Survivor runner-up Eva Erickson has revealed that her autism episode ahead of the fire-making challenge was much worse on the island than it appeared on the CBS finale.
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Prior to facing off against Kamilla, Eva had practiced making fire at camp all day long, and at one point, she became discouraged about her skills and began to emotionally spiral.
"I think that that moment that we saw in the episode where I was having my own autism episode, that was actually greatly downplayed to the extent that it affected me," Eva shared with Entertainment Weekly in her post-show interview.
On the finale, viewers saw Eva getting frustrated and crying, and then Joe Hunter and Kyle Fraser were shown hearing their friend's loud sobs from a distance.
"When they showed Joe and Kyle hearing me screaming, they're not showing me," Eva said.
"And this is probably a time where I was most affected, most impacted by my autism in the game where I was stimming, I was scratching myself, I was on the ground rocking in a ball, and I was almost disappointed this wasn't shown because I know it's important for people with autism to see me in that state."
Eva apparently wanted viewers to see just "how low" she was in that moment and "how much" she had to "battle" through that mindset to get to a point where she could perform.
"And so you are able to see a little bit that I was struggling, but I pushed through so much more than people were aware of and that the audience sees that only Kyle and Joe got to see out there because they were there with me and they supported me," Eva recalled.
Both Joe and Kyle had been willing to compete against Kamilla in fire so that Eva wouldn't have to.
Joe, in fact, was shown asking Eva if he could take her place in the challenge, and Eva replied on the finale, "No, Joe, this is my thing. I have to do it."
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Eva verified to EW that both Joe and Kyle had "begged for" her to "let them do" the fire-starting challenge.
"And I was never ever going to let anyone take that moment away from me. I knew that I could do it. I knew I just needed to push past what was going on in my head," Eva explained.
"And once I got through that I was going to make that fire, and I did... I was given this task and I'm never someone to back down from a challenge."
But then Eva appeared to experience a bit of a panic attack during the fire-starting challenge.
Eva had a strong lead on Kamilla in fire, but suddenly, the wind blew Eva's flame to one side, allowing Kamilla to potentially catch up.
"Yeah, the wind is my worst enemy. I was like, 'What is happening?' I had this huge fire and it was Joe and Kyle, both of them just assuring me that they're like, 'No, you got this. You can do this,'" Eva said.
"And even Kamilla throwing that in. She's like, 'Look, I don't even have anything.' I had so much support behind me and I felt so, 'Everyone believes in me, I can do this. I just need to change the avenue I'm going about.'"
Eva therefore recalled trying to blow on the flame.
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Eva defied many odds and was viewed as the heart of Survivor 48, but she ended up losing the $1 million to Kyle.
On Night 26 of Survivor, Kyle was crowned the "Sole Survivor" in a 5-2-1 jury vote instead of Eva and Joe.
Eva had received two votes to win from Star Toomey and Mary Zheng, while Joe had received a single vote from Cedrek McFadden.
Although Eva didn't win the game, she said she is so proud to have inspired people, especially children, in the autism community.
"Oh my gosh. I have never seen any role model on TV present autism in the way that I portray it. Autism is a spectrum, so it's different for everybody. The broad audience has a general stereotype view of autism, and I break that stereotype," Eva gushed.
"And there are so many people like me who also break that in their own way and they connect with my story, or they see elements of their life now shown on TV that they're like, 'I get overstimulated too.'"
Eva said people who watched her outbursts on TV have realized that it's "acceptable" behavior for someone with autism.
Eva added how she wants people with autism to be proud of who they are and never be ashamed of themselves for how they may act in public.
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"[I've received] an infinite amount of messages from kids, from adults, from parents of kids with autism, so many people that are now recognizing how special and amazing they are for their autism instead of seeing it as a bad thing in their life," Eva said.
"And that is the biggest message that I can ever give from this game, and I'm so, so happy I've had the opportunity to spread it."
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
