Ms Evie Nevin:

If it is okay, I will stay sitting down. The reason I have the stick is I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is quite common. There is a lot of crossover between autism and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I was adopted and, therefore, my adopted family did not have any information about my biological family and my background or anything like that. The diagnoses of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and autism were quite surprising. I was diagnosed as autistic when I was 33; I am now almost 36.

When I was growing up, I struggled quite a lot. Even as a toddler, I would get overwhelmed and do things like bang my head off the wall. Doctors put it down to the fact that I was deaf in one ear and thought it was the frustration of not being able to hear anyone. We know now this was more likely to do with being autistic and not being able to control my emotions or regulate myself.

I struggled in school. I was always deemed to be highly-strung and overly emotional when, in actual fact, it was autism, and I was not being neurotic and overly emotional. When I was approximately 14, my sister said to my parents, "I think Evie is autistic". My family at the time were worried that if I had that diagnosis, I would be written off and people would not give me opportunities.

I have overcome many of the things they were worried about, not is spite of autism, but because I am autistic. I ran for election in 2019. I became chair of EmployAbility in west Cork, which helps autistic people get into employment. I am part of the local Access group. All these things were because I am autistic.

There is this kind of misconception sometimes that autistic people lack empathy. I think we feel it a lot more than people realise. One thing I have found over the years since my diagnosis is that people say to me that I must be high-functioning or low on the spectrum. People have this conception that the spectrum is linear when it is not. It kind of diminishes and belittles the experience of autistic people when people say someone is low on the spectrum or high functioning. I have found that girls and women are particularly good at masking, and people tell me they would not have known. It is years of having to hide who I was because of people thinking Evie is highly strung or overly emotional and will cry at the drop of a hat. It really affected my self-confidence then. I was trying to mask and make myself look like a neurotypical person. Had I been accepted as who I was, however, my confidence would have been much better as a child. I was really down on myself. People often used to say to me that I did not make eye contact as a child because I was not confident in myself. Now, we know it was probably because I am autistic.

The main things I have learned over the years since being diagnosed is that people are far more patient now that I have a diagnosis. People are much kinder now. It is almost like you have an excuse but, no, that is not how it works. The other thing relates to my children and other children in the Gaelscoil.

I am in Clonakilty, where we have an ASD unit in the Gaelscoil, which is very good. We are campaigning to have a larger school in west Cork so children from playschool age through secondary school can continue and there will be consistency and routine for them. There is a lot of work to be done on that. I hope Government will assist the west Cork special school group, some of whom were here this morning for the parents group. They are hard-working people and I hope the Government will assist them in getting the school. That will be vital for ensuring the children do not feel othered, which happens quite frequently.