‘I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM AT 44’

‘I ALWAYS FELT I WAS DIFFERENT. BUT I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT WAS AUTISM’

FOR as long as she could remember, she’d felt different. Her emotions were always intense. She was anxious a lot of the time. She struggled “massively” at school. But it wasn’t until her son was diagnosed with autism that Wendy Bowley thought, “Maybe that’s what I’m experiencing too.”

The similarities between the things she and her son struggled with seemed like too much of a coincidence. “The shyness, the uncertainty, the strong emotions – I could just identify with him and his struggles,” she says.

It’s been two years since Wendy was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and finally having an explanation for her struggles