Why do we need books like mine?
When I was diagnosed back in 2014, which feels like an incredibly different time to be thinking about and discussing autism, there weren’t necessarily that many resources or places to go for information. Nothing could have made this information desert more evident than the leaflet that accompanied the diagnosis that landed through my letterbox six weeks after my three hour observation session with the clinicians deciding whether I really was autistic or not.
The leaflet in question wasn’t that offensive, looking back on it now, it definitely had language ‘of the time’, or even a time slightly earlier than my diagnosis, I’m not sure how many times it had been put through a photocopier before the version made its way to my hands. The main offence of the ‘help and support leaflet’ had to be that every service or support shared in the leaflet and the links at the end of my diagnosis were either no more or didn’t support my age group, gender or location. I’d gone from pages earlier getting the affirmation that I was autistic to suddenly finding out that I was now on my own.
Being on my own meant doing what I’ve realised I do best, research. Searching the internet for information about autism can be a bit of a Wild West and I wasn’t a traveler with he best resources to navigate it all. In truth I did find a lot of academic research but it wasn’t the most helpful as it wasn’t applied to autistic life circumstances. I found books and blogs written by non-autistic people about autism and the tragedy of our lives. Not the best start to an already fragile self esteem! These all felt like wrong turns that were intended to snare me in and make me feel as bad about being autistic as society had already told me to.
It was all a bit doom and gloom until I eventually stumbled upon autism being defined by autistic people. Suddenly the focus and language wasn’t one of despair and tragedy, it was one of collectively describing our experiences, sharing the highs and the lows, accessing language to describe what at that point had just felt like a scream inside of me. It was from then on that I pledged to only learn about autism from autistic peoples perspectives and writing. It was a turning point for me. I no longer felt like something was wrong with me, instead I was so alike to so many others, I was different from non-autistic, but not in a bad way.
That’s the whole point. What I needed, and what many of us need at that point of vulnerability is to be able to find out about autism and our autistic selves from those who just get it, who know what we’re going through. It’s so important for autistic people to be able to find out about autism and build a positive autistic identity from and with other autistic people.
Essentially, So, I’m Autistic is what I needed to get me through that time after diagnosis. I wrote for my 18 year old self the book that didn’t exist when I needed it so that those exploring an autism diagnosis don’t have to face the same hardships that I did. It’s so important to have access to ways of describing and understanding yourself that are built with both realism and positivity, informed by first hand experience.
Thankfully, 2023 is a very different space to exist in than 2014, or even the years I waited for my autism assessment. There’s vastly more information than there has ever been about autism, research is often done with us rather than about us, language is shifting, societal awareness is improving and an autism diagnosis is less frequently commiserated. So, I’m Autistic joins a bevvy of books written by autistic authors from all walks of life to make sure the upcoming generations of autistic people know that being different is not something to hide or be ashamed of.
So, I’m Autistic is available from anywhere you buy books, publishing on 21st June 2023.
