The perils of being a high-profile autistic person

The last two weeks have been a rollercoaster. 

My BBC Newsnight appearance, where I gave Nigel Farage chapter and verse on what the dossier he obtained from Coutts actually said and how bank risk management works, went down extraordinarily well. I became famous for my calmness as he shouted at me. The calmness was of course a masterclass in autistic masking: my emotions were so deeply buried that I couldn't even feel them, and as a result he couldn't find any buttons to press. That, along with the photographic memory that makes me able to recall exactly what is written on a particular page, proved extremely useful. Being autistic has its benefits. But it is also terribly, terribly dangerous.  

Following the Newsnight appearance, Guido Fawkes did a hit job on me, which dredged up comments I have made in the past about Nigel Farage, my open and forthright opposition to Brexit, and my hatred of the Home Secretary's policy on refugees. I certainly won't apologise for these opinions: they are shared by very many people. But to Farage and his supporters, these opinions discredited me as a credible witness on Newsnight. 

I didn't feel that anything I said was coloured by hatred of Farage, nor by love of banks. To me, I was simply stating the truth as revealed in the available evidence. But when I satirically put on my Twitter biog "hates people, loves banks", people took it as fact. Neurotypical people, so quick to find hidden meanings in other things I say, on this occasion chose not to see the hidden meaning. After the Spectator's Andrew Neil publicly called me a shill for banks, I changed the biog.

Simon Jack's apology made my position worse. He described a BBC report that I knew to be factually accurate, because it was consistent with what my own research had revealed, as "incomplete and inaccurate". This was widely taken as representing the BBC's official position. To their credit, BBC Newsnight distanced themselves from his apology and stood by what I had said, and the BBC's News Channel gave me a solo spot to explain what I had found in my research. But to no avail. NatWest Group's CEO had apologised for the language in the dossier (though not for the account closure), the BBC had apologised - so I was hounded on social media by people determined to force me to apologise too, even though nothing I had said was untrue. Perhaps someone with a different view of the world would have given in. But that's not my style. I refused to apologise, and wrote a post on Coppola Comment expaining why the truth matters. 

Farage went gunning for the entire NatWest Group Board, and started a wider campaign promoting himself as the "voice of the unbanked". Under pressure from a clearly rattled Government, NatWest Group's CEO, Alison Rose, stepped down, followed by the Coutts CEO. The media reported that she had broken client confidentiality and GDPR. There's no evidence she has done any such thing, so being me, of course I said so. That didn't go down well either. 

Now, NatWest Group is negotiating a settlement with Farage that involves cancelling the notice given to close his Coutts accounts and giving him a financial sweetener, no doubt in return for shutting up and leaving the Board alone. It is over. The truth has lost out to politics. 

I didn't know it, but throughout this storm, I was being watched by Farage and his supporters. Perhaps someone with better understanding of how politicians behave would have realised that they would do this, but it honestly didn't occur to me. I know now that everything I said was recorded, with lawyers at the ready in case I put a foot wrong. When I inevitably did, they pounced. 

I am now being threatened with legal action for libel. I'm not going to discuss this here, except to say it has to do with comments I made on Twitter in the context of a financial analysis of the limited company Reform UK Party Ltd., and it cites as evidence of "malicious intent" my refusal to back down over the facts of Farage's account closure and Alison Rose's resignation, and my previously expressed opinions as reported by Guido Fawkes. 

I don't believe anything I said was libellous. But clearly, others think it was. And that brings me to the point of this post. 

Despite my apparent facility with language and ability to explain things with clarity, I have significant communication difficulties. I tend to take things very literally and don't understand the nuances of social interaction. I say things that to me appear straightforwardly factual, and am then surprised and shocked when people read into my comments meanings that I never intended. I create storms without meaning to, because I don't understand or anticipate the emotional effect of my comments on other people. I am vulnerable to allegations of deviousness, manipulation and even dishonesty, because I don't see that my comments can be read in more than one way. 

My inability to understand how people might interpret what I say has caused me serious problems all my life. As a child, I was punished for "upsetting people". As an adult, I have lost friends, relationships and jobs. I have tried and tried to change how I communicate, and much of the time I do manage to hide my difficulties. But from time to time I still say things that get me into an enormous amount of trouble. And I still don't understand why. Why are people so determined to find hidden meanings in statements of fact? Why are people so quick to attribute malicious intent? And why are they so inconsistent - taking what I say literally one minute, then the next minute, reading into my comments things I never intended?

My persistent difficulties with communication are the reason why I finally, desperately, asked for an autism and ADHD assessment in May this year. I needed to know why I struggle so much with social interaction that others find easy. And now I'm coming to realise just how vulnerable my autism makes me. 

The higher my public profile, the greater the risk that my communication difficulties and inability to understand social nuances will cause me serious problems. People like the clarity and rigour of my financial analyses, but are unforgiving of any mistakes in my communication. And mistakes there inevitably are, because good though my mask is, it only gives me the appearance of "normal" communication. The deficiencies are still there. They will always be there. And for that reason, my high public profile is dangerous to me. 

There aren't very many high-profile autistic people. Perhaps this is why. The risks arising from a high profile in a world that refuses to understand, let alone accommodate, autistic communication styles are just too great, and the costs of mistakes are far too high. 

Where do I go from here?