Autism & Me: A Middle-Aged Woman's Account of Life on the Autistic Spectrum - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

This book describes how autism has affected me as I have gone through life - from the not knowing, to the final realisation and diagnosis. Part One covers my life before diagnosis in an autobiographical sense. It describes the difficulties and challenges I faced as I was growing up, went through school and then entered the world of employment. It outlines my social awkwardness, feeling different to everyone else and my inability to join in. In my final autobiographical chapter I wrote a heartfelt account of my difficult journey to achieve my dream of motherhood by going down the alternative route and how against the odds, my daughter arrived at the eleventh hour. I then described my experience of parenthood itself, the challenges I faced due to my then still undiagnosed autism and the final realisation that both my daughter as well as myself are on the spectrum. Suddenly everything falls into place and begins to make sense. The shorter chapters that follow in Part Two discuss how autism affects me and the impact it has made. The chapters have eye catching titles and each one focusses on a particular aspect of how autism affected me as I have gone through life. I describe how others reacted to me, as well as my unique perception of the world. I also reflect on things post diagnosis.

Even though there are already numerous books on autism and peoples' own personal experiences of it, I feel that my book is needed as the condition is still so misunderstood and the more books there are on the subject, the better. Also the condition affects people in different ways and when someone is newly diagnosed, especially after decades of bafflement and misunderstandings, it's often a struggle for them to take everything on board and to evaluate, so it certainly helps if there are many different books available. Each book is different as everyone has their own unique style of writing and perspective.

I strongly feel that the more autism can be openly talked about and read up on, then the more people and society in general will understand the condition and be more accepting. So I felt compelled to add my own written account and memoir which will resonate yet still be my own unique perception of what living with autism is really like.

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