Emotional Christine McGuinness reveals husband Paddy guessed she has autism before her diagnosis

CHRISTINE McGuinness has revealed her husband Paddy guessed she had autism before she was diagnosed. The 33-year-old was told in August that she was “high up the spectrum”, having scored highly on a questionnaire measuring for the condition – just like her three children. Her three children, twins Penelope and Leo, eight, and five-year-old Felicity […]

CHRISTINE McGuinness has revealed her husband Paddy guessed she had autism before she was diagnosed.

The 33-year-old was told in August that she was “high up the spectrum”, having scored highly on a questionnaire measuring for the condition – just like her three children.

The Mega Agency

Christine said her husband Paddy has been very supportive[/caption]

Her three children, twins Penelope and Leo, eight, and five-year-old Felicity were all diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at a young age, and Christine has been open about the challenges of parenting the youngsters.

Speaking about her own diagnosis for the first time on Loose Women, the emotional star revealed how Paddy had reacted.

She shared: “He’s been really good. He said he’d known for a while and he’d thought for quite a long time, basically since the children got diagnosed.

“When we were talking about their food aversion, everything about them, he kept thinking, ‘They’re really like Christine.’”

Christine added: “I’ve realised that I’ve masked my whole life. Masking is quite common, more so for women and girls with autism, but it’s basically you learn how to behave and learn what to say… how to laugh, which living with a comedian…

“If I go to a hotel room, I will arrange the furniture, I’ll take pictures off the wall, so there’s no distraction. I don’t like busy carpets, busy curtains. We’ve been renovating our house and this has been an issue with us both. We want it homely, but if I could live in a plain white box then I would.”

The star revealed she and Paddy decided to test themselves as they questioned why all three of their kids were autistic.

She said: “There were lots of similarities between me and my children. Me and my husband went to do an AQ test to see if any of us were on the autism spectrum and I was actually quite high up. And I was diagnosed a few months ago, so I’ve had time to process it, speak to my family and get my head around it. 

“This is the first time I’ve spoken about it, I feel nervous. I’ve been on here so much speaking about my husband and my children but it’s interesting, no one’s ever really said, ‘What about you?’ What was your past, what was your childhood?’”

Christine then went on to explain she’d recently written an autobiography and during the process, she noticed every time she was going back to her childhood, she was writing things down that sounded like her children. She said, “They were very autistic traits no one picked up on.”

@pourmoiltd

Christine is released to now know her diagnosis[/caption]