book review

The Game of My Life: A True Story of Challenge, Triumph, and Growing Up Autistic, by Jason \”J-Mac\” McElwain with David Paisner, is the story of one autistic guy\’s 15 minutes of fame.  It\’s less than 250 pages, mainly narrated by the autistic guy, with bookends from the other author.  

I found this book deeply disappointing, in retrospect.  Save for the blunt honesty of the star and some of the contributing family/friends, this is pretty much a textbook case of inspiration porn.  The vast majority of the book\’s focus is not Jason McElwain\’s life, his childhood, or his future.  It\’s basketball, and more specifically, one particularly meaningful game near the end of Jason\’s high school career.  

Jason\’s favorite hobby and intense interest in the story is basketball.  Terminology from that game is everywhere, including how the sections of the book are named.  It isn\’t too overwhelming, though I did have to look up how many players are in a basketball team (typically five) to understand why his fan club was called \”The 6th Man\” group.  

Bits and pieces are given of Jason\’s life prior to the basketball team, but only enough to give you the faintest amount of background… which is pretty in line with most news articles of the same type.  

A neat feature of this book, which I can now only consider a very extended inspiration porn news article, is that it folds in little pieces from Jason\’s family, friends, coaches, etc.  It\’s done in the conversational tone so common to other autistic writing, too, such that Jason will sometimes respond directly to what was said in those miniature pieces, or even vice versa.  

What I found most telling about this book, and where it became crushingly clear to me what I was reading, was at the end of the book, more than 200 pages in.  The writer here, probably David Paisner, calls it \”bittersweet.\”  I\’m not honestly sure where the sweet is.

The short version is that Jason\’s friends have graduated and, as is typical for that age, scattered to the four winds.  He rarely sees even the ones that remained in the area.  He did not graduate high school with a diploma, and at the time of the book, works as a baker at a supermarket.  A job which he seemingly enjoys, but not one where he does anything with the love of basketball and the team that this book is centered around.  

His parents\’ wish is for him to be able to live independently someday.  It\’s even said, and I quote, \”Forget the sectionals.  Forget the twenty-point game [both things the literal whole point of this book].  That would be the true pinnacle, if Jason could harness his abilities and his growing independence and find a way to make it on his own.\”  

The twenty points Jason scored in under 4 minutes, the feat that made this whole book and dozens of news stories, ESPN clips, etc, possible… and that\’s how they choose to talk about it at the end of the book.  \”Forget all that, this is what matters.\”  Talk about buckets of metaphorical cold water.

I think maybe why this gets my goat so much is that in the end, the 15 minutes of fame is over, and everyone except Jason has moved on.  Those 4 minutes and the surrounding time might be the best his life will ever be.  The community rallied around him, everyone celebrated him, and then it was over.

As a somewhat disabled autistic person, many jobs are closed to him.  Expectations are low.  Opportunities are minimal.  If this is all there is, and by the tone of the book, it pretty much is…  that\’s it.  

Maybe Jason feels otherwise, and I hope he does… but that\’s really depressing to me.  He\’ll likely live another few decades, and only have being a stocker or a clerk to look forward to.  I don\’t see why he couldn\’t learn to be a coach, or aim to be a team manager for a sports team like he was in high school.  Or, I should say, \”I don\’t see why unless he doesn\’t want to.\”  

In the end, this feels like a story of met potential, and then ignored potential.  I\’m aware that the 15 minutes of fame is called that because it goes away after 15 metaphorical minutes, but the expectations the other author and his parents seem to have for him are depressingly low.  

I don\’t know the guy, but I really hope things got better for him after this book was published.  That he did make it to living on his own (maybe with help, maybe without), finding a life partner if he wants one, pursuing whatever dreams he has.  I hope his parents give him the space to do those things, and don\’t stand in his way, afraid he\’ll be disappointed, the way his mother did over and over in the book.  

The struggle with autistic kids is figuring out when to let us try and succeed or fail on our own merits.  Because we don\’t develop at the same rate as our neurotypical peers, it can be really challenging to recognize when it\’s appropriate to do so.  Some parents will stand between their kids and almost every risk in the world, lest we fail and become disheartened.  Which, counterintuitively, steals our opportunities to learn and grow, and makes future failures extra-disheartening.  

Don\’t do that.  Let autistic people try things.  Don\’t treat failure as the end of the world, but instead recognize it as the normal part of life, and the learning experience, that it is.  

And definitely don\’t grab your kid\’s head between your hands to demand their attention.  Good Lord what a hideous, tyrannical action.  Jason hated it, and he says so in the book, and I\’ll back him up.  Don\’t. Do. This.  

Read This Book If

Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn\’t Designed For You, by Jenara Nerenberg, is less of the practical guidebook I expected from the title, and more a work of history, philosophy, and suggestions and guidelines for changing the broadly disabling systems we live and work in.  Please also note that \”neurodivergent\” includes autism, but it also includes synesthesia, sensory processing disorder, ADHD, and more.  

The book begins with a section which read to me like a defense of the book\’s existence, which… kind of made me sad, because I\’ve only seen such things rarely, and usually by autistic adults needing to prove their viewpoint matters. The author says that this book was written in response to and in addition to Elaine Aron\’s \”The Highly Sensitive Person,\” published in 1996.  I suspect that book might also make for good reading.

Once the defense of the book\’s existence was done, it got into the deconstruction of the words and concepts we use to pathologize people, such as \”mentally ill.\”  The author presents the historical context and evolution of cultural thinking about neurological differences in the recent few centuries.  \”Female hysteria\” is one of the earlier terms discussed, obviously having its roots in the male-dominated thought processes of the day.  

The book also briefly covers more recent developments, like the rise and overdiagnosis of ADHD.  Generally, the point was that what we consider normal or abnormal changes depending on what\’s going on in the world and who has power.  There\’s also discussion of various diagnoses and how they are part of a larger phenomenon that\’s mainly been sidelined up \’til now.  

Finally, the third section talks about changes that can be made in the self, in the home, and in the workplace.  Again, this book doesn\’t really specialize in concrete ideas.  I\’m not at my best in terms of retaining information right now, but mainly what the author seemed to recommend was, \”listen to what you feel you would do well with, try things and keep the ones that work.\”  That included things like paying attention to the paint colors.  

Something that specifically stuck out to me was the suggestion of figuring out what colors appeal to you and making a point to have them around.  Which just reminded me that I tend to buy everything in blue or neutral tones.  I am currently wrapped in a pale blue blanket while typing this at my computer.  Next to me is a bright medium blue cloth organizer box.  My hair is currently two-toned sapphire and Carribean ocean blue.  My computer background is a blue-hued galaxy.  My water pitcher with built in filter is a dusky dark blue.  My pill organizer is blue.  A lot of my clothes are blue. 

Apparently I\’ve been subconsciously shaping my environment towards easing the burden on my senses for years.  Fortunately, my spouse doesn\’t mind my very strongly held preferences.  

I mostly liked this book, but I worry it doesn\’t have a lot to offer people without a lot of control over their lives.  Many autistic people live in poverty so they can get the support services they need.  That situation may not give the person (or their parents) the influence they need to change the paint color on the walls, let alone choose a career that doesn\’t strain their senses to the breaking point every day.  

I can\’t argue with the usefulness of at least teaching people to recognize the differences in their senses and experiences, and finding what ways they can to improve their lives.  Adding in a safe room, with colors to relax the person\’s senses, perhaps textures or smells that do the same, etc, would do pretty much any autistic person good.  

More concrete examples of changes people made in their lives, and how that helped them, would have helped make this book more accessible and useful to a broader audience, in my opinion.  As it stands, this is more of a philosophic piece about changing your mindset away from the disabling and limiting crap we\’ve been fed systemically.  While that\’s valuable, it\’s not immediately… actionable, I guess.  

Changing someone\’s overall mentality is valuable and important, but they have to have the time and energy to devote to it, and my fear is that many autistic people and their parents don\’t have those resources to spare in these unusually and overly interesting times.  

Read This Book If

The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism, by Olivia Fox Cabane, is a self-help style book on increasing your personal charisma.  This isn\’t a typical autism-related book, but since charisma factors into communication skills, I thought it might be an interesting read.  I wondered if there were tips that might help parents advocate for their children more effectively, and ideas that might help autistic people make ourselves heard and be truly listened to.  

As it turns out, this book does contain some things like that.  There is, in fact, a whole section just on body language.  Including a trick called mirroring, where you match your body language to the other person\’s, and then gradually shift towards more positive, open body language.  I\’m less than fond of this particular trick, as it feels coercive.  But this wouldn\’t be the first place I\’ve heard of it working.  

The book also helped explain some things about me, personally, though.  Like why I went through most of my childhood without much by way of friends or peer inclusion, but still received some kind of begrudging respect, even sometimes admiration and very thoroughly unwanted attention from some of the boys.  

There are, according to this book, three major pieces of charisma.  They are presence (which includes actively listening to and focusing on the conversation/person at hand), power (how wealthy, influential, intelligent, or socially important you seem), and warmth (how much goodwill and caring you seem to project).  

Now, most of my life has not gifted me with a whole lot of power.  Nor was I a terribly warm person when I was younger.  But presence?  I learned how to listen relatively young, from my mother.  A skilled listener herself, she counseled me that good listening included a genuine interest in the other person and what they had to say.  You don\’t merely wait until it\’s your turn to talk, but focus your attention entirely on the conversation and the other person.  And, as this book also mentioned, that people absolutely adore talking about themselves.  

It helps, I suspect, that I\’m not really very good at managing two streams of words at once.  When words are being spoken near me, that\’s where my brain is stuck.  So while most people might be able to listen halfheartedly to someone talk about sports, and still be thinking about this new video game they\’re wanting to try, I\’m pretty much just stuck hearing about sports.  

My personal oddness aside, much of this book involves a significant amount of mental reframing.  That is, changing how you view a situation, a person, or even yourself, using imagery or other techniques.  You do this so that your body language unconsciously changes to be more present, warm, and powerful.  

Maybe it\’s a bit cynical of me, but the emphasis on using your imagination to wave goodbye to your cares and feelings of responsibility so you can be your warmest, most present self… kind of worries me.  Really, any form of actively setting aside your view of reality so you can choose a magical dream world where people are grateful to you for being late to an important meeting (an actual example from the book) weirds me the heck out.  

The author works with a significant number of CEOs on this subject of charisma, as well as other upper management types, and in all honesty, I feel like those kinds of people need more reality, not less.  The author might say that such people should be getting the viewpoints of others by doing the listening portion of things… but in all honesty, this book is pretty much geared towards an egocentric viewpoint.  \”Do this so you can be better, more successful, etc.\”

Maybe it\’s because I\’m kind of leftist, but the constant \”me me me\” focus kind of wore on me over time.  I\’m aware that everyone, myself included, thinks they\’re the most important human in the world most, if not all, of the time.  But I also have concerns for those around me, and most of this book only engages with other humans as obstacles or people to be influenced and wowed (because you\’re so awesome). There\’s no particular acknowledgment of other people as… well, other living humans, with dimensions and value beyond the superficial \”what they can do for me.\”  The self-centered focus of the book just kind of left a bad taste in my mouth over time.

The book also has only mild concern for the ethics of using charisma to get your way.  There\’s a short section near the end, and that\’s about it.  It\’s framed more as \”here\’s some pitfalls that might make your life harder, so keep this in mind,\” rather than, I don\’t know, doing the right thing because it\’s the right thing to do?  So I wasn\’t much impressed with that either.

Read This Book If

You want a guidebook to the subject of charisma, or have an interest in increasing your effectiveness as a communicator.  Fellow autistic people, parents, professionals, random others, pretty much anyone could potentially benefit from this book.  The writing is approachable and fairly clear and to the point.  I found some of the mental techniques suggested rather ethically questionable, and the book itself was stunningly egocentric.  But the information is overall good, and can give you a starting point to increasing your communication success rate after you\’ve gotten past the basics of conversation.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, is a book about how to make change happen in ways we wouldn\’t normally think to use.  It\’s not an autism-focused book, but given how difficult change and transitions can be for autistic people (including me), I found it a useful read.

The book explains the players of making (or not making) a change as three distinct entities: emotions, logical mind, and the situation or environment.  If all three players are in alignment, the change is likely to happen easily.  If not, the change won\’t be easy, and maybe won\’t happen at all.

The very very TL;DR version is this: to effectively make a change that\’ll stick, the person (or entity) needs to be emotionally motivated to make the change.  They need a clear, understandable path to follow to make that change.  And finally, the environment needs support that change.  

To make my own version of their example…  a family with an autistic teenager is  having trouble with getting that teen to do their chores.  The mother has told the teen what chores they\’re responsible for, but the chores aren\’t getting done.  Yelling at them doesn\’t change things.  Taking away their allowance doesn\’t change things.  The punishment simply makes the teen resentful and sullen.  The chores still don\’t get done.  

What to do?  Well.  First, we can consider logic.  Does the teen understand exactly what\’s expected of them, and is there clearly specified day and time by which it must be done?  Are there any chores that routinely get done, and if so, why does the teen manage them but not the others?  Perhaps something could be done to make the other chores as doable as the ones that get done.  

The issue might also be emotional.  Depending on how the expectation of the chores was introduced, the teen may simply wonder why these jobs are suddenly their responsibility when Mom has always taken care of them \’til now.  Reframing the situation might be what\’s needed.  Instead of saying, \”You need to take care of these chores now or else you\’re in trouble!\” an alternative could be noting that the child\’s friends do their own laundry (or clean their rooms, or whatever), or that it\’s something that college-bound people take care of for themselves.  These reframe the job as something normal and expected from their peer group, or something to aspire to.  

Finally, there\’s the environment.  Is there an easily-accessible checklist or some kind of organizational aid they can reference?  Autistic people (and indeed, people in general) can lose the details of things.  Having a visual, accessible organizational system might be the key.  The teen may simply be forgetting what exactly is expected of them or what exactly is involved in their chores.  Spelling it out might be all that\’s needed.  Or, does the teen have a hamper into which they can put their dirty clothes, transport to the washer and dryer, then take the clean clothes back once they\’re done?  

The authors describe how each player (emotions, logic, and environment) can stumble, causing a hoped-for change to fail, and also how to remove those stumbling blocks.  They describe situations on a personal habits level, but also country-wide level.  Their ideas work for any size group, or any kind of person, and they give a multitude of examples from all kinds of situations.  

One of their main points is that these suggestions don\’t require any particular power or influence.  You don\’t have to be able to make laws, or have millions of dollars to throw at a problem.  You don\’t have to be a CEO or have the ability to make sweeping reforms to a situation.  The solutions they talk about are more \”if I wiggle this piece of the puzzle just so, stuff will change\” type deals.  

Obviously, it\’s not always so simple.  Sometimes you have to wiggle a few pieces, or even wiggle the pieces around the one you want to get at.  Still, the book gives adequate examples.  There\’s never just one thing you can do with a problem to nudge it towards the solution you want.  Usually, in the \”now let\’s apply this idea!\” sections, there\’s upwards of 6 different ways to solve the problem.  So if the one thing you thought of doesn\’t work, there\’s many more options.  

These sorts of solutions could be applied to self improvement, organizational policies, family dynamics, and even to autism advocacy.

Read This Book If

The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man\’s Quest to Be a Better Husband, by David Finch, is a \”my life with autism\” story.  To be more precise, it\’s a \”how my wife and I saved our marriage, and it all started with an autism diagnosis\” story.  

Typically memoirs written by adult autistics are more \”full life\” stories, including a significant amount about childhood.  This one is quite tightly focused, which makes it unusual among its peers.  The focus on this book is the author\’s relationship with his wife: how it began, progressed, went terribly wrong, and slowly, painfully, began to successfully mend.  The book puts you inside the author\’s mind through the years of his experiences… sometimes beautiful and sweet, sometimes petty, cruel, and ugly.

The tone is pretty classically adult autistic.  At this point I think you could hand me any given book of this memoir style, and after 25 pages (or less) I could probably tell you if the author was autistic.  We have a certain type of conversational, explanatory straightforwardness that serves very neatly to identify us, in my opinion.  I couldn\’t tell you precisely why that would be a thing.  Typically I\’d assume it was cultural, and there is indeed an autism community to develop that culture now…  but I developed the same style of writing without being aware of that culture.  

The Journal of Best Practices, as Mr. Finch actually used it while trying to change himself and help rebuild his relationship with his wife, was actually not a book.  It was a nightstand drawer, a notebook, and a motley collection of post-its, odd ends of paper, and flipped over envelopes.  It was the work of years of pain, care, and vulnerability.  

In essence, this is the story of an adult autistic man using his strengths (intelligence, analytical abilities, attention to detail, perseverance), with his wife\’s incredibly patient help, to overcome his weaknesses (poor communications skills, low innate empathy, difficulty handling change).  

The difficulties Mr. Finch suffered weren\’t particularly novel when it comes to autistic people.  Many of his struggles I could personally identify with, and all were at least intellectually familiar.  Missing body language, not knowing how to talk to people, not being able to put your feelings into words, not recognizing when your spouse is upset, or when to stop talking… all these things are somewhat common to one extent or another for autistic people.  Perhaps simply to people, I don\’t know.  I\’ve never been neurotypical, after all.

I did thankfully miss out on some of mess Mr. Finch was required to address in mending his marriage.  Being born physically female and being from a family that, while not exceptionally expressive, at least didn\’t openly shun emotions… I was never fed the toxic bullshit that teaches people they must simply wall away their upset and never speak of it.  Finch was, and overcoming that vile dogma is a struggle.  Even if the person knows and believes it\’s a bad behavior to have, it\’s still difficult to unlearn.

Another point I differ with the author on is the empathy one.  Mr. Finch opines, based on behavior and test results, that he has very little empathy.  That skill (yes, skill, you can learn it) is both poorly defined and varies widely even in the general population. 

You can have a great deal of natural empathy, but fail to recognize a situation that merits it.  Or even having recognized it, truly have no idea how to comfort a person or respond appropriately.  Such people often come across as lacking empathy, even though they don\’t.  Or you can have a great deal of empathy and be nearly crippled by being unable to turn it off.  The author seems to struggle with the \”recognition of circumstances\” issue.

There\’s a couple more things to say about this book.  

First, the author goes very far out of his way to only paint himself as the bad guy in the failing relationship.  Very little time is spared to his wife\’s personal struggles and bad moments, save as understandable background.  For example, she had a bout with post-partum depression.  This, he talks about, but only in the kindest, most \”this was not her fault\” way.  Which, for that sort of thing, is quite accurate.  (Post partum depression is nobody\’s fault.)

However… I am in a marriage that\’s been on the metaphorical rocks like this at one time.  The problem is never, ever, just one person in the relationship.  And while the wife points that fact out, repeatedly, the fact remains that the description of difficulties and changes were all on the autistic author\’s side of things.  Nothing (or very little) is said of changes the neurotypical wife needed to make.  

And while plenty of his pettiness, cruelties, anger issues, and other sub-optimal behaviors are described in this book… nothing at all is mentioned of hers, save in a quote or two that… strike me as kind of unkind even though the flow of the narrative doesn\’t seem to even notice.  

So, I can see why the author would do make the choice to do this.  By only portraying himself as the failure point in the relationship, he avoids any additional damage to his relationship by avoiding literally all arguments about who said what, and what was meant, and whether it should be included or not.  

Point two, though…  is that\’s not realistic.  Nor is it kind to other autistic people in difficult relationships.  In a difficult time in a relationship, both (or all) members have to be resolved to mending the relationship, and the time and effort that will take.  They have to be willing to take a hard look at themselves- not the other person, themselves-  and say \”this needs to change, it needs to change now, and I need to change it.\”  

So yes, the autistic person needs to figure out a journal of best practices or what have you… but the focus shouldn\’t just be on that person to change themself and thereby fix the whole relationship.  That\’s not healthy, not fair, and not kind.  In that regard, I feel this book does a disservice to autistic people.  

In the author\’s defense, this is a stunningly difficult subject to write about.  Even with the self-demonizing stylistic choice, such things aren\’t common.  I presume that\’s because most people don\’t care to talk about their personal failings at length.  Especially if a failed marriage or nearly failed marriage is in the picture.  Exhibit A is typing this book review for you right now.  (My spouse and I are doing okay now, fyi.)

The last thing to note about this book is that at no point does the author really gush about his wife or say things like \”I love her very much.\”  Like many autistic people, Finch is extremely practical in his descriptions and appreciation.  He\’ll tell you exactly why, in detail, his wife is a wonderful human, but won\’t go into much by way of mushy emotional stuff.  

Which made me wonder if perhaps he\’s the sort of person that, like many autistic people, forgets to say \”I love you\” as well as demonstrate that love.  That\’s a difficult pill for some parents and spouses to swallow, that their loved one simply doesn\’t feel the need to repeat the sentiment, or even speak it once.  It\’s the sort of thing that can be taught, but knowing to do so is sometimes beyond us.  

Read This Book If

Improve Your Social Skills by Daniel Wendler, is a plainspoken, relatively brief, \”what it says on the tin\” guide, written by an autistic adult who makes a business out of teaching this subject.  Surprisingly to me, since it\’s such a complicated subject, it delivers.  In a perfect world, this book could be given to every autistic teenager so we\’d always have a good place to start from, when social stuff gets complicated.

Topics include how to start a conversation and keep it going, a really basic guide to body language, how to make friendships that are meaningful, how to date, and how to tell stories well.  The book does this in just over 200 pages.  You can thusly guess, then, that it\’s written to address these subjects very, very broadly.

Even at such a broad level, though, I was impressed with this book.  The subjects it tackles are complicated as heck, yet the author was able to boil them down to basics.  Or the bedrock, as he seems to like to call it.  Almost all of the advice and guidelines in the book I agreed with, or at least thought were a good start.  

I\’ve reviewed a piece from this author before, and like the other one, it\’s written in the  same, basically accurate but adorably optimistic writing style.  While I don\’t particularly disagree with any of the information in this book, I suppose reading so much optimism (bordering on idealism) may have clashed with my remarkably pessimistic (read: cynical and depressed in the long term) nature.  I had a similar reaction to watching an episode of the new My Little Pony TV show a few years back.

My personal optimism poisoning aside, Mr. Wendler has a gift for creating visual, teachable metaphors.  The one that\’s stuck with the most is his concept for creating a successful conversation, which involves making a sandwich from opposite sides of a deli counter.  The conversation is the sandwich, and you take turns with your partner adding ingredients to it before sliding it back to the other person.  It sounds odd, but it made a lot of sense to me, both visually and in practice for how a good conversation actually works.  

A couple improvements come to mind when It\’s a bit outside the scope of the book, but I would have appreciated a bit more in the section about getting a good therapist.  The scope of the book does not cover fighting through mental illness to learn these social skills.  In fact, it quite literally says, in a few places, that if you\’re struggling with mental illness, to get a therapist to work on that.  

Which is good advice, and fine, but the section to help you choose one was limited at best.  A good therapist is essential, but you aren\’t always going to find one that fits well the first time.  Trust is an essential component.  I\’m unsure if the author simply hasn\’t needed to therapist-shop or if he simply didn\’t consider it important information… but considering that up to 80% of autistic people suffer mental illness, it strikes me as far more important than it was made to be here.  

A last note: like the other one I read, this seems to be a self-published book.  I can\’t tell you how much that disappoints me.  Not that the book exists, but that it doesn\’t have conventional advertising or a network to distribute it.  This guide is what a lot of teenagers deeply, truly need in their lives (autistic or not).  Sure, you can buy this book on Amazon, and that\’s certainly better than nothing.  But this book probably won\’t receive the publicity and exposure it\’s due.  

Read This Book If

Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger\’s Syndrome, by Liane Holliday Willey, is a \”my life with autism\” account written by an older autistic woman, one of the generation before mine that had little-to-no supports or help unless they were deemed \”completely disabled.\”  She was not, and so she had to fend her way through life mostly alone.  This is not a long book: less than 200 pages, almost 50 of that in appendices.  

I\’ve read Liane\’s work in the past, and actually met her in person during one of the DOD\’s yearly Autism Research Program conferences.  She lives in the same state as me, perhaps a few dozen miles north, and has ties to the same entity that diagnosed me as autistic about a decade ago.  

She is a very knowledgeable person, but like me, not a cheerful one.  In reading this book, one can easily see the myriad of ways life has battered her down.  In Japan, the saying is \”the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.\”  Meaning, that people who do not fit into proper social norms and expectations get pressured to conform until they do.  This is particularly true in Japan, but even in a more individualistic culture like the US, it is still true.  I have the depression and anxiety diagnoses to prove it.

I see a couple things of specific note in this account.  

First, there is a certain pervasive negativity to her view of autism.  I see this often with freshly diagnosed autistic people, those prone to depression, and parents that fit those categories or haven\’t been introduced to neurodiversity as a philosophy.  

When I, and others, first receive our diagnoses, there is the tendency to hyperfocus on it, and blame it for everything we don\’t like about ourselves.  The depression, the anxiety, the sensory differences, the low energy, even medical things like dietary sensitivities and gut dysbiosis.  

This is part of what contributes to the confusion around what exactly is meant when someone says \”autism,\” by the way.   

Perhaps more importantly, though, it is inherently unfair.   

Autism is not a collection of negative traits that serve only to disable a person.  It is not \”everything that\’s wrong with me/my child.\”  It is a brain difference, and that comes with positives and negatives.  Neurodiversity teaches us to celebrate those positives.  

For example, I would say I am a very reliable human.  If I say I\’m going to do something, I do it.  I am rarely, if ever, late to appointments.  I don\’t make promises lightly, or say things I don\’t mean.  I make efforts to be conscientious of others\’ time and energy.  These traits are a facet of the autistic tendency to adhere to rules.  

There are dozens of ways to spin that tendency negatively.  \”Rigidity\” is one of them.  \”Change intolerant\” is another.  \”Inflexible\” is yet another I hear regularly.  It\’s true that autistic people can have great difficulty shifting gears and accepting rule changes, and that can make our lives harder.  Most recently my friend needed to reschedule my hair appointment due to a sudden change of schedule, and I was doing so poorly at the time that I quite literally couldn\’t face rescheduling it for a couple weeks.  

Does my difficulty with sudden changes of plan negate the value of my reliability as a person?  I don\’t think it does.  Or I don\’t think it should, ideally.  But in the course of communication, especially with parents and professionals, it basically does.  The strength and value of my differences is ignored in favor of spotlighting my weakness.

It\’s a very cruel thing to do to people.  Having our parents, our friends, our support staff, constantly preaching to us all our failings and ignoring our successes and good points… well, it\’s no wonder many autistic people are depressed.  Having so many anti-cheerleaders is terribly damaging to one\’s self-worth.  Particularly on top of already being the metaphorical nail in the Japanese saying, which is hammered day and night to conform, by people who don\’t know us and don\’t care about us.  

The kind of relentless negativity can be internalized, and I wonder if Liane perhaps struggles with exactly that.  There\’s certainly a mention here and there of \”becoming less AS [autistic]\” when talking about learning to get by in life better, or improving her social skills.  

In the book, Liane wishes in several places that she had found someone like herself earlier in life.  Based on how she talks about her daughters (one of which is also autistic), it seems like she eventually found that in her own family.  At the time I met her, more than 15 years after she wrote this book, she had also branched out into meeting other autistic people, which I\’m glad of.  

The main of the book ends with a hope and a wish for the sort of world that embraces differences, rather than rejecting them.  It was, I was glad to see, pretty much exactly what most people who identify as neurodiverse would wish for. 

At the very end is a set of seven appendices, which include the author\’s coping strategies, organizational suggestions, thoughts on disclosure of diagnosis, further reading, etc.  They span a bit less than 50 pages.  

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Dietary Interventions in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Why They Work When They Work, Why They Don\’t When They Don\’t, by Kenneth J. Aitken, provides a discussion of the history of special diets for symptom management in autistic people.  Despite the rather blunt title, the book seems to be aimed at healthcare professionals.  However, a layperson such as myself can follow the gist of the matter without understanding the specific formulas and chemical interactions described.  

I\’ll preface this review by informing you, sadly, that there is no one proposed diet that solves all autistic ills.  This won\’t surprise you if you\’re familiar with the saying, \”If you\’ve met one person with autism, you\’ve met one person with autism.\”  

Also, when the word \”diet\” is used in this book, it is not referring to the typical USian understanding of the word, which refers to the fad weight loss diets that come and go like the wind.  These diets are undertaken to lose weight, and, without assuming that goal is even accomplished, dropped quickly.  The book does not, in fact, give any care for weight loss at all.  Apparently a significant portion of the autistic population is rail thin instead of obese.  That sounds nice to me, but the author insists this is as much as problem as obesity.  

At any rate, the book\’s intention with the word \”diet\” hearkens back to an older understanding of the word: the food and drink regularly consumed.  In short, these diets are meant to be undertaken in the long term.  They are lifestyle changes, not temporary measures to appease one\’s guilt or prop up one\’s body image.  (I have a deep dislike of \”dieting,\” can you tell?)

The first section of the book discusses ASD and special diets.  It contains good background knowledge, some of which is helpful to understanding the how and why of the diets.  It also covers how food and nutrition has shifted in the development of humanity and technology, which I thought was quite interesting and helpful.  To cap it off, it contains information about particular toxins whose effects are particularly obvious in autistic people, as well as protective factors against these toxins.  

The second section is the meat of the title:  Nine diets are analyzed and summarized in brief (sometimes \”less than 10 pages\” brief).  Factors considered in each analysis include the evidence for and against each diet, possible health problems associated with the diet, and practical difficulties with following the diet.  

I was particularly impressed with the author\’s choice to have that last criteria in each section.  It strongly suggests he\’s aware of the challenges that come with making these changes.  The specific sections, too, suggest his awareness of the differing situational challenges any given family might come up against.  Not every family is going to be able to find farro to cook with, for example.  

Each analysis also includes a Resources section, which tends to include a healthy mix of books, websites, organizations, and scientific research.  This is in additon to the Resources section at the end, which contains all the same info but centralized.  The information in this book is about ten years old, so it\’s quite possible that some resources may not work.  However, the author has listed enough of them that at least one should serve to get you further information and likely other resources.  

Part three of the book is the author\’s answer to \”but which of these diets should I do!?\”  He proposes a 10th diet (the Simple Restriction Diet), drawing on the best parts of the most effective diets previously described.  He includes a proposed plan, complete with worksheets, a table to help you match problem foods with toxins, and a suggested timetable with which to implement the diet and subsequent re-introductions of food categories.  

In all honesty, I kind of want to try this Simple Restriction Diet.  It seems distinctly promising in terms of both weight loss and narrowing down whatever keeps wrecking my guts.  Maybe even whatever\’s wrecking my spouse\’s guts.  In practicality, I\’m… dubious of my ability to convince my spouse to try this diet.  \”Restriction\” is a very apt descriptor, because this diet has you eliminate or heftily reduce quite a bit of commonly consumed foods.  Feasibility is a serious concern.  

The suggested timeline for implementing the diet is actually only three weeks, after which you start adding in carbohydrates to a point, and watching for adverse reactions.  And then, assuming none, you move onto transitioning off the next category, and so on.  If adding a category back in causes a reaction, then you can take that to your doctor and get more specific tests.  

As such, it\’s still a significant expenditure of time and energy… but you aren\’t necessarily bound to a particular diet for life.  The author even stresses testing your final resulting diet every once in a while, because none of these are perfectly scientifically sound.  Improvements might be seen  while on a gluten-free/casein-free diet, but not actually be related to the diet itself, and the person may find some years hence that they don\’t need to adhere to it but still remain healthy.

I have a couple complaints.  The first is that no mention is made of the difficulties of transitioning off a typical USian diet.  Sugar addiction is a very real and very miserable thing to detox off of.  I have done so several times and will need to do so again at some point soon, because Halloween candy and Christmas sweets exist and I only have so much patience with not eating them.

The second is that I don\’t feel there are sufficient resources for the author\’s pet diet, the Simple Restriction Diet.  There are resources in plenty for the other nine he looks into, and one could, I suppose, research the relevant ones and try to combine them with a great deal of effort.  I would much rather have links to directly relevant cookbooks, with no guesswork about whether I\’m failing at this or that aspect.  

All in all, I was impressed with this book.  It\’s analytical and healthily skeptical while remaining positive and hopeful.  It acknowledges the shortcomings of the science without disallowing their effectiveness.  It explains the science in detail without being overly verbose, and you needn\’t truly understand the chemical formulas to follow the rest of the discussion.

Read This Book If

You\’re an interested care provider, interested parent, or interested autistic.  This is a pretty focused book.  It\’s written well, in a manner that seems aimed at healthcare providers but is accessible to laypeople (except maybe the chemical formulas).  It discusses the science (or what exists of the science) as well as providing feasibility information and potential positives and negatives to each diet.  In short, this is a good resource for anyone looking into special diets, and I\’m glad my local library has it in their collection.  

22 Things a Woman With Asperger\’s Syndrome Wants Her Partner to Know, by Rudy Simone, is a set of 22 short essays around the title\’s theme.  This is not a long book, at less than 150 pages.  Each essay gives a decent amount of food for thought, so this isn\’t a quick read despite the page count.  The tone and writing style is nearly conversational, and quite easy to follow, making this a book you could hand to pretty much anyone.  

As you might be able to guess by the label \”Asperger\’s Syndrome\” in the title, this is a book about a subtype of autism.  Specifically, women that were given the \”Aspie\” diagnosis rather than the \”autism\” or \”high functioning autism\” diagnosis.  Formally speaking, the difference doesn\’t exist any more.  The DSM 5 came out about a year after this book was published, and it erased the DSM 4R\’s existing autistic subtypes.  This book speaks to a subtype within one of those deleted subtypes.  

If this subtype applies to you, your partner, or your grown child, this book may be extremely useful.  It describes various facets of autistic behavior and how they may look in yourself or your loved one.  If the subtype does not apply, the book may still have some use, but it should be read with a salt shaker close at hand (ie: take the advice in these essays with a grain of salt, or in literalist terms, pay extra attention because the advice may or may not apply to your specific situation).

As for me personally?  The AsperGirl subtype seems to describe me fairly well.  Not perfectly, but enough that I\’ll be handing this book to my spouse and asking him to read it when I\’m done with this review.  

The most useful essay for me personally was the 5th one: \”Everyone\’s a critic… but she\’s better at it than you.\”  This is a sticking point for me and for our relationship.  I do have high standards and expectations, and those can be hard to live up to.  The essay puts those more in context, and recognizes that sometimes the autistic person simply needs to learn to lay off.  That\’s probably a lesson I should work on further…

I should note here that this book does not make the mistake of portraying the AsperGirl as perfect in every way, and the reader (assumed to be her partner) as simply not understanding her or not being good enough for her.  The author recognizes that a relationship is about balance, and that AsperGirls can be prone to various failings, including destructive behavior.  

Also, winning the award for Having a Clue, there was a section titled, \”Even if you think of her as a woman, she might not.\”  There is significant crossover in the autistic and nonbinary/trans populations.  I, for example, identify as agender, which is a type of nonbinary.  And I do not consider my gender to be female.  Biologically speaking (sex), I\’m female, but that\’s as far as that goes.  My physical parts have very little bearing on my interests, my values and initiative, and the people I care about.  This essay acknowledges this as a somewhat common.

Having read this book, I regret not looking into the AsperGirl community earlier.  I did know it existed but I guess I didn\’t put in sufficient time and effort to find it.  With the exception of a couple essays (one of them on motherhood), almost everything in this book accurately described me.  I can\’t stress enough how unusual that is for a book about autism: a diagnosis that\’s typically best described as a trashbin (where everything under the sun is chucked).  

Obviously, your mileage may vary.  Sensory sensitivities may vary.  Not every AsperGirl is going to be highly critical.  Coping mechanisms vary.  It\’s usually a massive red flag when an author gets very specific about descriptions and doesn\’t have too much by way of open-endedness, but in this case, for this subtype of a subtype?  Seems pretty accurate to me.  

Read This Book If