A review by ceallaighsbooks
Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

“I'm not a “normal” person, have never been able to be one, so identifying outside of the gender binary as well as mainstream humanity feels like home… We're fully fledged, complex people, who are entitled to the same body autonomy and self-determination as anyone else. And it's meaningless to question whether a trans Autistic person would have “still” been trans had they not been born neurodiverse, because Autism is such a core part of who we are. Without our disability (or our gender identity) we'd be entirely different people. There is no separating these aspects of ourselves from our personhood or personality. They're both core parts.”

TITLE—Unmasking Autism 

AUTHOR—Devon Price 

PUBLISHED—2022

PUBLISHER—Harmony Books (imprint of Random House)

GENRE—nonfiction—psychology

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Autism & the Autistic experience, self-determination/-diagnosis, the hugely systemically ableist/racist/misogynistic modern western healthcare system, community support for undiagnosed Autistics, later-in-life diagnoses, masking & unmasking for Autism, trauma & PTSD, abolition & anti-capitalism, anti-ableism & political activism, radical visibility, self-disclosing & self-advocacy, burnout vs. depression, lots of helpful concepts & definitions, worksheets & exercises for processing new information & ways of thinking about neurodivergency

“Of course, the very idea that certain Autistic people function more highly than others, or that functioning status is a binary quality you can catch at a glance, is problematic in its own right. That kind of thinking leads to many of us having our disabilities erased, and the private suffering that makes public "functioning" possible is ignored. It also perpetuates the idea that the only disabled lives worth living are those that can still manage to be productive or impressive in some conventional way.”

My thoughts:

Oh what a powerful book! I was really impressed by how much Dr. Price covered in such a thorough and yet concise manner. His narrative voice is really gentle and positive even while covering such topics as suicide and abuse.

It was so eye opening to see all the different connections between the way the Autistic neurotype processes information and how that presents in human behavior. So many moments of things finally clicking into place about why I struggle with things most consider to be easy or second-nature. It was really encouraging to hear from so many different people whom Price spoke with for this book and to find so many similarities between us—and especially to see all the intersections between neurodivergent and queer experiences.

I also appreciated Price’s discussion about how important it is that certain systems be fully dismantled so that our society can become healthier and more inclusive and how important abolition and anticapitalist efforts are towards achieving that goal.

And finally I found the worksheets & exercises surprisingly helpful. Usually those kinds of things don’t make sense to me but working through them and then doing the final exercise at the end of the book and reading about Price’s answers to the final worksheet especially was a really helpful journey for me.

"Now I know I'm Autistic, but I kinda found out about it too late," she says. "If I tell people, they don't want to believe me. I have my life together too much for them to realize how hard it all is. Nobody wants to hear now about how hard it's always been, always still is, frankly."

I would recommend this book to everyone, seriously. The material is very clear and easy to understand and I think everyone could benefit from a heightened level of Autism awareness and (re-)education that this book would provide. This book is best read thoughtfully and seriously.

Final note: Incredibly grateful to Dr Price for writing this. 🙏🏻💕

“The only way that all Autistic people will be able to unmask is if society changes dramatically. A world with more flexible norms and less stigma is a more accessible world, with fewer disabilities and far less human suffering. It's also a world that's more welcoming to people with mental illnesses, immigrants and diasporic people, and anyone who has suffered because they're not the perfect, cookie-cutter worker bee… In this way, unmasking is a political goal. It requires we place value on all human life, no matter a person's abilities or needs, and view society as a social system that exists to care for all people not an apparatus to make everyone as productive as possible.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW // description of ABA—ch. 3, discussions of ableism, transphobia, racism, self-harm, alcoholism, drug-use & suicide (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

• Definitely check out the suggestions in this book
• LETTERS TO MY WEIRD SISTERS by Joanne Limburg
• THE SECRET LIFE OF A BLACK ASPIE by Anand Prahlad
• NEURO-TRIBES by Steve Silberman—TBR
• UNCOMFORTABLE LABELS by Laura Kate Dale—TBR
• Katherine May
• Kate Fox
• NOBODY’S NORMAL by Roy Richard Grinker—TBR
• MADNESS IN CIVILIZATION by Andrew Scull—TBR

Favorite Quotes—

“Refusing to perform neurotypicality is a revolutionary act of disability justice.”

“…neurotypicality is more of an oppressive cultural standard than it actually is a privileged identity a person has. Essentially no one lives up to neurotypical standards all of the time, and the rigidity of those standards harms everyone. Much as heteronormativity harms straight and queer folks alike, neurotypicality hurts people no matter their mental health status.”

“We have to make society over again from the ground up,” they say. “Our own little neuro-queer microsocieties. Because no one else will think to include us."

“Yet even the fact that we struggle with these activities is contextual, and cultural: in a world where rugged individualism wasn't prioritized, it might not be a disability to need help finding your car keys.”

“Neurotypical people may not know we're disabled, but they identify in us some key flaw that is associated with disability: we're childish, or bitter, self-absorbed, or too "angry," or maybe we're just awkward and make people cringe. Avoiding being seen in these ways becomes our core motivation in life, each day a battle between the heavy armor we wear and the embarrassing characteristics that armor was designed to cover up.”

“Until, like many masked Autistics, I finally realized the mask was taking far more from me than it ever gave, and that if I wanted to stay alive, I’d need to let it drop.”

“Autism isn't a disorder that needs to be treated, but most Autistic people do have mental health struggles related to living in an unaccepting neurotypical world.”

“Recovery is predicated on aligning your life with your values, and you aren't going to be able to align anything until you know who you are."

“Autistic people are at an increased risk of domestic abuse, in part because we tend to be a bit gullible or overly trusting, and are quick to alter ourselves to placate others. When you're trapped under the mask, all love feels conditional. It's hard to know which needs are acceptable to voice.”

[Marta Rose:] "Almost all of the standard measures of time that we now take for granted--the way our hours and days and weeks are structured- are based on a factory model of work. I call this Industrial Time. … There are other ways of thinking about time. Seasonal ways. Cyclical ways. Ancient ways."

“Because Autistic minds are all about understanding details and analyzing complex systems of information, it makes sense to think of our lives as fractal, forever expanding to new subjects and narrowing into precise focus at the same time. We're not single-minded Marios, running across a side-scrolling level to rescue Princess Peach. We're more like the protagonist of the video game Katamari Damacy, a freaky, colorful demigod who rolls an ever-growing ball of objects around, each step forward attracting more random items into his ball's expanding gravitational field until it engulfs the universe. We don't complete discrete projects. We build worlds.”

“Admitting what we can't do means confronting the fact we have a disability, and therefore we occupy a marginalized position in society but it also is an essential part of finally figuring out what assistance we need, and which ways of living are best for us. You have to be able to say no to certain unreasonable expectations in order to genuinely say "yes" to the things you care about.”

“The more honest we are about the challenges we're facing, the harder it will be for neurotypical people to ignore our voices, or the fact that most public spaces are still incredibly inaccessible. Being more radically visible is also an exercise in unlearning shame.”

“After all, neurotypical people step on conversational toes and continue breezily along all the time. Neurodivergent folks should, at the very least, be given the latitude to be flawed, fully present humans as well.”

“Finding out she was Autistic didn't fundamentally change any of that—but it did provide Reese with a context for why life had been so hard. She says, ‘I have a disability and I've had a disability my whole life. Because it is a disability, I am entitled to some support, and admitting that is good.’”