'THE MORE I UNDERSTAND AUTISM, THE LESS SCARED I AM'

CHRISTINE MCGUINNESS SHARES HER PERSONAL STRUGGLES WITH AUTISM IN A BID TO HELP OTHERS GET THE SUPPORT THEY NEED

- JEN PHARO

With her model looks, pristine mansion and successful TV career, Christine McGuinness has come a long way from the council estate where she grew up.

What makes it all the more remarkable is that she spent the first 33 years of her life unaware that she has autism.

Now, the 34-year-old Liverpudlian understands why life was so hard for her during her teenage years and is going on a mission to find out how autism affects young girls and what can be done to help them.

But her new documentary Christine McGuinness: Unmasking My Autism is not an easy watch, revealing that autistic women are 13 times more likely to die by suicide than neurotypical women, are extremely vulnerable to sexual violence and that more than a third of women treated for eating disorders at London’s Maudsley Hospital meet the criteria for autism spectrum disorder.

As a teenager, Christine was affected by all three of these issues – suffering sexual abuse, developing an eating disorder and wishing herself dead. The show is a hard watch but Christine makes no apology for tackling such difficult subjects. “It’s better if you are prepared,” says Christine, whose three children are also autistic. “I worry about my three but the more I understand autism, the less scared I am because I can prepare for those things.”