Peter O’Neil - Lawyer, Author, Musician

Post Reply New Topic

Madison Park’s Peter O’Neil is many things: a husband, father and grandfather, a successful lawyer, a musician and author. He is also newly diagnosed as autistic and recently wrote “My So-Called Diagnosis,” a memoir about his life and experiences with autism. He doesn’t care for the word “diagnosis” but will concede that it has helped bring clarity to his life since then.

A few years ago, O’Neil went to see a psychologist to discuss his difficult college years and was surprised when she very quickly recommended a book on accomplished autistic and otherwise neurodiverse people.

“That got me researching what it means to be autistic, and the more I learned, the more my life began to make sense, including those difficult, lonely college years,” he said.

Having grown up in a family of seven kids and attended a small high school with lots of personal attention, O’Neil found himself alone and overwhelmed when he went away to college at age 16. He said the classwork was manageable but making friends remained a mystery.

“I did lots of interesting things — made art and music, visited museums and galleries, read, wrote for newspapers,” he said. “But, except for my brother and his wife, I was entirely alone, and I couldn’t figure out how to change that.”

In an effort to change things and perhaps make a fresh start after college, O’Neil joined the Peace Corps. His trainer told him that he would need to get out and meet the movers and shakers of his village in Togo if he wanted to be successful, so that is what he did.

“It was the first time I ran with a crew of friends since high school,” he said. “I even met my first wife there".

Back in the United States, O’Neil took a two-week assignment at a law firm that turned into a 40-year career. It helped that he had a boss who turned into a true mentor. Using his eye for detail and interests in odd things, O’Neil became the go-to guy for facts on the cases.

Thinking of his childhood, he recalls being very interested in Chuck Berry and said that was his first great autistic special interest. Later, as a legal assistant, he made products that injured clients his special interest.

“We had a series of cases involving a pickup truck that was prone to fiery crashes,” O’Neil said. “Within a year I knew more about that truck than anyone on earth.”

Paul Whelan began as O’Neil’s boss and later turned into his mentor and eventual partner. Without the benefit of a diagnosis or workplace accommodations, Whelan recognized O’Neil’s strengths and continued to streamline his work until he became the dedicated guy for facts and documents on all of the big cases.

“Nowadays they’d call this “accommodations,” but I think it was just good management and smart,” O’Neil said. “He took advantage of my particular skill set.”

O’Neil used his lifetime experience of gathering facts and focus to tell the story of his own life. He said that writing the book was easy.

“I had so much to think about and to say, it just came pouring out,” he said.

But doing this on his own has provided a new set of challenges. Without an actual publisher, it has been difficult to get the word out. The story is O’Neil’s memoir about his life and experiences as an autistic man.

“All my life I have vividly remembered a dream I had when I was 8 years old,” he said. “Someone handed me a book, and I looked down at it and saw my own name on the cover. I was so happy in that dream to be holding a book I had written, and that’s how it feels today. I’m quite proud of my book, and I hope there will be more.”

“My So-Called Diagnosis” is available at amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers.