Growing up I loved the film, Matilda. It was my absolute favourite and was always my go to watch on a sick day from school. It was definitely my OG feel good binge and recently I got curious and started to wonder why that might be.
Matilda was different, she was misunderstood, and she wanted more from life and her family than she was getting. I have spent my whole life feeling all these things. I have always been misunderstood by pretty much everyone in my life, most of all family. Don’t get me wrong I felt loved and cared for but always a little misunderstood. My parents never understood that my “tantrums” were not things I could control. I didn’t know why I was feeling angry or frustrated, I didn’t know what to do with the anger and frustration. I couldn’t express my thoughts and feelings and even in moments when I could find words to do so, they were almost always lost in translation. Similarly, in my relationships with my siblings, my older sibling I would say is definitely more neurotypical and therefore didn’t question that I may be feeling any different or that I was experiencing the world any differently or processing things differently because he simply didn’t know. My younger sibling however I would say is more similar to me and understands the difference in mindset more but has never felt the need to change or be anything different to fit in to society, she has never masked like I have and therefore does experience the world differently too.
Matilda loved to read, that was her escape from the world and to an extent I did too. I never considered myself an avid reader but I did love reading, more than I give myself credit for. I read all the Harry Potter books as they came out, I read every Jacqueline Wilson book, I loved the Sheltie series of books. I loved Roald Dahl, obviously. In my teens, you would have definitely caught me reading the Twilight books too. But as life and technology has progressed, my escape from the world has been TV and film. I cannot count the amount of times I have watched Gilmore Girls, Friends, One Tree Hill, Full House and countless others in their entirety. British classics too like dinnerladies, Vicar of Dibley, Miranda, Downton Abbey, the list goes on.
Matilda was also very smart and switched on, not dumb by any means but the world treated her as so. Which is something I can relate to in terms of neurodivergence and as stated above being misunderstood. I process things differently and may do things differently but it doesn’t mean I am stupid or wrong. I can see that look in someone’s eye when I do something differently or maybe a little bit backwards and it always hurts a little because if the look was words, it would be “are you stupid?”.
And finally, I loved Miss Honey and loved Lavender and all the friends Matilda found because they represented acceptance. They were nothing but loving and accepting, everything that her family and Miss Trunchbull weren’t. It gave me hope even at a young age when I had no idea what I was dealing with that someone, somewhere would accept and love me for who I am.
Alice in Welshland 