Eurovision made me realise that I was autistic at 34

The Eurovision song contest meant a lot to me growing up. The eclectic performances. Terry Wogan’s despair. The yearly tradition of Greece giving “douze points” to Cyprus and Cyprus giving “douze points” to Greece.

The hedonistic, unpredictable event playing out on my bedroom television couldn’t 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.

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 was so excited that I turned up to collect my press accreditation at the Eurovision media centre before anyone else had even arrived.

There is far more to Eurovision week than just Saturday’s grand final – 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 attended rehearsals and even got a selfie with Andrew Lambrou, the Cypriot entrant with the huge arms.

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 the men’s toilet, curled into a ball.

It was the only place that I could decompress. I had nowhere else to go. I couldn’t go outside to Liverpool’s Pier Head because the English National Opera were playing Eurovision hits. I couldn’t go to the media 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.

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 then BBC director general popping out for a sandwich. At the grand final that Saturday, I watched the Finnish entrant Käärijä form a kind of human centipede with his fellow dancers, my body feeling like a church spire that had been struck by lightning.

When I mentioned it – now quite dismissively – 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’ve Googled “how to flirt”, as if love had the same instructions as assembling furniture). I have gradually accepted that sensory overwhelm might be here to stay – unless I make adjustments and take some time out when it all gets a bit much.

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 subject I have built my career around. I doubt I would have got this career without my encyclopedic knowledge of TV. And if nothing else, I am useful at a pub quiz.

I find it ironic that, all my life, I thought it was my destiny to work at Eurovision, 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 while it’s possible that I may have later stumbled my way into a diagnosis, if my realisation had happened anywhere other than at Eurovision, under all that glitter, it wouldn’t have been as much fun.

Out Now: A Queer Journey Through Modern Television by Scott Bryan is published by Blink.