Christine McGuinness - ‘I don’t want to hold back anymore - I date women! So what?’

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0:17hello and welcome to how to fail with me elizabeth day now if you're a regular listener welcome back and if you're new around here this is the podcast that thinks that failure is not the end just a beginning to a different kind of story a lot of people think that if a marriage ends that it's failed. And I don't believe that at all. I don't think anyone in the public eye or not should ever really ever have to explain who they're spending time with if they're an adult. Do you feel safer with women? Yes, I do. Definitely.

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1:18Christine McGinnis is a TV personality, author, businesswoman, and prominent autism advocate. The mother of three autistic children, she credits her kids with having helped her seek out her own diagnosis at the age of 33. In the four years since, she has made critically acclaimed documentaries, including Our Family and Autism, with her then-husband, the comedian Paddy McGuinness, as well as penning a series of autism-inclusive children's books and launching a range of sensory-positive clothing. McGuinness's journey is an inspiring one, given her challenging childhood. Her father was a heroin addict.

1:58Her mother left him when she discovered baby Christine crawling over his syringes. McGuinness was bullied at school and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a family member. She developed an eating disorder and turned to alcohol to numb the pain. Her way out was beauty pageants, and her modelling career led to her meeting her future husband, although the couple are now divorced, and eventually to a two-year stint on The Real Housewives of Cheshire. This month, she's launching her first podcast, Situationships, in which she and her co-host Sophie Gravia delve into listeners' dating and relationship dilemmas, as well as lifting the lid on their own private lives.

2:42Each of my failures has shaped who I am today in powerful ways, McGuinness says. while they've brought challenges they've also brought self-discovery resilience and growth christine mcginnis welcome to how to fail thank you so much for that was amazing on that intro you're amazing and i'm so delighted to have you sitting here and it's the first time i have ended on a quote that was written to me in an email as part of your failures because we were saying before we started recording i was saying how beautifully you write and you were saying that you find it easier to express yourself? I do. I've always struggled to verbalise my emotions and my thoughts, but writing them down, I'm quite good at.

3:27I think I can get more clarity when I'm writing. I can take more time to really process what I'm thinking and what I want to say. When I'm talking about my experiences, I never want them to come across in a negative way. So it was important for me to write it to you that I've gained a lot of positives from my failures and it's not something that I'm a victim of. It's something that I've gained a lot of strength from. That's amazing. And it's exactly the premise of this podcast. We wouldn't be who we were without the things that had gone wrong as well as the things that have gone right. Yeah. Now, you called your memoir A Beautiful Nightmare because you also say that out of every nightmare, something beautiful comes.

4:08And one of the ways that you say that's informed you is that your childhood which we heard a bit there was really difficult by any measure has informed your parenting now is that right yeah definitely I think from my childhood it made me realize what I wanted for my children and that I wanted them to have so much more life experience I wanted them to have so much more love I wanted them to have that continuity and a strong family and that was really really important to me probably because I didn't have that my mum was incredible my mum was a single mum but she struggled she had three little kids and she struggled financially she struggled with the time and to give all of us the attention what we needed that was something positive that I took from a negative experience knowing that when I had children I wanted to make sure that I was secure enough that I could be around at home and I did and I absolutely loved it and embraced it for the first five or six years of having my children I was a full-time stay-at-home mum by choice that's what I wanted I wanted to be there for all of the first milestones and I wanted to make sure that I was secure enough before I had children that I could do that and I did I absolutely loved it you've got three children two of them are twins and all three of your children are neurodivergent.

5:33And I wonder if the twins in particular have a special relationship, because I've been learning so much about autism recently, about how so many autistic people are so incredibly clever that they can communicate telepathically without words. And I wonder if your twins have that, because twins are meant to be renowned for that kind of relationship too. Yeah, there's definitely a bond between them and it's very much an unspoken bond. Like it's just there, it just exists. They feel when one of them isn't in the house. And it's been from when they were very, very little. I remember trying to settle them into school and obviously they're in the same year, they're in the same class.

6:14and whenever one of them would go to the toilet the other one would be really really upset to where they would just end up going together and it's took years to get to the point of them being calm if one of them wants to go and do an extra activity outside of school and one of them stays in but they're okay with it they need some reassurance but they must feel almost like their other half is gone they shared a womb you know they shared a room for years and it was only when my youngest came along that I kind of went okay everyone's waking each other up I need to try and separate them and separating them was was hard but they're just so so close but all three of them are it's just gorgeous the the relationship that they've got is incredible.

6:56Before we get on to your failures I'm very interested in the fact that you you are in a household where you're all autistic and how does that manifest itself what what strategies do you have in place to make life more easeful for each of your family members? Try and plan ahead. I use visual planners a lot. I have a calendar that I will even write down, you know, what time mummy's leaving or coming back or I'll put pictures on if there's a visitor that they're not quite familiar with. It might be a family member, a distant family member that pops over once a year to remind them of who they are, what they look like when they're coming.

7:37If we're ever visiting anywhere, no, even if it's a park of if I'm going abroad and it's to a hotel I'll make picture books to help them understand where we're going and just to take away that anxiety because they do get quite nervous still about going out so that's how I manage it in a way that I do things for myself I do for the kids and I didn't realise that I was looking after myself in an autism friendly way when I used to go to places for filming on different location I would always research where I was going and how long it's going to take me to get there and what the temperature's like and I would literally look at what colour the wallpaper was in a hotel room I was staying in because I wanted to know what it looked like before I got there and I've always done that for myself not knowing that it's quite an autistic thing to do so I do the same for my children.

8:27You're such a great parent okay your first failure is your failure to ask for help you describe yourself as a people pleaser and a perfectionist. When do you think you realised that about yourself? Probably when I had the twins. I just insisted on doing everything and it's one of them things I love about myself because it's given me a lot of independence and I can juggle an awful lot before it gets on top of me. But there are times where I should have asked for help because it was affecting me and my own health and I think that's where you kind of got to draw the line and you know I haven't got an ego I need to just kind of go okay it doesn't it's fine asking for help it's not it's not a bad thing it doesn't necessarily mean that you're failing it's just being self-aware and going do you know what this is too much can anyone please just come and help me out for a couple of hours because I'm struggling and I think being vulnerable like that is actually a strength but I didn't learn that lesson until I was absolutely exhausted up all night looking after babies all day every day we all know what it's like as mums the nappies the bottles the food the the appointments and I kind of just got on with it and done with it and and didn't ask for help when inside I was really struggling and just needed a pair of extra hands now and again who was the first person you asked for help my mum my mum um got really really involved with the children when they were around three it was when I had my third one um I'd never left the twins I didn't know that they were autistic at the time they were three years old they were non-verbal they didn't eat solid food they were really sensory to any noise if the doorbell rang if the coffee machine was turned on they had no eye contact it was like they just wasn't aware of anyone or anything around them they were just very much in their own little world and in their own little bubble and now I understand autism it was very obvious but then I just love them I just I just love these little toddlers that were running about and I loved how much they were in their own little world so I didn't see it as there's something different with my children and when I was pregnant obviously I had to go and give birth at some point and I'd never ever had a minute away from my twins so my mum came over to look after them whilst I went and I had a c-section with with me third one and it was the first time I'd had a night away from the twins and I had to stay in hospital for a couple of days because Fliss T was taken into into the intensive care baby unit and that wasn't obviously wasn't planned and I wasn't prepared for that I asked my mum to come and babysit for one night for me and she ended up there for three nights and it was kind of a moment where I accepted that I needed to just be at the hospital and I needed to recover myself with my c-section and I needed to be close to my newborn baby who was in intensive care and I had to just hand over the twins to my mum and accept the help.

11:42Yeah, well, I was thinking as you were talking that for you to get to that level of crisis point shows how unbelievably strong you are because most people would have been undone years earlier. And I think that it's so brave to acknowledge when you need someone's help and that vulnerability allows other people to connect and feel close to you and I wonder whether part of you feeling you couldn't ask for help dated from your own childhood and feeling like you kind of you couldn't say a lot of the things that were going on or you had to control a lot of what was going on and not tell your mum because maybe you didn't want to worry her.

12:25Yeah exactly exactly and I understand that now especially the last couple of years I've spent a lot of time working on myself and trying to understand other people as well as myself and how our mind works and I completely agree I understand that if your childhood has been difficult or challenging in any way you're more likely to be a very independent strong quite resilient adult when you're older so being aware of that has also made it easier for me to ask for help now and again because I know sometimes when I'm juggling too much I'm doing that because it's almost learnt behaviour from childhood it's not absolutely necessary if now and again I just say mum do you mind just having the kids for me for one night because you know growing up and down is too much for me like that's okay I haven't got a problem in in doing that now although I don't like to do it too much.

13:18I wonder whether now that you're a mother and you understand your own autism diagnosis has it made you reflect on your childhood differently like can you see elements of your children in the child you were my children are mini me's it's it's amazing and when you get diagnosed especially a late diagnosis I think people assume that you're instantly going to go oh great I've got all of the answers and it's like a light bulb of this is amazing and now I can start a whole life and be my authentic self and I think that's what people want and expect when you get a late diagnosis but actually before you get to that point you've got a lot of unpicking to do and you can't help but think back to experiences of when you were younger and wonder if it would have been different if I was diagnosed earlier would I have spoken up and used my voice a lot more because I never did I was very quiet up until I got diagnosed and even in the last few years it's took me a while to be as vocal as I am and I still am quite quiet and I hold a lot in but with some of the stuff I experienced when I was younger I do wonder if I'd have known or if other people around me like my mum would have known would they have treated me differently to to get me to open up more and to be able to say things that were going on or where I was struggling even at school where I wouldn't go into the school canteen that led me to have an eating disorder that wasn't because I didn't want to eat but I couldn't verbalise that at the time I went to the doctors and he kind of just said to me well you know she's a teenage girl and obviously she's she's just got anorexia because she probably just wants to be slim and and I should have really then said no actually I'm really struggling in the in the canteen I can't cope with the noise I can't cope with the the queuing up with the smell of all of the food the menu's different every single day so I don't know what I'm getting when I get there then I'm panicking about making a decision on what I want because there's a queue of people behind me.

15:19So instead of me doing that every day at school, I went once, realised how much I couldn't bear it and then stopped eating for years at school. And that's something that I think if it was known that I was autistic then, then maybe that wouldn't have happened. I want to say how sorry I am for what happened to you when you were a kid and how resilient you must have been to get through all of that and I'm very aware that my asking about it might be upsetting for you so I also don't want to intrude it's okay I wouldn't I've spoke about a lot of this stuff before and if I wasn't ready to I wouldn't have I never spoke about anything until I wrote my autobiography I didn't mention a lot of stuff like like the sexual abuse and meeting disorder um the drinking as a teenager I would always kind of play it down and dismiss everything as you know oh yeah I was a fussy eater or I didn't like socialising.

16:15But really, actually, they were big challenges that I dealt with as a child. And I think accepting it and being able to talk about it is the best way that I can help myself. So again, from that failure, I've learned from it. And now I help others and I talk about it. I help my children. I'm very aware.

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17:18And did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. If you could give any advice to a young girl like you who is going through a really tough time at school, who's being bullied as you were, who perhaps is being targeted in some way by an unscrupulous family member, what would you say to her? um first of all that it's it's not you it's it's not you you don't deserve it it's not kind it's not nice but it's nothing that you have done unfortunately not everyone in the world is kind and we're going to come across people like that for the rest of our lives but certainly when you're young and you're struggling to deal with it please speak to someone if you don't want to speak to someone if you can't because I didn't find a way to let somebody know whether it's writing it down on a text message or if it's writing it down on a piece of paper that's how I communicate with my eldest daughter sometimes if she's too emotional to explain what's going on and another thing I think I've learned again just dealing with my own children when they're struggling to open up and communicate it's I like to let them know that this is a safe place and if they don't want to talk about it they let me know that this is just an output so some of our conversations that we have we're allowed to say I just want to let you know about this I don't want your opinion I don't want a conversation it's just it's just an output I don't need any input especially with being bullied I think the person who's being bullied can often feel quite embarrassed that's how I was I was really really embarrassed I didn't want to tell anybody at all so I would keep it quiet and suffer in silence and I would wear a smile every day when when really and I needed I needed help or I needed it like solving or something I ended up leaving school at 14 and it's one of them things that I look back at and I wonder not not just if if I wasn't fully but if if people at school would have known that I was autistic and ADHD then maybe I could have been given that extra support to help me stay at school to help me feel safe and to help me feel understood instead I was just skipping school as much as I could until it got to the point where we were called into school me and my mum and it was kind of like you know we we all want to keep her safe she's out and about walking in in fields or down the streets avoiding classes so I I just ended up leaving to keep me safe but thinking back really I should have been able to finish school quite happily and safely and I should have done my GCSEs I should have even maybe gone to college who knows what I could have done but yeah I it wasn't known and I stayed quiet and I didn't speak up.

20:26You didn't ask for help. I didn't ask for help. I failed to ask for help. I think that idea of output, this is just my output and I don't need your input, is such a good one. Yeah, I love it. I use it a lot. Yeah, because I think if it's a loved one, your compulsion is to fix it immediately. And actually, that's not what's needed a lot of the time. A lot of the time is just someone to listen and be present. Yeah. And I think sometimes it's really important especially for me because I've always struggled to to just just be myself and make decisions and now I know that until I start doing that I'm always really living somebody else's life if I keep asking for everyone else's opinion even if it's just on what what shall I wear what dress do you think do you think these years or go to a restaurant I'll instantly go well what are you lot eating before I order at what point what age do I go okay hold on I want to live my life how I want to I want to wear the clothes that I wear and eat the food that I like so I need to just actually start speaking for myself and and getting what I want so if you if you're having a conversation with someone and it's not just an output you're always getting somebody else's opinion input then those thoughts and opinions and those decisions aren't your own anymore I think that's so relatable I'm someone who was a terrible people pleaser throughout my teens and twenties.

21:49And I realized after a while that I was outsourcing my entire sense of self to someone else's projected opinion of who I should be. But I know that there's an extra element of this when you are an autistic woman because of the masking. So how much of that, I mean, it's probably impossible to question, but how much of that do you think played into the people pleasing? Probably a hundred percent. Really? Yeah. Like I genuinely, suddenly once I understood autism after my diagnosis I looked back and I was kind of like was any of that actually me or what I wanted and I've gone through years of self-discovery of thinking okay well who am I who who do I want to be like even and there was there was no one or nothing I could come up with and I realized how much I didn't know myself at all and I'm still learning you can't just take the mask off I think people think that once you're diagnosed you'll stop masking and you'll suddenly just just be yourself it's not that easy because actually masking is is also part of me that is authentic to me to to pretend to to go to a red carpet event and actually find it extremely overwhelming but the the one second photograph that people see on Instagram I will look so happy and be smiling and I'll look confident inside I'm thinking okay okay, how long am I here for?

23:12Is this nearly over? Is it too rude if I just say that I'm going to go and make a phone call because really I just need a break? I'm still doing all of that overthinking constantly, but it's getting less and less the more I'm feeling just comfortable in my own skin. My final question on this failure is you mentioned that some of this stuff you had only ever spoken about for the first time in your book and your autism diagnosis is still only four years old, so you're doing an amazing job for you know it's only been four years but I wonder how much it affected your your mother did your mother learn about some of these things for the first time too and and has that impacted your relationship yeah yeah um yeah she did I spoke to her whilst I was writing the book I called her a lot and and I was just you know are you okay with me talking about this I was very aware of you know that it's not just my story although it is it's my life that you know it could affect other people and I thought a lot about my children reading it when they're older and family members for my mum she was she was really supportive it was upsetting for her but she understood why it was important for me to just write about my own life in a book and it was a really really big amazing opportunity I couldn't believe that anyone would even want to read about me all my life at the time I felt very invisible and kind of no one like just a just a mom and it done really well it went to number one in the book chart so yeah it done good it deserved to

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26:53With the divorce, I think, again, a lot of people think that if a marriage ends, that it's failed. And I don't believe that at all. I totally agree. We actually had a good 16 years we were together. I mean, I still live with them. I met them when I was 19 and we still live together and we've been separated for three years. And it was one of those things I remember when we put out the statement about us separating. that we were both nervous about what the reaction was going to be publicly but for me it was it was the first time where I really thought okay I'm going to do this because we almost have to explain because we're in the public eye people expect that and it's part of being in the public eye you have to take the pros and the cons with it so we'd done it and it was that was the first time where I kind of went do you know what the putting this statement out yeah it's it's going to be a lot for us mentally and emotionally to let everybody else know but it's more important that we live our truth we we're literally just saying what what is going on and that's the truth we're divorced but we're okay and we are still living together with the children and we're all right it's challenging at times but we need to not worry about what other people think because this feels right if it feels right to us that's what we need to do and I think after that is where I've struggled more because because of the attention around my sexuality and that's something that I haven't discussed publicly and I haven't discussed it intentionally because for me it took me years to process why it's big news why is it such a big story in the press who I date it shouldn't matter somebody's gender it never mattered to me which is why once me and my ex-husband were separated and I just met I met people I didn't properly date it was more like blurred the lines of friendships for me that was normal it felt comfortable because I'd done that as a teenager when I was a teenager I dated both men and women and my ex-husband knew with my family it was never a secret for me it was it was just a part of me and it was normal so then when I was single again and that's that's what I don't but it was made such a big fussed out of in the press I almost went back into myself I went extremely quiet from feeling quite comfortable and happy and free I almost was going backwards and I could feel myself shrinking and staying quieter because because of the noise around it it almost made me feel like well I must be doing something wrong because why would it be front page news why is it on every cover of every magazine if I'm seen with a woman and it's happened multiple times over three years and every time I've met another woman or started dating somebody else if there's a photograph I always think oh well it won't be it won't be a big thing now surely you know it will have calmed down and it's not it still is such a big thing so I've intentionally stayed quiet on it because I didn't want to draw any more attention to what is my normal and then now it's just got to the point where I'm like okay if I don't actually acknowledge this at some point then I don't know if it's ever going to go away and I just want to be able to date and I want to be able to just enjoy it and I want to be able to just feel free if I want to hold somebody's hand it shouldn't matter if they're male or female it shouldn't matter what their gender is and I shouldn't really ever even have to explain in any way who I want to spend my time with that's my business I'm so moved by that Christine I'm so moved by it because I'm so happy for you that you're living your truth don't cry no I can't like congratulations like that's so wonderful and you're so right you should be empowered to live authentically because you spent so much of your life just keeping a lid on things and trying to please and trying not to cause any trouble and trying not to ask for help and actually I just want love for you and there are people out there who want to love you and love for me too well it's totally gonna happen after this don't you worry but I think you're so right that that there's something so retrograde around someone having to explain their sexuality because we live in such a heteronormative culture.

31:36So heterosexuality is still probably wrongly seen as the default. And anyone who doesn't subscribe to the default has to explain it in the same way as neurodivergence. There's a pressure to explain when actually we're all living our own unique lives and we shouldn't be putting pressure on anyone to explain who they are yeah and I think that's something that's took me a while as well over the last couple of years I have experienced everyone's opinions and thoughts from being pushed and pushed and pushed to to talk about it and to say who I'm dating or who I'm with and I've also been told to never discuss it ever and it's it's hard because I fully stand by that I don't think anyone in the public eye or not should ever really ever have to explain who they're spending time with if they're an adult I really believe I don't need to talk about that it's not anybody's business it's my private life but I also get why people have encouraged me to talk about it because like you said people just want love for you people want you to be happy people want you to just be yourself and until I say it myself I'm always going to be a little bit more kind of holding back and being careful if I'm going on a date in case I get seen you know which has happened multiple times and then it's a big shock again in the in the media I'm just at the point where I think I've got a nice balance of going yeah I date women and so what what's what's the big deal but also knowing that I don't have to go into big massive detail about it either would you give your sexuality a word how would you describe it no and again I've thought about it a lot people always ask me you know are you a lesbian are you bisexual are you what is this a phase or no I've always been quite a free spirit I think that's the only word I would put on it um when I was a teenager like I said I dated boys and girls young 14 15 was probably when I had my first kisses with both and I never felt like it was anything different or a big deal then.

33:51I think where I grew up everyone was kind of just there for a good time. I grew up on a council estate, everyone just had big dreams, everyone just wanted to be happy and I was just being me then but of course that wasn't in the public eye. So then having to kind of do this with a much bigger audience, I wasn't prepared for that. I never, ever expected my love life to be such a big talking point in the media. And yet it kind of made me go quiet and go, oh God, am I doing something wrong? Why is this such a big deal? To now I'm just going, it doesn't feel like it's a big deal to me. It feels absolutely fine.

34:32So I need to not worry about what other people are thinking. Preach, you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing everything right how does it feel having said that i feel like i'm i'm being me and and that's lovely have you ever had a long-term relationship with a woman my longest was two years before i met my ex-husband and then i've had really really lovely long situationships where we kind of purposely haven't put like a label on anything but my experiences with women have been lovely and it's not like women are better or worse it's simply that the connection for me is different oh you're a bit better and I just I need a connection now I need something different I really really honestly I love my family and Patrick is part of my family and he always always will be but now for my next relationship I know what I want and I want someone for me so I want someone that I like spending time with that we can do stuff together that we both enjoy I want that emotional connection where I can be open and I can talk and I can be vulnerable and I can ask for help but I can also have a laugh and and just have a good time it's not like I'm trying to find a new family unit or someone to come in and and be like a step parent I want my next relationship to be for me do you feel safer with women yes I do definitely when I was younger my experiences with women was so lovely and so good but after the two-year relationship with a woman that was just it ended in heartbreak and now I can look back and smile and just be like it's so almost silly because I was so young but if you think back to those relationships when you're a teenager your first proper one that heartbreak is horrible and you think it's the end of the world and that you're never going to be happy ever again and that's where I was with her and we actually left it very very mutual it was just that she she was from Czechoslovakia so we obviously couldn't she just couldn't move over and I couldn't just get a move over there so so we left and it was really sad I wanted to make sure after that that I wasn't avoiding men because of what I experienced when I was much younger and that actually I was very very comfortable whether I was dating a man or dating a woman I didn't want to just say okay this is it I'm only being with women for the rest of my life because of what I experienced from one man and it took me a while from when I had that relationship with a woman it took me a while to feel comfortable to then go with a man but the the next person was of course my ex-husband and I felt safe with him we laughed loads it was a slow burner so it wasn't intense there was no pressure and I think that's probably why it worked but then after him so for the last three years where I've had the opportunity to to just be single and kind of experience who or whatever and I couldn't I couldn't do it I can't I can't bring myself to feel comfortable with another man in that kind of way you call him Patrick many of us know him as Paddy McGuinness yeah and it sounds like he's fully supportive of this era of your life he is he is in some ways and in some ways not and I don't mean that in a negative at all it's no no diss on him at all I think it's it's a different side of life for both of us in the same way that him dating other people has had me feeling in many different ways I think the sexuality side of it doesn't come into it with his opinions I think I hope I'm not sure it's kind of we're both going to be doing other things with other people and we both just need to be okay with it and we also know that it's not each other's business as well we're quite respectful of that we don't we both know that we're we can date and we're allowed to we're adults and we're single so we can but we also know that we don't need to overshare any information about anything because we are still exes and we are still living in the same house do you have different wings we have different wings i always joke about uh so he's in the west wing it's kind of like yeah we completely have our own spaces on the top floor of the house um I'm on the the floor with the children and yeah it it works it works and it doesn't it works for us as a family because we don't have to move the children so they've got that continuity and it's consistent when they come home from school they know where they're going to they've got their own rooms the clothes the computers everything they need is in that house and it doesn't matter too much whether it's mummy at home or daddy at home so with our schedules being all over the place it doesn't affect them whereas if we were in separate houses they would kind of be leaving school wednesday thinking oh god are we going to mummies or daddies and then thursday it might be different and it's yeah it's a lot for them so i think for now just keeping it the same one step at a time it's it's nicer for the children for me and him it works because we're not having to do the backwards and forwards drop-offs and oh god where's where's the charger or they've left something that they need at daddy's house and i'm gonna have to go and get it we don't have to deal with that yet but then the negative side is of course trying to move on properly is definitely a slower process christy mcginnis i really really admire you i can't thank you enough for for for choosing this space to talk in this way, in such an empowering and honest and moving way about your true self.

40:41Thank you.

40:45This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher. Last year's critically acclaimed series returns to follow Evan, Gwen and Marky as they vie for their students' divided attention. See why Cosmopolitan called its premiere season a master class of comedy. While glamor raved, it's the year's funniest and most heartwarming new comedy series. FX's English Teacher. All new Thursdays on FX. All episodes now streaming on Hulu. Let's get on to your final failure, which before I start crying all over my notes again, which is your failure to trust your gut, which is so interesting given the context in which we've been speaking yeah and the way that you wrote this to me is that historically you've been taken advantage of financially and emotionally so what were some of the times that you were taken advantage of being a natural people pleaser and wanting to make everyone happy I find especially financial stuff I find really difficult to talk about I don't like it I don't like it at all I just I don't like oversharing that kind of stuff I also don't ever like to come across like I'm showing off equally I also don't like to say when I'm not doing so good and I'm struggling so simple situations could be a meal with two or three people I will be going I'm paying I'll get it it's okay it's all right I'll pay you you all do it's fine no it's and I will overly insist on just sorting it out because I would rather do that than be sat there going okay so are we splitting this or and then the waiter comes and I'm having to have a long conversation with Oasis and can you just split that into three or four and I just find I just honestly I just don't mix my skin crawl so I think by me doing things like that people around me would see like oh she'll sort it or she'll do it and and it would become that thing then that every time I'd go anywhere it would be me you would go oh I'll pay and then that then leads on to people saying oh can you get tickets to that event because you'll be able to get tickets won't you and I would think oh this is like someone wants to be my friend and they want to go out with me so yeah I'll sort the tickets and now I look back and I go very very obviously just being used and being taken advantage of and were they really actually my friend if I didn't sort those things out when would we have actually seen each other and and I kind of let it spiral to the point where it's affected businesses because I've over trusted and I've believed I've really I believe in everyone I literally believe whatever people say to me because of that I've been burned quite badly and I'm still I'm still dealing with a lot a lot of that and it's very very heavy but from that now only in the last six months I have taught myself how to build my own website how to build an app how to super secure everything run all of my different businesses and social medias on different accounts and juggle it all and all of those skills I never thought in a million years that I would understand how to actually build a website and read all of the back data and be able to do a whole stock check and understand money and finances and profit and what goes in and what comes out all of those lessons I've learned because because I was burnt along the way.

44:16And talk to me a bit about friendship and how all of this has affected your approach to friendship. So I've always struggled with socialising and this was probably one of the red flags of being autistic that wasn't picked up on. I think people just thought I was a loner and I'm quite happy to be on my own, which is true in a lot of ways. but the reason behind that was because of how much I do struggle to socialise and I still do I'm definitely getting better at it because I'll put myself in situations to keep learning and trying but it's not something that comes naturally to me so when I have made friends in the past and I haven't made a lot I usually will have one friend for a while and then something will happen it's hard because I'm still learning to trust I'm still learning to be okay with letting people in into my life and and to know me like actually me not not the what I present you know at work which is still me it's another side of me but we all have a different side you know that we only share with our closest and I'm not at that point with anybody right now in my life I've got Duncan is me my closest friend and even that friendship took years we met seven years ago on the real full Monty this is Duncan James yeah yeah and he was really good fun he was a good life and we had a friendship like instantly but our bond now has only grown in the last two years it's took me a long time to get to the point where I will go yeah he he is my friend he is my friend I know I can call them at any time and if I need any help or advice with anything I know that I can call that one person you say that you can only trust well one friend but presumably you can trust your family you trust your kids oh my god yeah of course but that's a completely different relationship with my children like they are they're my soul they they really are they are my my whole heart if it wasn't for those children I don't think I would be here I don't think I would be me I don't think I would be doing half of the stuff I'm doing even speaking like this today because without those children I wouldn't have understood autism I wouldn't I'd never heard of it didn't understand it until my children got diagnosed and it's quite ironic I was thinking about this the other day that I gave my children life by being the mum and and giving them life but they save mine every day and they don't even know and I love that it's just because it's pure love and they are my people and we get each other we get each other and that's amazing nobody gets me like my children do and nobody gets my children like I do this podcast obviously is all about failure and what we learn from it but I wonder if that's how you define success then motherhood your relationship with your children is that success for you it's beyond success it's the oscar of of motherhood i only ever wanted to be a mom so just getting pregnant first of all i felt i had one i felt i had i'd succeeded everything i ever wanted now not only am i a mom to three absolutely incredible little humans like they really i'm not even just being biased my children are pure magic that's how i see them they are little miracles and the change in the world through right now through me speaking but I fully believe one day that they will speak for themselves and it is thanks to them that so many people have been diagnosed so many people are understanding themselves and I am one of those people I'm so so grateful and thankful for my journey of being a mum has over, over exceeded anything that I ever imagined it to be because I now get to know me as well.

48:22What an unbelievable interview. I'm so grateful to have had the chance to speak to you as your authentic, powerful self. And I'm so excited for what lies in store for you in the future. Thank you, Christine McGinnis for coming. I've loved it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Absolutely loved it. Thanks so much for listening and watching. This June on How To Fail, we're all about celebrating wellness from the inside. If you'd like to hear more on this, go and listen to my episode with Vicky Patterson, brought to you by Arla Lacto Free. The link is in the episode description. Please do follow How To Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

49:07please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

49:21During that conversation, we're like, well, I wonder if it's the same with AI, right? Are we using a lot of power in AI that's not giving us a great benefit? And that's really what sort of kicked off a series of research efforts around this, trying to understand how do we make things more energy efficient. So this was the 21st century equivalent of Newton's apple falling from a tree. Join me, Chris Hadfield, on the On Energy podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.