I found this to be an incredibly thoughtful, thorough, insightful, and interesting book that is deeply compassionate and built on a foundation of pride and of deep empathy. Books like this one which write from within an Autistic perspective that is grounded in research and experience are vital. It’s vitally important that in addition to all the individual-level work we put into unmasking and demanding our needs get met, that we also find and cultivate supportive relationships with people who make it a lot easier to do so.

Over time we may become more aware of our own masking, but it often begins as an unconscious response to social trauma before we even grasp our differences. I was 23 when I received my autism diagnosis, and it was only through learning more about masking that I realised how my diagnosis had been hidden for so long. It wasn’t that my autistic traits weren’t there, they’d just been in disguisefor so long. The best solution to reducing the need for autistic people to mask is to spread awareness to non-autistic people of different neurodiverse behaviours and thinking patterns. When non-autistic people know someone is autistic, they seem to judge them less harshly. However, this strategy is not an easy one and will take years of effort before it is fully ingrained in our society.

Awareness and understanding

Secondly: Yes, it’s true that some people don’t regard us autistics as people, but that’s not because people describe us with adjectives. That’s not the reason we’re not regarded as people. (I remember, fondly, what one autistic woman said to a non-autistic woman who kept trying to be Bravely Inspirational about why you shouldn’t say “autistic person”. The autistic woman replied that “if you can’t remember I’m a person because people use adjectives, then that’s your problem to solve.”) May be highly self educated, but will have struggled with social aspects of college or their career.

If you're a girl, if you're a person of color, if you're gender nonconforming," Price says, "you're more likely to be seen as a problem to be contained." Lay out your home or workspace in a way that suits your own needs rather than in a way that pleases allistic, or non-autistic, people. For one designer Price spoke with, it made a world of difference.Thankfully, this comprehensive book describes how once a person is diagnosed and has that Eureka Moment, they can then begin the process to unmask and be theirself. I don't know much on this subject, but I believe the author, himself Autistic, has done a masterful job at explaining and providing numerous survery type, guidance questions and tables for the Autistic person, or those who suspect they may be so, to consider and gradually understand themselves. There are further helps of how to unmask and reconstruct ones own life with dignity, without shame and according to the diversity of ones own individualised Autism. A deep dive into the spectrum of Autistic experience and the phenomenon of masked Autism, giving individuals the tools to safely uncover their true selves while broadening society’s narrow understanding of neurodiversity Reading this felt like being at home—I didn’t realize how much I masked. What an incredible book that I know will be re-read many times over.” —Dr. Camilla Pang, author of An Outsider’s Guide to Humans Dr. Price is both extremely critical of the racist, classist, and prejudiced science inside the field of psychology and the specific field of Autism research, while also writing from a place of great compassion for the confusion felt by Autistic people trying to navigate a world that often doesn’t make sense. They go OFF on the ableist, racist, and eugenicist history of Autistic diagnosis and research, and on organizations that purport to embrace Autistic people while seeking to “cure” Autism.

Thirdly: I’m always gonna respect people’s wishes about how they want to be described, but we have a problem if workshops, style guides and the like are wrongly claiming that describing somebody with an adjective objectively means that they have no other traits or qualities than that adjective. (I still don’t quite get why people only claim that when talking about mental and physical conditions and disabilities.) There really is a huge divide between autistic people and the professionals treating us. Their focus seems to be on therapy to make us look acceptable and act like mainstream society, rather than helping us accept ourselves and our differences and minimise our own suffering through our lives. Essentially I feel like people don’t care if I’m in emotional, physical and mental pain as long as my grades are good, act somewhat neurotypically and I hold down jobs and turn up at work. You often see the “high functioning” label for someone like me and it seems misleading, and it also makes me think of someone I knew and cared for as a child with “high functioning” autism who killed himself. He wasn’t okay and he now isn’t functioning at all. However, for us autistic folk the strategy is often much more ingrained and harmful to our wellbeing and health. Because our social norms are different to others around us, we often experience greater pressure to hide our true selves and to fit into that non-autistic culture. More often than not, we have to spend our entire lives hiding our traits and trying to fit in, even though the odds of appearing ‘non-autistic’ are against us.Reading this felt like being at home - I didn't realise how much I masked. What an incredible book that I know will be re-read many times over.' - Dr Camilla Pang, author of Explaining Humans