Bidding to break stereotypes
Having always sensed she was different, including going through tests online when she was younger that indicated she might be neurodivergent, Middleton-Patel found a sense of relief in her diagnosis.
“When I was younger, I just thought, ‘everyone is like this, I’m thinking the same as everyone else.’ But as I got older, it progressively got worse. For me to have to hide it, without knowing I’m hiding it, was stacking on top of me,” she told the Mail Online last year.
“But I can take a step back and understand why I’ve been struggling in this way, why people have been perceiving you as rude and quite blunt when actually I’m just being honest, I’m just being me. I don’t mean to come across as rude. I don’t mean to break down when you tell me something has changed in my routine.”
She opened up first to her teammates and then decided to go public with her neurodivergence, sharing the news on social media in 2023.
Since then, she has continued to share her experiences of what it’s like being an elite athlete with ASD and how it has given her “superpowers” on the pitch.
“When I’m playing, that’s when I’m hyperfocused,” Middleton-Patel told BBC Sport. “When I am on the training ground or playing a game, I don’t hear anything – it’s just the ball and myself.
“I probably hear my own heartbeat more than anything else.”
But perhaps even more importantly for Middleton-Patel, she now sees herself as an example for others like her.
With many prevailing perceptions about autism, she hopes she can disprove them and be a positive influence.
“People will say, ‘you’re not autistic, you don’t look autistic,’ but autism doesn’t have a look. Many people won’t listen and don’t want to understand. They only really listen to stereotypes, which is what I’m trying to break,” the Welsh star continued to the Mail Online.
‘The spectrum isn’t linear, everyone thinks it is, but I see it almost like a colour wheel because every autistic person is different.
“I just want to be that role model and show that everyone is different, and be that person someone can come to and ask me questions about my experiences because I didn’t have that whilst I was going through it.”