Strong Female Character

While the struggles of Fern’s early childhood are intense, her portrayal of them is clouded by a tone of youthful naivete and innocence. From this perspective, the ableist and sexist hostility of others is unexplained, and so is the allistic rhythm of society. In this sense, bad things happen to Fern seemingly without reason. Though she has been able to retroactively make sense of these events in the wake of her adult diagnosis, her young self has no way of understanding why she has difficulty functioning in the ways that people around her do. She explains that, “For most autistics existing in a world not built for them, anxiety is the baseline and constant background hum that their daily life has to play over” (43). This overwhelming sense of inexplicability before diagnosis is a direct cause of Fern’s subsequent mental health struggles.

One scene where Fern’s childhood innocence comes into clear focus is during her interactions with a tree on her school’s playground, which she views as her only friend. The tenderness with which she describes this tree reveals a gentleness and genuine affection. “I felt a huge connection with the tree and walked in circles round it,” she writes, “talking to it quietly, stepping on its roots and patting it” (45-46). The emotional purity of this relationship is later corrupted for her as an adult when she watches a BBC documentary called Married to the Eiffel Tower. It focuses on women with autism who have deep attachments to inanimate objects—without properly acknowledging the role of autism in these behaviors. Allistic television producers make a spectacle out of these women, presenting their love for the objects as a perverse oddity. While Fern initially watches the documentary with company and laughs at the women, “later I watched the documentary over and over again by myself—not because I fancied inanimate objects but because it didn’t seem so stupid to me to feel a connection with them” (46). The dichotomy between Fern’s relationship with the tree and how allistic people might view that relationship is a prime example of how allistic society imposes problems on harmless autistic symptoms.

As Fern ages and grows increasingly aware of her unexplained—and often maligned—differences, the aforementioned “hum” of anxiety begins to take root in her mind to disastrous effect. Fears based on her general feelings of discomfort in Bathgate begin to dictate her outlook and actions: “I knew from the novels I read that being the best at school was key to escaping my house and leaving Bathgate altogether. […] I decided if I didn’t get three As I’d kill myself at the end of the school year. There was no other option” (87). This self-destructive line of thinking, which Fern arrives at because of difficulties she has no explanation for, is physically actualized when she begins cutting herself. Her mother’s response to this mental health crisis only makes her feel worse, as “Mum’s theory that I’d simply seen pictures and copied them […] was such an asinine line of thinking that I didn’t bother challenging it. I was too tired anyway” (88). Her inability to engage with this intense, accusatory parenting style reveals how mentally exhausted she has become by trying to navigate allistic society. As her mental health worsens and the adults and institutions around her continuously fail to provide support, Fern’s attitudes and behaviors are increasingly challenged.

Fern’s time at Westleigh Way marks the end of the naive innocence that characterizes her approach to all previous experiences. There, she is forced to contend with adults who blatantly do not care about her or the other teens’ mental health needs. In a particularly cutting “group therapy” session, Fern is shocked by the way the staff treats Natalie:

‘[A]nd that’s why, ever since that fucking bastard raped me…I just cannae—’

‘Natalie,’ Lorraine said sharply, ‘that’s not how we speak here.’

I was stunned. Lorraine’s admonishing her about the language policy while she was discussing the traumatic event that landed her there was something else (110).

Lorraine’s censorious attitude sets the tone for Westleigh Way’s hostile environment, and other staff members follow suit. Fern and the other girls are keenly aware that the adults in charge of their care are ultimately unsympathetic. Even more distressing, Fern realizes that “It felt like everyone in our group was getting worse. I was getting worse” (113). Westleigh Way thus reveals itself to be a harmful institution disguised as a nurturing one, harboring all the same prejudices that Fern already contends with in the outside world. The brazen note Fern leaves for the facility as a way of departing— “FERN HAS LEFT THE BUILDING”— conveys how little regard she has for the place. Moving forward, she will approach most institutions she encounters, like her university and the BBC, as authoritative and with a robust sense of cynicism.