{"id":889585,"date":"2026-09-12T17:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T17:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/889585\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T17:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T17:40:16","slug":"eurovision-made-me-realise-that-i-was-autistic-at-34-eurovision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/889585\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision made me realise that I was autistic at 34 | Eurovision"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Eurovision<\/a> song contest meant a lot to me growing up. The eclectic performances. Terry Wogan\u2019s despair. The yearly tradition of Greece giving \u201cdouze points\u201d to Cyprus and Cyprus giving \u201cdouze points\u201d to Greece.<\/p>\n

The hedonistic, unpredictable event playing out on my bedroom television couldn\u2019t be further away from the idyllic yet conservative Dorset I grew up in. Most of my youth consisted of trying to work out how to perfectly align my future career so I could work at the contest if it ever ended up in the UK again, all while being confused by why my friends were not interested in my written analyses on each entrant.<\/p>\n

So you can imagine my delight when, 20 years later in 2023, Eurovision came to Liverpool. I was now a TV critic, and my job the week of the show consisted of writing detailed analyses on each entrant (fancy that). I\u00a0was so excited that I turned up to collect my press accreditation at the Eurovision media centre before anyone else had even arrived.<\/p>\n

There is far more to Eurovision week\u00a0than just Saturday\u2019s grand final \u2013 it is a washing machine of noise and publicity. Think of it like a general election but with a glitter cannon thrown in. It started well enough. I\u00a0attended rehearsals and even got a\u00a0selfie with Andrew Lambrou, the Cypriot entrant with the huge arms.<\/p>\n

Yet as the week went on, and the Liverpool Arena was transformed into one of the biggest TV studios in the world, I started to feel a weird fuzz, like static electricity, throughout my body. It was not painful, but never comfortable. Before I knew it, I was in\u00a0the men\u2019s toilet, curled into a ball.<\/p>\n

It was the only place that I could decompress. I had nowhere else to go. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t go outside to Liverpool\u2019s Pier\u00a0Head because the English National Opera were playing Eurovision hits. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t go to the\u00a0media centre because vloggers were cheering on their favourite by standing on their tables. I left the loo after feeling like my brain was caving in on itself, only to hear the booming voice of host Hannah Waddingham rehearsing in French.<\/p>\n

double quotation mark I left the loo feeling like my brain was caving in, only to hear the booming voice of Hannah Waddingham rehearsing in French<\/p>\n

The fuzz caused some surreal moments. I remember taking a breath while sitting on the pavement, hoping I was alone, only to look up and see the\u00a0then BBC director general popping out for a sandwich. At the grand final that Saturday, I watched the Finnish entrant K\u00e4\u00e4rij\u00e4 form a kind of human centipede with his fellow dancers, my body feeling like a church spire that had been struck by lightning.<\/p>\n

When I mentioned it \u2013 now quite dismissively \u2013 to a mate a few weeks later, he suggested I should look into an autism diagnosis, which I later received, at the age of 34. This late diagnosis gave me a wave of emotions, along with explanations for why I have found it hard to make eye contact with strangers at a queer club (as well as why I\u2019ve Googled \u201chow to flirt\u201d, as if love had the same instructions as assembling furniture). I have gradually accepted that sensory overwhelm might be here to stay \u2013 unless I make adjustments and take some time out when it all gets a bit much.<\/p>\n

Yet I feel grateful for my autism, too. Many autistic people have a special interest as a way to self-regulate. Mine happens to be television (including Eurovision), a\u00a0subject I have built my career around. I\u00a0doubt I would have got this career without my encyclopedic knowledge of TV. And if nothing else, I\u00a0am useful at a pub quiz.<\/p>\n

I find it ironic that, all my life, I\u00a0thought it was my destiny to work at\u00a0Eurovision, but when I finally got there I found it a bit much. Yet the event changed me just as much an adult as it had when I was a child. And\u00a0while it\u2019s possible that I may have\u00a0later stumbled my way into a\u00a0diagnosis, if my realisation had happened anywhere other than at Eurovision, under all that glitter, it wouldn\u2019t have been as much fun.<\/p>\n

Out Now: A Queer Journey Through Modern Television<\/a> by Scott Bryan is published by Blink.<\/p>\n

Share your cultural awakenings<\/p>\n

Share your experiences<\/p>\n

You can tell us how a cultural moment has prompted you to make a major life change by filling in the form below or emailing us on\u00a0cultural.awakening@theguardian.com.<\/p>\n

Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For alternative ways to get in touch securely please see our tips guide<\/a>.Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eurovision song contest meant a lot to me growing up. The eclectic performances. Terry Wogan\u2019s despair. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-889585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}