OKC woman writing film to help people diagnosed with autism later in life

An Oklahoma City woman is writing a film called “Whales in the Sky” after being diagnosed later in life with autism spectrum disorder, she told News 9 on Thursday. 

"Before my diagnosis, everything was incredibly confusing because I felt like the way that I saw the world and the way that I operated through it was wrong, because I didn't quite fit within the patterns that I saw how people around me operated. So, for much of my life, I felt like I was broken,” said director and writer Charlotte Mallard. 

Through her late autism diagnosis, "it helped me see that I'm not broken. I just move through the world in a different way, and that's not necessarily bad — that can be very good." 

Mallard said she hopes to capture her journey and that of so many others through the short film. 

"The whole film is a metaphorical representation of what it's like to go through life not knowing that you're autistic, and then learning that you're autistic in your adult years.” 

The film follows a little girl, she explained. 

"We see her go from childhood, maybe about the age of five to six years old, all the way into adulthood, and we follow her going through her first experiences with rejection and grappling with her identity and feeling like kind of lost in the world.” 

She added that the heart of the film “is helping people rise from the depths into self-acceptance.” 

Mallard shared that April is Autism Acceptance Month. 

"Life after learning that you're autistic, it's not all of a sudden easy. It's still very challenging, but the story can be a lot brighter and there's more hope,” she finished. 

To learn more about the film, click here. 

To donate to the film’s GoFundMe, click here.