Guntis Blums
A former Queensland police officer writing about the life beneath the uniform, the mask beneath the work and the explanation that arrived late.
Guntis Blums joined the Queensland Police Department in 1976 and entered the Drug Squad in 1978. His career included years of undercover work in environments where observation, restraint and the capacity to remain difficult to read could mean the difference between control and danger.
Those abilities had roots much earlier than policing. Growing up in a violent household and moving between Latvian and Australian worlds, he learned to watch closely, reveal little and adapt himself to the expectations of others. What appeared to be composure was often the product of sustained effort.
After leaving policing through medical retirement and living with PTSD, he studied behavioural science and psychology. Yet the central question of his life remained unanswered. In his early seventies, sustained reading and self-examination led him to consider autism as the clearest explanation he had found for patterns present since childhood.
He does not present that recognition as a cure or as certainty capable of explaining every wound. He writes instead about complexity: the interaction of neurology, trauma, institutional life, competence and cost.
Undercover and Autistic is his attempt to give the life he lived a more truthful account.
“Society taught me to mask. The Police Department employed that mask. Both accepted the version of me that met their needs, while neither understood what maintaining that version required.”Read the full reflection →