Author: Sandra Thom-Jones
Category: Memoir
Publisher: Melbourne University Press
Publication date: 30 August 2022
Blurb: What’s it like to realise you’re autistic? And how do you start to ask the world around you to accept that?
From the outside looking in, Sandra Thom-Jones was living a successful life: she had a great career, a beautiful home, a caring husband, two loving sons and supportive friends. But from the inside looking out, she was struggling to make sense of her place in the world, constantly feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, and convinced that her challenges with daily life just meant that she had to try harder. In Growing In to Autism, Thom-Jones tells the story of gradually realizing that she was autistic, and that she experienced the world in ways which were markedly different from neurotypical people. This was a profound awakening – throughout her life she had been masking her true self and this effort had come at great physical, mental and emotional cost. Applying her skills as an experienced and expert researcher, Thom-Jones delved into the literature on autism in adults, learning much more than she already knew as a parent of two autistic boys. Part personal, funny, endearing and enlightening memoir, and part rigorous explication of the nature of autism, Growing in to Autism is a book for all people, memorably conveying the need for better understanding and ways of making space for a group of individuals in our society who have so much to offer.
Review: This book was recommended to me when I posted in some groups about reading Different, Not Less by Chloe Hayden, and looking for some books by women who had been diagnosed in their 40s or later. I was excited when I found it in the library.
There were so many times that I wished I had bought this book instead of borrowing it from the library as the author articulated my experience in ways I have been struggling to, from experiences at school to early days of parenting, and I wanted to underline different parts to revisit them at a later date.
There are some bits I couldn’t relate to as I also have ADHD, however this book was a good read and a great resource for other late diagnosed autistic women, and those around them. It is also one that I have recommended to quite a few late diagnosed autistic women too.
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