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I'm reading "Unmasking Autism" by Devon Price

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robot_interlocutor
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30 Jun 2023, 12:33 pm

I'm connecting with the book so much. I'm just gonna post quotes that are hitting me hard.



robot_interlocutor
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30 Jun 2023, 12:38 pm

Quote:
I believed something was fundamentally wrong with me. I seemed to be broken in ways I couldn’t explain, but which everyone else could see at a glance.


Quote:
Most of us are haunted by the sense there’s something “wrong” or “missing” in our lives


I spent so much time reading the DSM IV and DSM 5 late at night as a teenager. I took so many self-assessment quizzes. Ach!



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30 Jun 2023, 12:43 pm

Quote:
Sometimes assessors decide to give adults labels they view as less stigmatizing, such as nonverbal learning disorder, rather than identifying them as Autistic explicitly.


My jaw literally dropped. I was assessed when I was 13 and labeled with nonverbal learning disorder. My assessor told my parents not to look it up because it was similar to Autism. I feel a bit pissed off now.

When I told my clinician that I had been diagnosed with nonverbal learning disorder as a teen, she said "interesting!" She is the one who recommended I read this book. Now I understand why she thought that was so interesting.



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30 Jun 2023, 3:00 pm

Quote:
Unfortunately, because Autism is so singularly portrayed as a disorder that makes you cold and robotic, outgoing Autistics are seldom correctly identified and diagnosed as kids. Teachers and parents think of them as chatty social butterflies, or disruptive class clowns. People may even come to view their large emotional displays and bursts of energy as “manipulative” or “attention seeking.” Over time these labels can become a part of the mask they wear to get by.


I wanted to post this quote, but hesitated because I didn't know what comment to put underneath it. Then I remembered that commenting on the quote isn't actually a rule, it's just what I did on the other two posts.



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13 Jul 2023, 12:32 pm

I see you're relatively new to WrongPlanet. Welcome! It's nice to have you.

That book is indeed very fascinating. I've read a few books in my own autism self-discovery phase, and I think the most interesting overall was Steve Silberman's Neurotribes. There are a few critiques of the book that state his views of Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner are biased and not entirely accurate, but the book is incredibly well researched and really shows how little we still know about autism. For a book written by someone who is not autistic (but a good man, I used to interact with him on Twitter back in the day because he was a big fan of the band Phish like myself), it does a great job at viewing autism less as this horrible, untreatable, awful thing, and instead presents the idea that many of history's greatest minds were autistic but it wasn't pathologized then because in many ways, the world was more built for autistic people then than it is now.

If this is the start of your own self discovery, I wish you the best of luck. You are in good hands here. This community has been very helpful in the most confusing period of my life.


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What_in_the_what_now
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25 Jan 2024, 6:31 pm

I too have found some of Devons insights lovely but some really self involved.