Aoife Dooley: 'I want kids to see that it's okay to be different'

Autistic writer and illustrator Aoife Dooley’s young hero Frankie returns in her second graphic novel 'Finding My Voice'. In conversation with autistic/ADHD writer Mike McGrath-Bryan to mark Autism Acceptance Month, she explores her own journey, honouring her younger self, and approaching the broader conversation in her work

Sun, 16 Apr, 2023 - 10:40

Mike McGrath Bryan

Mike: Finding My Voice sees Frankie start secondary school — which, for anyone, is a culture shock, much less someone like her, or us. How was it to look back at secondary school as an institution in Irish life, and the pressures that often unfold as it happens, and address the neurodivergent experience of them?

Aoife: When I was in secondary school, I didn’t know that I was autistic, but I knew that I was different. By the time I got to secondary, I went from being a complete nerd, to ‘no one’s gonna mess with me’ — not a bully or anything, but being quick on the ball, having the best comebacks.

I kept all these diaries, I actually have all my old school journals, and all my diaries from the age of 13 to 17. It’s really interesting looking back, and it’s really sad at the same time. I can actually see how I was feeling at the time, and I really did feel different.

I used to love music, like Frankie does, I was in a few bands. Now, we didn’t do very well, but that was me [laughs], I wanted to be a rock star. I had all these lyrics, and guitar tabs written out. I actually used some of the lyrics that I wrote from when I was about 13 in the book — the lyrics that [Frankie’s bandmate] Mo sings are lyrics that I wrote.

There’s a lot of that stuff that crosses over about being different, but like not really being fully understood, so it was nice to go back to explore that, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that without counselling, because I didn’t realise how much the bullying actually affected me, it was only when I started working on the first book, when I was like, ‘OK, I have to talk about this.’

A page from Finding My Voice - where Frankie recounts the world making sense after being formally diagnosed as autistic

M: All the new rules and changes that come with the territory when starting secondary school, and that Frankie fears, including set expectations of other young students - they can be quite alienating, and cause their own issues. Talk to us how you went about addressing that and Frankie’s anxiety over not feeling able or welcome to verbally process.

A: I think it’s one of those things where, when I was in school, being told not to talk ... it was something that I couldn’t do, I just had to speak, it was just the way I was. I was always talking and messing. With Frankie, she has this thing where she wants to follow the rules, but also, how can she follow the rules, when they stop her doing the very thing that she loves and needs to do? That’s a big part of the book as well.

When she bumps into [bullies] Jason and Danny, and she hears them talking badly about another autistic student, she’s, like, ‘oh, God, maybe talking isn’t a good thing,’ and it just shows that with kids, it can take one thing to be said for them to be second-guessing themselves. I wanted to have something like that in there too, because I think that’s a very real thing I think a lot of us deal with.

I wanted to make a point of it, because a lot of parents as well... they don’t want to give their kids a label, they don’t want to say that they’re autistic... I find this is a huge thing, and I think it’s very unfair — it really shouldn’t be something that you’re ashamed of, just because your brain works differently. The label isn’t for anyone else, it’s literally for us to understand ourselves.

Aoife Dooley: "I want kids who are reading this book to see that it's okay to be different"

M: What about the way in which Frankie goes about dealing with it all, getting into music, joining a band and playing a gig in Cork? We all remember being teenagers and diving, absolutely wholesale, into interests like music and so forth and the little joys and connections that attend. How was it to get into the genuine and sometimes life-changing importance of those passions, both to Frankie and also to your own younger self?

A: A lot of this stuff is totally based on me, because I was music-mad when I was a kid, and I think for Frankie, it’s very similar — she relates to a lot of the music and the lyrics, she knows why she’s different, but these songs are about the pain of being different and feeling different, too. That’s why she really wants to be in a band, and loves playing music.

She almost uses her special interest as a way to make friends, but it’s not even forced, it’s just because she’s talking about her interest with other people. It’s the first time she feels like she can actually be herself around her friends. I think it’s really exciting for Frankie to have friends who are really interested in music, because she’s never really had that before.

A lot of the time, when you’re a teenager, you really want to not care what other people think. lt would be almost like your life’s mission, like, you wish you didn’t care about what people think — but you do. But if you’re surrounded by people who have similar interests, it doesn’t matter.

M: There have been times many of us who were younger and undiagnosed desperately wanted to do what Frankie does — find people to work with toward something cool, only to find that enthusiasm or willingness to learn is sometimes tempered by, y’know, others’ mistrust of differences, or exclusionary attitudes. How do you go about addressing the differences in how neurodivergent people relate to others?

A: It’s one of those things where, like, with [bully/antagonist] Nadine, for example, she is just hell-bent on making Frankie’s life miserable, and we find out then that no-one’s been very nice to her.

When I was younger, getting bullied, I didn’t think that my bully would have been getting bullied, I didn’t think that they would have had a hard time, I just didn’t understand why they were giving me such a hard time — there’s always something else going on. I think it was really important to include that in the book.

As autistics, we’re targeted more for bullying even in primary school, from a very early age. I want kids who are reading this book to see that it’s okay to be different. If someone is, like, calling you out for being different, or trying to make you feel bad for being different, that’s nothing to feel bad about.

People who are autistic, writing books, it can only help people to be seen, that on its own can help, kids see it and see that it’s okay to be different. We didn’t have that when we were young, really, not to the degree that it is now. There are so many great books out there that are after coming out the last couple of years, that I wish I had when I was a kid.

M: The broader question that emerges then is, you’ve been more vocal and open in recent times about your confidence in yourself as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent adult, and your body of work. Frankie finding her own voice and her people… have there been parallels in your own life, your continued advocacy and discussion of neurodivergent issues?

A: I think so. [Her first kids’ graphic novel] Frankie’s World, informed me more because I went into a deeper place with it. I only began to really process it when I went to counselling, and it’s only in talking about it that I realised more about myself, and understood myself more, how my emotions work, and all sorts of stuff that I didn’t even realise I really needed to know.

That’s definitely informed the books, and how I was able to talk about that stuff, because I think if I hadn’t, it would have been very difficult.