NB. This book is a permanent work-in progress. Things will change as my understanding of them evolves. I may even decide that I was previously wrong and contradict my past self. Caveat lector I guess.

Introduction¶

When I first discovered in my mid-30s that I was autistic, my initial thought was “thank f**k for that!” Finally I had some explanation of why I found some things trivially easy that others seemed to have to work at while other things that others did without breaking a sweat I found almost impossible. I finally understood that the “user’s manual” I’d been given for my brain (through my education and the expectations of those around me) was for the wrong model, and I was like someone trying to use a Mac with a guide designed for Windows: some things worked the same, others were subtly different but manageable, and the rest made no sense at all.

Naively I thought that I would finally be able to trade in my mismatched neurotypical manual for the right one for my brain. Of course, I found out pretty quickly that it doesn’t exist! Most autism research is performed by neurotypical researchers, with a focus on autism in childhood and/or on perceived deficits of autistic people and how to mitigate them. There is still plenty of research into attempts to prevent or cure autism, which does nothing to improve the lives of living autistic adults and indeed denies our very humanity. Very little information seems to be readily available on how to thrive as an autistic person and of that the majority comes from autistics themselves and not the researchers being paid to help us.

This book that you’re reading now is my attempt to provide that user’s manual. It’s based heavily on my lived experience but I’m putting on the internet in the hope that perhaps a few bits will be useful to you too, whether or not you consider yourself to be autistic.

How to contribute¶

I’ve now put the source of the book up on Codeberg: please make any comments or suggestions as issues (or pull requests!) there. You can also find a link to it at the icon in the top right of any page.

More about me¶

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s I didn’t think I was autistic. I thought I knew what autism looked like: it was the kid who had very visible public meltdowns, throwing scissors or chairs at the teacher and running away from school when they didn’t get their way, and that wasn’t me. I was just shy and awkward and weird, but I kept my head down and worked hard to excel academically without inconveniencing anyone. I was bullied but internalised that as being my fault for not understanding how to fit in, so I worked hard on understanding how to fit in.

Thirty years later and I have a history of depression, anxiety and burnout, but at least I also have the beginnings of an explanation for that: I am in fact autistic.

On diagnosis¶

I have a complicated relationship to formal diagnosis, which I won’t go into here but might write more about on my blog at some point, and I strongly believe that self-diagnosis is 100% valid. Not everyone has equal access to diagnostic assessments and they are often biased against anyone who is not a young, white, middle-class male with a stereotypical “antisocial” presentation of autism. People who self-diagnose do not do so on a whim, because they think it sounds “cool” to be autistic or because it will make their life somehow easier: it is the result of a long process of reflection, research and soul-searching.

Here’s a good summary of the arguments for and against the validity of self-diagnosis. I also quite like this rather more provocative article from an autistic psychologist who believes self-diagnosis is actually preferable.