Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing Our Hidden Neurodiversity

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If you're like most people (me included prior to this book), you think all Autistic people are the stereotypical Rain Man type or Sheldon in Big Bang Theory: Socially awkward and even annoying people who are geniuses in certain areas but can be total assholes because they're clueless when it comes to socializing. According to him, if we could just outlaw loud music, defund the police, and abolish prisons, we’d be set! I wish I was surprised that almost every negative review of this book attacks the author's take on queerness and transness in relation to autism but I'm not.

Unmasking autism – unlearn shame and nurture a more - NPR

If you care about scientific objectivity and/ or are not Autistic yourself and/ or are *not* a racist misandrist. I have long seen myself as non-neurotypical (I have OCD [and not the cleaning-focused kind], depression, get panic attacks, take brain drugs, etc. There's so many moments from this book that I bookmarked and I would love to grab a physical copy to annotate and highlight and make notes because I know that there's a lot of moments that I'd like to go back to. It contains various self-help-style elements like tables and worksheets, but the exercises are, as another reviewer said, the type of thing you could easily find on pinterest. An Autistic Community that is centered around women, afabs, nb, queer, trans, and others that are not cis men.I do however see a reader coming off believing that almost all autistic individuals have gender identification issues and tend to belong under the LGBTQ umbrella, and I doubt that to be factual. The thousands of small features don’t effortlessly combine into something larger for us, so we have to process all of it separately. He begins by talking about who is more likely to mask/less likely to be diagnosed as a child, what traits get overlooked, issues with how autism is "treated". Upon reflection I think the author made it clear what the book was about but I wanted to believe it was about something else, that is, masking/unmasking.

Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing Our Hidden

It helped me to not only understand the areas in which our ablest society denies disabled people the opportunities to be able to fully participate in society, but shames them for not conforming to our socially constructed "neurotypical" world.Being closeted doesn’t make it so you can never live alone because you can’t manage basic tasks like bathing or cooking without help. I think this general understanding of myself, regardless if I conclude after more time that I identify as autistic or not, is going to be helpful to me moving forward in life. it seamlessly blends academic knowledge with personal experiences and interviews, and has a really strong voice that’s readable and informative while not being “too” academic. Those who embrace a more ABA approach to Autism may be most likely to struggle with "Unmasking Autism" as it's clear Dr.

Unmasking Autism’, and the author - Reddit I am reading ‘Unmasking Autism’, and the author - Reddit

Another thing that bothered me was when he was talking about finding community and giving advice on how to connect to other autistic people, and he said to “make sure to center Black and brown and queer voices in your autistic spaces” (paraphrasing bc I don’t remember the word for word). Autism is diagnosed because these behaviours cause daily interference, and autistics would still be disabled, regardless of society. To unmask is to lay bare a proud face of noncompliance, to refuse to buckle under the weight of neurotypical demands. this was good i think though I found it very odd he did not mention Asian Americans in his paragraph about other non-white Autistics! I don't even know if I should be referring to myself as autistic, or if I should think of myself as displaying a lot of sub-diagnostic-threshold traits and tendencies.eh, there's still a bit to be gleamed, but you're going to have to put up with a *lot* of racist misandrist anti-science drivel to get to it. I gained a deeper understanding of how the autistic brain works and the sheer trauma societal ignorance has caused them by not respecting, supporting, listening, and advocating for their needs. He lives in Chicago, where he serves as an assistant professor at Loyola University Chicago's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Unmasking requires non-autistic people to be more inclusive and welcoming of their neurodivergent peers – whether they are autistic, have ADHD, Tourette's syndrome, dyslexia or anything else.