“Autism illuminates the way all our minds work – not least our relationship with music.”
The book is subtitled A Story of Love and Connection in Ten Songs. There’s a lot of love in the book (love between family members, love for music) and a lot of connection (also with family members and music).
My first autism reading list was given to me after I got my “diagnosis”. My second reading list is books I found myself. These are some of the books that have come out since I found out I was autistic. And they are all by autistic writers. There’s much more now, and more being published all the time.
As Joanne Limburg says in Letters to My Weird Sisters about learning from other lives, “I realised that other people had experienced the same kinds of painful moments and for the same reasons.”
There is so much I identify with when reading about other people’s experiences, especially women. Especially the older ones.
In a world where so many "experts" and researchers still get it wrong (and where the "diagnostic manual" trades in deficits) there's a notable amount of consistency in the way that #ActuallyAutistic people describe their own experiences among themselves.
It’s seven years since I found out I was autistic. I’ve written a blog post about it, because I wanted to think about how it felt then and how it feels now.
I’ve also written a list of books that I have found useful. Because they might be useful to other people, and because I like lists.
Actually, I’ve written two lists. This is the first one.
These books were on the reading list I was given after my diagnosis in 2018. Here’s what I learnt, and what I recommend.
It is seven years since I found out officially I am autistic. I thought it would be a good time to pause and think about it all.
I’ve learnt a lot and I wish I’d learnt some of it sooner.
Even on normal days, I’m cross at the world (by which I mean, I suppose, society) a lot. Because it is often noisy and unfair, and is nearly always illogical.
I am particularly cross on International Women’s Day because it is particularly illogical. It makes no sense that a day which originated with grassroots activism is no longer anything to do with feminism.
It’s another exploration of the momentous year in which I got my autism diagnosis and my mother died. It covers both themes, because in real life things never happen in isolation. I hope you like it.
Trigger warning. Obviously.
Did you know there is such a thing as “autistic culture? Well, I’ve seen the phrase used by #ActuallyAutistic people. I’m not quite sure what it means but I think part of it must be the way that we talk among ourselves (online, at least) and share ideas and experiences.
When we share things, one of the common themes is “what not to say to an autistic person”. Because we’ve all heard them.
A few weeks ago, I sat in front of the telly and watched the first episode of Chris Packham’s series Inside Our Autistic Minds and cried most of the way through. Afterwards I told everyone how brilliant it was.
Yesterday, I sat down in front of iPlayer and watched Christine McGuinness’s new documentary Unmasking My Autism with low expectations.
Actually they both did a good job, and they both did different jobs.
I keep thinking that life has gone back to normal after the pandemic. Then I remember there is no such thing as “after the pandemic”.
I kept the lockdown rules, all that time ago. I carried on with similar behaviour after lockdown was ended. When there were other lockdowns, I didn’t really notice the difference. I forgot that I once lived my life differently.
I became risk-averse. I kept my distance, kept away from public transport and public buildings, wore facemasks everywhere. (I still wear them, even though I know they only work when everyone does it. Remember “I wear my mask to protect you…”?)
I tried to remind people that just because the government tells you something it doesn’t mean it’s true.
I got used to not going anywhere, to only meeting people out of doors, to rarely socialising.
There were things I forgot how to do.
Wear earrings.
Wear mascara.
Wear anything that isn’t the same two T-shirts.
Talk to people.
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| December's books. Guess which one's for book group. |
In 2021 I made a new year resolution that I kept. This might be a first. It was to read four books a month.
It doesn’t sound much, and it’s nothing compared to people like Andy Miller, but it gave me the chance to tackle a bit of the feeling I get of “so many books, so little time” every time I go on Books Twitter.
Actually I’ve averaged five. I could have read more, but I don’t live alone, and I feel obliged to spend Quality Time with my husband occasionally.
I can read fast – I sometimes finish a book in one or two sittings – but I don’t think reading fast is necessarily a good thing. It dawned on me some time this year that the time spent reading a book is longer than the time you are physically looking at the pages. There’s the time you spend processing it afterwards. If I ate up books at the rate I did as a child, or went from one book straight to another, I’d lose that.
Last night I watched Our Family and Autism, a BBC One documentary in which Paddy and Christine McGuinness talked about their experience of having three autistic children. It was widely trailed as a heart-warming documentary. For some of us it was more like heart-sinking.
