LAURA JAMES – AUTHOR

On 26 March it is the start of World Autism Awareness Week and with this in mind we have chosen Laura James as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month.

In the UK, there are 700,000 people diagnosed with autism, according to the NAS. One of those people is Laura James. Laura is a journalist, author and columnist and her work has appeared in many national and international newspapers and magazines, and she’s the author of nine books.  Laura’s ninth book, Odd Girl Out, is a memoir focusing on her autism, the book tracks a year of her life as she comes to terms with the diagnosis.

Laura always felt like she was different – but it took more than 40 years for her to find out why.  At the age of 46 she was told she was autistic.  Laura was being tested for a condition related to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, when a nurse recognised she was having an autistic meltdown.  Laura presumed she had made a mistake but Laura visited her GP who referred her to a psychiatrist. After carrying out a six-hour assessment, she was given her autism diagnosis.

At first Laura told only her family and close friends and found telling her husband and children quite uneventful, everyone else found out when she wrote an article about her diagnosis for The Guardian.

Straight after her diagnosis things hadn’t changed very much, but then she had therapy which was amazing. Her therapist specialised in autism and understood how she thought and really helped with the things she found difficult.  Through therapy and writing and everything that came after she learned to identify her feelings, put in to perspective the reason she always felt very fearful and learnt coping strategies like wearing noise cancelling headphones.

Laura feels passionate about breaking the lingering stereotypes around autism and normalising the condition in conversation.  She feels that ‘It doesn’t make you less of a person, just different.’

In an article for Good Housekeeping magazine Laura about her life and book said the following:

‘I want neurotypical women to read it so autism isn’t this big scary thing,’ Laura says.

‘When I was growing up people didn’t speak about depression – there was a proper stiff upper lip, whereas now there’s loads of people talking about health and wellbeing, including the royals.

‘If we could get to that stage with autism, where it’s mainstream and normalised, I think the world will be a much better place.’

To find out more about Laura see here

https://twitter.com/girl_by_the_aga

and to find out more World Autism Week see here

http://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/world-autism-awareness-week.aspx