Winterwatch's Chris Packham 'hated himself' when he was younger before receiving diagnosis

By Christopher Sharp, News Reporter

Chris Packham says he hated himself as a young man (Image: Getty)

Winterwatch’s Chris Packham has revealed that he “hated himself” as a young man before he was diagnosed with autism later in life.

The presenter, 63, told The Irish Times he was an angry young man who disliked himself. However, he said that overtime he has changed and that despite being very self-critical, he is now more comfortable in his own skin.

He explained: “I hated myself when I was younger. I’m still not a Chris Packham fan, but I am a bit kinder to myself nowadays. I don’t hate myself any more, although I might still border on dislike from time to time.

“My autism made me a task-centric workaholic. I see problems in everything I do. But that’s part of the drive. Being relentlessly self-critical is a good driver, but it can also be exhausting.”

Chris Packham has been presenting nature programmes for over 30 years (Image: Getty)

In recent years, Chris has become a neurodiversity advocate alongside his duties presenting nature programmes such as Springwatch, Autumnwatch, and Winterwatch for the BBC.

As recently as last year, Chris spoke to the Guardian about his relationship with love and how his ADHD and autism has affected his ability to navigate that most sensitive of experiences.

Chris said of his partner Charlotte Corney, who he has been with for nearly 20 years, that he can’t love her “99.9%”. He explained: “I can’t love Charlotte 99.9%. That doesn’t exist in my world. I can only offer Charlotte 100% of myself – or 0%. The 100% commitment, which has previously been suffocating in relationships, is something which I hope gives Charlotte a degree of security.”

Chris added that his neurodiversity had at times impacted him in his previous relationships because of his difficulties navigating them when he was at home which made life challenging for his partners.

He said: “I have had a number of stable, monogamous relationships, all lasting five to seven years. They all reached their full term because, as much as I was dealing socially with my neurodiversity, I wasn’t dealing with it at home. I couldn’t let my guard down and that was always very challenging for my partners.”

Alongside being an example of a famous neurodivergent person who wears their neurodiversity with a large source of pride, Chris has joined other figures in showing people can be proud of their neurological differences.

Fellow TV presenter and BBC icon Matt Baker, 47, has been incredibly vocal in recent years about the impact of Dyslexia on his ability to do his public facing job. The Countryfile host told The Yorkshire Post about the impact of the learning difficulty on his life.

He said: “Reading was always an issue and even now, reading aloud is a nightmare. No matter how hard I try, I can't read aloud. The scariest thing someone can do to me is hand me an email on live television and ask me to read it out.

“It does something to me. It's absolutely petrifying. Whatever I read, I learn. I block it all out in ways which means I can recognise sentences.”