Evie Hackett can happily talk for hours about endemic trees.

Unsurprisingly, she struggles to find others willing to listen.

The 19-year-old has high-functioning autism, and can fixate on a topic to the point of boredom.

“I have never had a friend who likes trees as much as I do,” she admitted.

She and her mother, Wendy Young, want to change that. The pair are starting a social group for young people with autism.

“I imagine that on the first day they’ll get together and talk about their interests, and then divide off based on that,” said Ms Young.

Her daughter humorously named the group Different Gears, because autistic people sometimes seem like they are geared differently.

“A lot of teens like Evie don’t necessarily want to go to a bar and drink and do the typical young adult stuff,” said Ms Young, a therapist whose company, Sea Garden, helps people with special needs and addictions.

“That doesn’t mean they don’t want to have people to hang out with.”

Miss Hackett would love to know people her age who share her passions.

“Trees are important, but I also have other interests,” she said. “I also like cats, and I would like to find someone to go geocaching with me.”

Three years ago, the teenager was so lonely she contemplated suicide. She and her mom were then living in Gainesville, Florida, and she was bullied constantly.

It started when she was little, but at the time she didn’t notice because she was so wrapped in her own world.

“I started understanding that when I was in fifth grade,” she said. “Then it got really annoying.”

Her mother knew she was depressed, but didn’t know the extent. When she admitted she’d had thoughts of suicide, she was “shocked”. “She’d been hiding it from me for months,” Ms Young said. “I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know what.”

She quit her lecturer post at the University of Florida, and moved to Bermuda to be with family. She guessed rightly that her daughter would love Bermuda’s environment as much as she did and the smallness of the island was reassuring.

“I didn’t have any family in Gainesville,” she said. “My mother’s family is Bermudian. CE Hinson Cooper, the architect, was my grandfather.”

The transition to island life “wasn’t difficult at all”, Miss Hackett insisted.

“I feel happier in Bermuda. The social circles are smaller, so it is easier to meet people from the fields I am interested in.”

She was thrilled to meet former government conservation officer David Wingate.

She frequently helps out with nature reserve cleanups and attends environmental lectures.

Last year, the Bermuda National Trust gave her a young environmentalist award for sprucing up WindReach’s sensory trail.

She hopes to start environmental studies in university next year, but is now finishing an online high school programme and taking a course at the Bermuda College.

Ms Young noticed there was something different about her daughter when she was a toddler.

She didn’t walk until she was two or talk before she was three. At birthday parties she hid in a corner.

“The paediatrician said it’s just a little developmental delay, she will catch up,” said Ms Young. “I knew there was something else. I knew it was more than that.”

Doctors diagnosed autism at age five.

Ms Young had heard of the developmental disorder, but thought people who had it couldn’t speak, or were totally wrapped up in their own worlds.

“I felt relieved when she was finally diagnosed,” she said. “At least I knew what it was.

“At that time autism was just starting to be known, getting a diagnosis took us going to four different people. Evie loves people and always did. She wanted relationships, but has a difficult time communicating.”

• Different Gears will be aimed at people between the ages of 18 and 25. Meetings will be held in the YouthNet office at Sterling House on Wesley Street. For more information: 747-1115, seagardentherapy@gmail.com or www.sea-garden-therapy.com.