‘I LEARNED I WAS AUTISTIC thanks to my son’
After Callen was diagnosed, Katherine began to see parallels with herself
When Katherine Payne received her autism diagnosis, her husband Ben’s reaction was just as she had hoped. “My diagnosis wasn’t a negative thing, it was a ‘yes, of course, that’s perfect, that’s why I love you’!” she tells Woman’s Day.
But it was Katherine’s young son Callen’s response that was even more important, as her own diagnosis meant the then-seven-year-old wasn’t the only neurodivergent member of their family.
“Of course he went, ‘OK, great, that’s good,’” Katherine remembers, “[Because] he felt di erent and like a bit of an outsider to the rest of the family.”
OPEN & POSITIVE
Callen had been around 12 months when Katherine and Ben became concerned that he was unable to communicate his needs, unlike his older siblings at a similar age. At around 18 months, the then-non-speaking Callen was diagnosed, and Katherine soon became an expert on neurodiversity.
“We had no experience with autism and didn’t know what it was,” says Katherine, 47, an accountant living in Sydney’s north. “[One session] Callen’s occupational therapist talked about things that I do all the time, like walking into walls and tripping over things, because I don’t have any perception of how my body ts in with the world, and I thought, ‘ at’s me!’”
As well as clumsiness, Katherine learned how autistic people can often have sensory sensitivities, intense special interests, hyperfocus as well as communication and accompanying mental health challenges.
e family, which also includes Callen’s older siblings, Makenna, 13, Lachlann, 28, and Taylor, 26, were always positive and open with their younger son about his autism. But as Callen got older, Katherine saw how he began to realise his di erences set him apart. “I said, ‘I don’t necessarily think that you are very di erent,’” she explains. “And he asked me why and be autistic. He asked me to get tested too.”
Katherine had some trepidation about the process, knowing that it’s often far harder for autistic girls and women to be diagnosed because the model for autism is largely based on male presentation. Looking back on her own childhood and teen years, she can see that the signs were always there and is grateful to understand herself better now.
“e biggest impact as an adult with a diagnosis is [me] saying no to things,” she says. “I’d always push myself to go to the social event when it was really the last thing I felt like doing.”
RAISING UNDERSTANDING
Katherine knows rsthand how autistic women and girls often mask their true selves, causing exhaustion and burnout. As a result, this year will be Katherine’s third Walk for Autism, which she hopes will raise understanding and acceptance for the 70 per cent of autistic people who experience mental health issues, often caused or exacerbated by a world that isn’t autistic-friendly.
“Each autistic person has di erent needs, but what neurodivergent people really need is less judgement,” says Katherine. “And while there are negatives, there are positives to being autistic. Callen is loving, funny and smart, and we remind him to tell people that the creator of Pokemon was autistic, too.”