Hold Fast: Motherhood, my autistic daughter and me – guest post by Catherine Simpson
Posted on August 1, 2025
Why this story? Why now?
During Covid I was caring for my father who had Alzheimer’s in Lancashire, while at the same time caring for my adult daughter, Nina, who had been taken very ill in Edinburgh. I felt I was helping my father to die in England while helping my daughter to stay alive in Scotland, all during a pandemic. It was an extreme situation, and I dealt with it in the only way I could – by writing about it.
However, in doing so, I found myself trying to fit in a lot of backstory about Nina’s life, trying to shoehorn in context about her autism diagnosis and our relationship. I was advised by my publisher, Sara, from Saraband, that this ‘backstory’ was, in fact, another book entirely. As usual Sara was right – it was indeed another, separate story and that story is what has become Hold Fast: Motherhood, my autistic daughter and me.
My daughter Nina is 30 now and is well so this seems like a good time to share our story.
I first wrote a book about a mother struggling to raise an autistic child in my 2015 novel Truestory (republished by Bloodhound Books in 2024). Truestory is a novel with fictional characters, a fictional setting and a made-up storyline, but the knowledge behind it – the insights into raising a child that the world does not accept – was all from my life.
In 2015 when Truestory was published, I would not have had the nerve to write a memoir, like Hold Fast – indeed the thought never crossed my mind – because it would have felt too exposing both for me, but more importantly for Nina. In fact I made the autistic child in Truestory a boy to try to distance the character from Nina, who was in her late teens as I was writing it.
When Truestory was published Nina approved of it, remarking: ‘It shows the world that we can’t turn our weird off.’ She accompanied me to book events and we used the publication of the novel as an opportunity to campaign for Autism Acceptance.
Now the events of Nina’s childhood are behind us, and despite huge hurdles life holds a lot of joy for Nina, for me and for the rest of the family. We have not only survived but we have thrived – so it is the perfect time to publish the memoir Hold Fast.
Some things have not changed though since Nina was a small child – the world can still be an unwelcoming place for neurodivergent people. Life is full of challenges for the neurodivergent child and for the (possibly neurodivergent) parents as they try to navigate family, friends, schools, diagnoses and everything else.
I hope this book encourages understanding of difference. I hope it helps build compassion. I hope it makes people less judgmental about a child’s behaviour when it appears that the child is ‘not trying hard enough to fit in’. I hope it helps other people living through these experiences realise they are not alone – because being seen as ‘different’ is very isolating. I hope it helps people who are struggling to ‘Hold Fast’ and to realise that despite todays’ challenges there are great achievements and happiness to come.
Hold Fast: Motherhood, my autistic daughter and me by Catherine Simpson publishes on the 14th August 2025.
Hold Fast is an unforgettable story that shows what a gift it is to see someone not as the world tells them they should be, but as they are.
Catherine Simpson is a novelist and memoir writer based in Edinburgh. Her memoir One Body was published by Saraband in 2022 and was selected for World Book Night in 2023 and shortlisted in the Scottish Book Awards. This followed her 2019 memoir When I Had a Little Sister which was published to great critical acclaim: ‘superb’ (Sunday Times) ‘riveting’ (Observer). Her debut novel Truestory was published in 2015 and won her a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.
