Illuminated: Autism & All The Things I've left Unsaid

Description

You have to find your light - and let it shine... Melanie Sykes has lived most of her life in the public eye. But after a lifetime of being seen - as model, chat show host and broadcaster, Melanie walked away from that career to spend her time helping others be heard, as a campaigner for women's rights and an advocate for neurodiversity. Then, at 52, Melanie got her own diagnosis of autism and it flicked a switch in her own life. It cast a new light on her own journey - from her Lancashire childhood, growing up in a musical mixed-race family, to her modelling career and ringside seat on celebrity culture as she became a star of TV and radio. But it also illuminated the other side of her story - her struggle to be heard, her heartbreaks and challenges, her self-medicating and trauma. Finally unmasking has given Melanie the courage to tell her story in her own words for the first time - as a woman in the media, as a mother of autistic children, as a neurodivergent person speaking up in a neurotypical world. It is a story not just of breakdown, but of breakthrough. A celebration of embracing yourself, and finding joy, power and freedom in being who you really are.

Melanie Sykes is a TV and radio presenter, interviewer, model, magazine founder and neurodivergency activist. Born in Lancashire, she now lives in London.

To come...