Reviews and Comments

I picked up this book because it was about women with "Aspergers." It's an older book, from when aspergers was still a diagnosis. I forgave that and continued on.

First the good. I related to several of the women quoted throughout the book. Some of the experiences mentioned were so common and so relatable that I had to add yet another experience to the autism column of my life. I'm grateful to have more to think about in many of these categories.

But now I must bring up the bad. The first was a pet peeve. The author coined the term "Aspergirls" as the title of the book, but also as a word she uses repeatedly throughout the book. It irritated me every time it came up.

Second, though the interviews were with adult women, every chapter ends with two advice sections: advice to aspergirls, and advice to parents. The first felt targeted toward a teenager, toward someone with little to no life experience. The advice to parents section took it a step further, as advice for a neurotypical parent about how to raise a daughter with autism. I ended up begrudgingly reading the first, and skipping the second section at the end of every chapter.

The cisheteronormativity was also apparent, even when folks interviewed described pansexuality or asexuality, and nonbinary identities were at least hinted at. There is much advice about dating men, choosing men, marrying men, etc.

All of this so far would be forgivable in exchange for the epiphanies the book had for me. The pseudoscience however was too much.

My first red flag was when the author briefly mentioned both supplements and reiki as alternative treatments. I shuddered, but the book moved on quickly. Then chapter 19 happened. Stomach Issues and Autism.

This chapter represents the biggest 180 I have experienced with a book. Suddenly the author was positing that autism was caused by a compromised digestive system during development allowing "toxins" into the bloodstream and harming early brain development.

Then she goes on to suggest that diet is also the "cure" for autism, and tells a story of a nonscientific "experiment" she did with herself and others consuming strong antioxidant supplements only to see their autism symptoms lessen.

Maybe sometime I'll write about pseudoscience. For the sake of brevity I'll just say that all of this is at best bunk and at worst actually harmful.

I struggle to decide if this is a one star or a two star book. I went with two because I did learn some things, and those things will help me. I probably could have learned them somewhere else though.

I cannot recommend this book.

There are two things this book accomplished for me. One was just simply describing a large number of common experiences autistic people face, and the other was looking at how some conventional forms of therapy can mess up an autistic patient. I would say that it succeeded in both.

First, we have the autistic experiences. I posted several quotes as I read because they hit hard. Things I've been trying to explain for years were written in simply, easy to understand paragraphs. Oh how I wish I'd had those paragraphs years ago! Autistic burnout, hyper-vigilance when talking to other people, and the feeling of overwhelm that a small amount of expectations can cause were some of the most salient, but I highlighted many more paragraphs as I read.

When it comes to the second part, how (some) conventional therapies might hard rather than help an autistic patient, the message was as much a warning for me as it was any potential therapists who might be reading. Certain things that therapies can try to "fix" in a neurotypical patient are just facts of existence for people with autism. At best, someone might succeed in teaching an autistic person how to better mask these things, but they will not be "fixed." More often than not autistic patients don't need fixing, they need help understanding how to manage their emotions, work through confusion in interpersonal relationships, understand how to take the mask off, and create a life that is manageable and sustainable.

All in all, it was helpful to me. At the end of the book, in the concluding chapter, one conclusion stuck out to me more than the others:

"The key task in therapy is to create a neurodivergent-friendly life which works for us."

This book should get a higher rating. The sections on Facing Illusions, Detaching, and Setting Healthy Boundaries are incredibly valuable. These make up three of the four areas of work the book covers. The remaining area however is spirituality.

The book defines this as finding a higher power and recognizing that you are not in full control of your life. There is something here that is true, but the message is tangled in all this talk of higher powers. While it attempts to leave that part open to interpretation, I could not help but feel that it fell into the trap many religious authors do trying to "include" atheists but ultimately using language that excludes them. Because of this, I cannot recommend this book, even though at different points I want to.

I want to be able to recommend this book when its talking about setting boundaries, not just in the things that I will and will not allow in my life, but simply understanding the boundary that exists between myself and another person. And simple ways to frame things to maintain that separation.

This book should get four stars just for including Appendix C, Characteristics of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (Woitoz, 1990). Those two pages were eye opening. I joked to a friend that I was offended to open a book and see such a clean, concise description of me, and that I should demand royalties.

But even if it wasn't the authors intention, and even if it did not affect others the way it did me, I cannot recommend a book that made me feel so excluded for being an atheist