Emma, 47, is the founder of Little Soap Company and Eco-Warrior. She lives in the Cotswolds with her wife Sharon, 54, and their son Jake, 19.
I used to think I was just highly sensitive. I hate noise and flashing lights and I don’t process the spoken word as quickly as I can read it, so I prefer working alone and communicating via email. It’s why I struggled in work places before, busy offices with noise and fluorescent lights, but it’s also why I’ve been able to thrive at running my own business.
I can also be an extrovert though, and very sociable. So when, at 45, I was formally diagnosed with autism, along with ADHD, I was shocked. “I can’t be autistic!” I replied indignantly. That was autumn 2022. It felt like a stab, but also, weirdly, a hug.
The ADHD made sense – I ticked the classic boxes of struggling to hold attention at school, I am creative, my brain never stops and I live life at 110mph. When I first started working, I couldn’t understand why everyone else seemed so slow. This intense energy allows me to be hyper-focused. I can spend hours in “flow”, which is perfect for setting up a company, but impacts my sleep – which has never been great. All these things I now realise are common, but autism?
The thing that had made me seek professional help in the first place was having a particularly bad breakdown after lockdown. I’d been having these episodes throughout my life, generally when I’ve been pushing myself too hard. It’s only now I recognise that constantly masking – trying to be “normal” – leads to autistic breakdown. I wasn’t physically able to string a sentence together, let alone go out the door.
In hindsight, all my autistic symptoms were dialled up with the peri-menopause – another reason so many women get diagnosed in their mid forties. I’d suffered these exhausting episodes throughout my life, but this time my “malfunctioning” lasted weeks, and as a CEO running my own business it was hard to hide.
Some of the core characteristics of autism are having highly-focused interests. My Au-ADHD brings an ability to super hyperfocus when I’m interested in something. In my 20s, I did a PhD and published four books. I once wrote 50,000 words in just three days. Many entrepreneurs, people like Elon Musk and Richard Branson, are neurodiverse. This may explain why they can achieve so much. It’s having this energy and intense focus that becomes your superpower.
“You don’t look autistic,” is the most common reply when I tell friends or colleagues who struggle to see it. But as I’m learning, autistic people sit on a wide spectrum and too many of us make stereotypical assumptions. It’s not linear as in low functioning to high functioning, or mild to very. It’s more like a colour wheel. We all present very differently.
Like most high-functioning autistic women, I have unconsciously adapted to get through life not realising I’d been masking to get by. I remember once at school the headmistress played us Allegri’s “Miserere” and asked what we thought.
I immediately put my hand up, gushing “it was amazing it was turquoise and yellow!” and everyone laughed. I fast learnt to shut up. Now, I understand that my brain wiring means I also have synaesthesia, a sort of sensory crossover where two or more senses are activated (at least it explains why I get so much out of classical music).
Pushing yourself to be “normal” takes up so much energy and requires space to recharge, otherwise exhaustion and eventual autistic break down follows.
So much of my life now makes sense. In my 20s I’d been married to a man, but meeting my wife, who’s also a CEO, felt so different. We just ‘get’ each other, and married in 2016. Even my sexuality might be tied up with my diagnosis, I later learned, as 60 per cent of neurodiverse people describe themselves as LGBT+.
Now, I know I need to build in recharge time. Many of the “behavioural problems” I had at school make sense now. I tried hard, but was always two steps behind. There are many comorbidities with autism, other things that come with it, and I have dyscalculia too, so when I look at numbers they might as well be Mandarin. My parents didn’t understand, neither did the school. Neurodiversity wasn’t even a word. Autism back then was something young boys had.
I don’t take medication for ADHD, but have instead learnt coping strategies. But there is no “fix” for autism. You need to work with it. One of my superpowers is that I’m highly sensitive to smells. Standing in the supermarket laundry aisle is torture, as are nail bars. Walking into a house with a glade plug-in makes me physically gag, which of course I learnt to mask.
Certain smells create a sort of film across the back of throat. I can taste it in my mouth and on my lips. But this strong aversion to synthetic fragrances, I later realised, became the reason I founded the Little Soap Company in 2008. I couldn’t find pure, natural soap in any supermarket, so using essential oils I decided to make one. We won the Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2022, and I went to meet the King at Buckingham Palace.
Of course, there are drawbacks. I process things a lot more slowly, writing everything down to make sense of it. A simple shopping list takes me longer and directions I just don’t compute despite having a high IQ (autism has nothing to do with IQ). But the fact that I think, see, feel, smell and hear things very differently to NT (neurotypical) brains – is now something I can work with and not against. It’s something I can even treasure, now I can label it.
They say only one per cent of the population is autistic, which sounds a tiny amount, but that’s something like 700,000 autistic adults and children in the UK, and that’s an underestimate. Women and girls are often undiagnosed, as we become so good at masking. I think there’s a whole generation of lost girls out there, and I’m keen to raise awareness.
Having a diagnosis at 45 was empowering, it made me understand that I’m not broken. I don’t need “fixing,” I just needed to make a few adaptations. I’ve spent my whole life squinting, only to now finally see life in full technicolour.
As told to Susanna Galton
10 autism myths that need to be busted
Myth 1: “Autism is a linear spectrum”
It doesn’t graduate from “least” to “most”. It’s more of a colour wheel, and everyone is different.
Myth 2: “More boys than girls are autistic”
Boys are more frequently diagnosed because girls often exhibit different social and communication patterns.
Myth 3: “Autistic people lack empathy”
There may be difficulties interpreting non-verbal cues and body language, but there’s still empathy.
Myth 4: “Autism affects intellect”
People with autism aren’t either prodigies or intellectually disabled. Broad generalisations don’t work.
Myth 5: “Autistic people are socially isolated”
Struggling (possibly) with social skills doesn’t make you antisocial, or not be interested in making connections.
Myth 6: “Autistic people lack emotions”
Not true, they just have a different way of expressing them.
Myth 7: “Autism can be cured”
No, it can’t be eliminated
Myth 8: “Autism is a result of bad parenting”
It’s a complex condition with a strong genetic component, not caused by parental behaviour.
Myth 9: “Autistic people are violent”
While some people with autism may exhibit challenging behaviours, it’s more the result from frustration.
Myth 10: “Autism only affects children”
It’s a lifelong condition.
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