As her sons were diagnosed on the autism spectrum, Sandra Thom-Jones began to wonder if she too was autistic – and fear she wasn’t
The realisation that I was autistic came slowly and in pieces. When I look back, the earliest inklings were in my adolescent years, and many other clues were spread through my adulthood.
When I was studying for my Bachelor of Arts degree, I took some psychology classes. I enjoyed learning more about this “disorder” but sometimes struggled to understand why some of the characteristic (diagnostic) behaviours seemed to me to be very normal thoughts, feelings and actions. I was at the time seriously considering continuing with a psychology major, but I was counselled by the university careers adviser that there weren’t many jobs for psychologists and that perhaps I didn’t have the “people skills” for that career.
