. The men I went to bed with were not bad people, they simply didn't understand, and at the time, neither did I. I wanted people to like me, and sex seemed a good way to get that.

I would incessantly ask friends, boyfriends, anyone who would tolerate it: "Am I pretty? Am I really? Really?" As though being good-looking would somehow compensate for my lack of social skills.

Beth, another student at Limpsfield Grange, has been diagnosed with pathological demand avoidance, a sub-set of autism, whereby she deals with her fears and creates a false sense of control through attempting to spurn authority. One of the ways this manifested itself was in self harm.

The "tough love" approach the school takes to Beth seems cruel, with one teacher describing it as "like reining a horse in and training a horse." But after the documentary, and seeing how Beth went on to thrive—moving from the brink of suicidal thoughts to relative stability—the approach appears to have worked.

However, I object to the criticism, leveled at Beth by a teacher, that she attempted to "manipulate" her teachers. "Manipulative" is a word too readily bandied about when it comes to autistic children, and is often untrue.

"She's not scared of going in—she's just manipulative," someone said on a school trip as I wept at the mouth of a cave, terrified to go into the close dark space. We had learned about earthquakes the week before the visit, and I was convinced that if we entered the cave, one would occur, causing a boulder to block our way back to the Earth above, and daylight—yet I was unable to express this.

I wondered if Beth's refusal to do PE came from a similar fear, incomprehensible to others. I cannot understand why a child would be afraid to do PE, but I can understand that you can be afraid of anything, however irrational or inexpressible that fear is.

There was warmth, love, and humor in the documentary, and also many truths about what it is like to be a girl with autism—the loneliness, the fear, the overwhelming desire to win love and approval, in spite of a condition that often makes you feel like a social cripple.

But one documentary isn't enough. I want to see more about girls with autism—how these girls cope as they grow up and face the struggles that come with being young adults. Growing up is always tough, and everyone feels like they don't fit in—but those with autism need to work even harder to appear normal. If we knew more about them and their behaviors, maybe they wouldn't have to.