The Unasked Collection
Rewriting My Story: Understanding Myself Through Monotropism with Helen Edgar
Helen Edgar is late-identified Autistic and a parent to two neurodivergent children. Helen worked for over 20 years as an Early Years/Primary teacher, specialising in supporting children with profound and multiple learning disabilities in SEND settings near Birmingham, UK.
In 2022, Helen founded Autistic Realms, a platform dedicated to advocating for neurodiversity-affirming education, training, and providing accessible community resources. Helen has a deep interest in how the theory of monotropism can help make sense of Autistic experiences, particularly in relation to flow states, burnout, and supporting well-being.
Helen writes:
When Teo from SENDwise Hub asked me, “How are you rewriting your story now that you know you’re Autistic?” I thought oooooh interesting!
It’s not a question with a simple answer, it keeps unfolding and spiralling, opening and closing. Just when I think I’ve grasped something solid, another layer reveals itself. It feels a bit like trying to articulate and remember hazy things I’ve always known, but never had the words for and suddenly the lights start coming on.
Since discovering I’m Autistic, it’s been like a tangled string of fairy lights slowly lighting up inside me. I remember describing this feeling back in 2021, when I first joined Kieran Rose’s Inside Autism course (which was amazing and life changing!). I wrote in the chat that it felt like Blackpool Illuminations inside myhead, I had sudden clarity, it was unexpected, kind of a bit overwhelming and somehow familiar all at once. It wasn’t like suddenly everything made complete sense and I had an answer for everything but everything started to feel like it could make sense - it felt like I was finally on the right path!
For most of my life, I didn’t know I was neurodivergent. I just knew I was somehow different. I was often exhausted, often overwhelmed, often elsewhere. I thought I was just bad at coping, too intense, too sensitive, too distant, either too talkative or too quiet. My stress seemed to always result in chronic throat infections and migraines, and I had repeated cycles of depression, which I now know were triggered and merged into my increasingly deep spirals of Autistic burnout.