What interested you in this book club?

I'm an autistic person who is maybe dying of terminally wretched masking but is terrified of unmasking

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

I'm AuDHD and so are my husband and kid, though unfortunately I still feel wildly alone because they're the same flavor of neurospicy as each other but very different from me

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

The whole thing made me feel pretty deer-in-the-headlights - oh fuck, oh shit

reflecting on a moment you felt truly alive

Once upon a time, I went on a white water rafting trip in the New River Gorge as a small child, and we stopped at this weird bricked drainage grotto thing that felt very Indiana Jones-y to me, and most of the adults were scared to get out of the raft and swim into the grotto to the little waterfall in the back, but I was out of the boat the second they said we could. It was mysterious and wonderful and weird and exciting.

Most of the other "super alive" memories I have involve some degree of trauma, but this one was all joy and exhilaration.

PS - hey [email protected] - I super appreciate you doing this. I know this is hard and has been a weight for you, and I just want you to know that I'm very, very grateful for your efforts. Thank you. ❤️

I have lots of thoughts about this introductio and I'll write them in full later, but I'm just leaving a reply to mention that mentions don't work in the thread post on Lemmy, only in the replies.

Does the Audiobook format work? Currently pointing at a 404.

What interested you in this book club?

I have read through this book a couple of times and I think it's really valuable. It's a bit flawed imo and I hope that in a few years time we'll see a revised edition come out to bring it up to speed with a couple of things but 90% good is still really good, even moreso when we're talking about stuff that there's almost nothing having been written about.

Don't ask me about my criticisms of the book because I don't want to prime people to dislike this book and I don't want to shit on the experience for others or to drag the book club experience down. Maybe when the book club comes to a conclusion it might be time to reflect on where the book could be improved.

I'm also interested in this book club because I volunteered to share my experience - I participated in training developed and delivered by Heather Morgan that formed the basis of the unmasking exercises and it cost a fair chunk of change and the rest of the group I was with were all... sorta petit-bourgeois life coach types and I just know that to get access to this stuff otherwise, people would be looking at having to start as a client with a life coach and that shit costs like $100+ per session.

That doesn't really sit well with me and I know that it puts this expertise out of reach for a lot of people here. I've railed against how fucked it is that neurodivergent people are generally higher represented in unemployment and underemployment, they are likely to be underpaid for their work, and they tend to have higher costs for things like therapy, medication, and accessibility (think like needing a house cleaner or having to order food delivered because executive dysfunction has you in its claws and you need to eat but the idea of trying to cook something might as well be climbing mount Everest or just having to catch a taxi because the ADHD tax made you run late for work and you're better off paying the taxi fare than you are getting fired...)

The inequity of putting this stuff behind an inaccessible paywall isn't something I find tolerable. Don't get me wrong, people like Devon Price and Heather Morgan deserve to be paid for their work but the inherent injustice of the care system and the economic system underpinning it puts the expertise out of reach of most people who aren't at least comfortably "middle class" and it makes me feel indignation to know that the people who would likely benefit the most from this stuff are the ones who are also the most likely to be excluded from it.

I can't change the way that it is but I can do my part to democratise this expertise.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Yep. I'm autistic with ADHD, late-diagnosed, and enough of the "other" neurodivergence that tends to be a bit of an afterthought in comparison to autism and ADHD too.

As for others? Lol. Where to start... there are quite a few neurodivergent people I know, despite having a limited social circle at the moment. I've been the catalyst for more than a couple of people to go and get themselves diagnosed but I promise that I was very gentle in this process with people - I know that late-diagnosis can be one hell of a bumpy ride and I wouldn't go throwing someone else into the deep end with that, regardless of how obvious their neurodivergence might be to me.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

Honestly I haven't started re-reading the book just yet (😬) because I struggle so damn much with reading especially at the moment.

I'm participating in this because I want to contribute to the momentum of the reading group and to show my support.

What interested you in this book club? Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is? I finally pursued an adhd diagnosis after 30+ years of coping and depression after being raised by parents too anxious about the stigma of neurodivergence to pursue a diagnosis (just put me in advanced classes instead). My partner and I are both shades of partly diagnosed spicy, adhd and major depression are mine and she has a “highly sensitive introvert personality” with anxiety. We’ve been tugging at threads in our tangled brains to try and figure out what’s up. We’re both fairly successful in our fields through masking, coping, and misery, and want to be advocates such that no one else needs to feel anything besides pride and an embrace of their neurodiversity. Hoping the perspectives of this book will be transformative in the way that Trans Liberation was the first time I read it. A better future is coming for all of us.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to? Will download tonight and dive in and check back in to the thread.

Ps this com has already done wonders for my understanding of neurodiversity, embrace of my own and that of others, and you’re all wonderful people who deserve nothing but the best from life

I'll write my thoughts later, but for now I wanted to thank you for this, I've been meaning to read this book for a while now and this might be the push I need.

What interested you in this book club?

I'm on a huge ass reading binge that started with "Why am I actually not reading theory?" that started about 1.5 years ago with Marx and Engels. This has become a journey of me rediscovering a love for reading. I actually started forming themed blocks around all the books I have been wanting to tackle. I did not have a Neurodivergent block planned and then saw this book mentioned a bunch shortly after my diagnosis. I actually finished reading this book at the beginning of this month but it's kicked off a new block focused on Neurodivergence, Trans Liberation, LGBTQ+ in general, Feminsim, PoC, and etc stuff. Basically marginalized groups. I wanna learn as much as I can now lol.

Rambling aside, I guess I am interested in this book club to see how others see themselves reflected in the book like I did.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

My diagnosis is Autism, Severe Depression(probably actually Major Depressive Disorder), and Social Anxiety. My wife is ND, I am on a discord sever full of ND and LGBTQ+ friends, and my bestie is also ND. Our disorders range from both main flavors of ADHD, PTSD/CPTSD, Anxiety, Depression, OCD, and a few more.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

What stood out for me, was that Devon mentions his drinking problem a few times but I think in the intro. I have a history of drinking and it dawned on me real fast that it was probably a coping mechanism due to my undiagnosed autism and trying to exist in a Neurotypical world without a script. I fell back on alcohol when I had a bad day, or when I had a good day. I did it when I was hanging out with family and friends. I think this was me trying to fix my overstimulation and to try and pretend to be functional in social environments. I think my Depression and Anxiety could also potentially be my body coping as well or it could just be comorbidity(or a bit of both?). Like I've always had a drinking problem but it never felt like an addiction. This might be the answer to that.

Is this book going to make me cry?

Reading the dead tree version right now, stuck in an analysis loop on the last page of the introduction.

Edit: goddamned adhd, missed the homework portion:

• What interested you in this book club?

Seeing other people mention this book, so I ordered it.

• Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Aside from the aforementioned adhd, I'm also on the autistic spectrum.

• What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

There were several points where I audibly said "what the fuck". It's like he was writing the book about me.

What interested you in this book club?

I have a copy, unfinished, and want to read it with comrades

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Yes and yes. Adult diagnosis

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

I'll add what I highlighted

"To other people, my tears were immature tantrums and my opinions were condescending diatribes. As I grew up, I learned to be less intense, less embarrassing- less me"

"Things like staring at a person's forehead to stimulate eye contact, or memorizing conversational scripts based on exchanges they saw on TV"

"Refusing to perform neurotypicality is a revolutionary act of disability justice"

I accept I'm autistic, but taking off the mask is scary. Reading that the author had similar feelings makes it feel less scary, that other people on the spectrum could have gone through the same thing. That makes it feel like my diagnosis is less of some attribute defining me and more of a disability many of us share, and therefore can use each other to go through.

The Dr that diagnosed me said, when I'm alone there's no reason to keep my mask on so use that time to let it all out (or else I'll get burned out but I took it as self understanding). I got to the poing where I can unmask in front of my best friend. I hope this book can help with the rest of my relationships.

This book has already changed, and may have saved, my life. Since I made my previous post about it I've consulted two of my oldest friends - one just finished reading, the other is now starting - and they agree that I'm probably Autistic, even though they say it had never occurred to them before. All three of us had serious misconceptions about what Autism is, and this book has been profoundly illuminating for all of us.

What interested you in this book club?

It was @[email protected] 's post here that really started not only clearing up some misconceptions but also ringing some bells. And then other posts, especially from @[email protected] and @[email protected] , pointed me toward Unmasking Autism in particular. And here I thought the first Hexbear-approved book I was going to read this year was Clara Mattei's The Capital Order.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Yes - I have severe migraines, which are not only neurological but have also caused enough other problems that I think they qualify as neurodiversity. I also have depression. And lately I've been having serious trouble dealing with the neurotypicals, which is why I started having more questions and reading threads like this one, so I hope that anyone else reading this who has trouble understanding why their life is the way it is will also read this book.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

In the introduction, the line that hooked me was "I seemed to be broken in ways I couldn't explain, but which everyone else could see at a glance."

For the full book, the most important thing for me was the discussion of autistic burnout. That rang more bells than Quasimodo, and figuring out how to better avoid it (and the ensuing migraine clusters that absolutely annihilate me) is why I think my life is about to seriously change for the better. (Might get worse, first, but.) Comrades, I don't know that I have ever felt hope like this before. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone here.

I just got the book. Can you add me to the tag list when you get the chance?

What interested you in this book club?

This post on hexbear dot net and the fact that I also recently downloaded it :) good timing

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Just me and every one of my friends (except for maybe one)

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

My self-confidence is absolutely shot from years of shame and hiding myself.

“I’d hidden all this for years because I was certain it made me a joyless, unlovable asshole. Now I was beginning to wonder why I believed such awful things about myself.”

My goal is to eventually get to this point. My therapist, for example, has continually asks me why I believe bad things about myself and tear myself down so often. And I genuinely have no other answer than it has been what people have seen in me ever since I can remember, particularly my family

What interested you in this book club?

I have Autism myself and being able to better understand the condition will definetly help me a lot.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

as I previously said yep, and pretty much everyone in my life is. my parents aren't diagnosed but at least one of them does have something going on

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

There were some anecdotes I highlighted, as I share in some of the traits mentioned, and I want to try and untangle them and see how exactly they apply to me. For instance, I got into a really bad abusive, codependent relationship as a result of my fawning and people-pleasing instincts. I'm still pretty deep in a metaphorical pit myself from my own disabilities with ADHD and to another extent autism. It's pretty miserable and feels like it can't be 'fixed' or mitigated sometimes, but I really want to be able to, so that's what I'm interested in looking at.

Also please add me to the tag list :)

Ty for the tag. I didn't get a notification for it I'm not sure why but I saw the post so all good.

What interested you in this book club?
There are many autistic comrades on hexbear so I want to learn more about it.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?
I don't think so? I don't know to be honest. There are things in the introduction I related to and others I didn't (apologies for jumping ahead on a question, I felt it was better to answer it here). I don't think I'm autistic though. I have colleagues I believe are neurodiverse and people I interact with through work and volunteering.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?
I don't know when the introduction ended, I'm listening to the audiobook and got to about an hour in, so I hope I'm not covering ground for the next chapter. I liked that Price is narrating it himself (right? Or did I get that wrong). No quotes stood out to me. I think I'm gunna hold back from commenting too much until I've listened a bit more?

Sorry for the long time since my first comment here, only found the energy to tackle this right now.

I have one question tho. I never really participated in any sort of book club before. Is this basically just a post a week discussing a chapter at a time and we just comment about it in each thread, or is this something different?

Now for the discussion questions:

What interested you in this book club?

Even before I was diagnosed as autistic a little less than a year ago, I was already searching about it like crazy, and one of the biggest recommendations I found was this book, but I never got around to reading it.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Like I said above, yeah I'm autistic. I do know at least one other person that is a diagnosed neurodivergent, in his case he's bipolar. There's probably other people around me that might be neurodivergent too, but no other actual diagnosed people. I don't think there's anyone else in my family that is also autistic tho, I might be the only one, makes me feel kinda lonely actually.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

~~I haven't read the introduction yet since I just downloaded the book and it's very late here, I'll edit this tomorrow and put my thoughts about it. (Also, I was confused for a bit and thought this question was about this post as an introduction, not the introduction of the book, lol. Had to take a look what others were writing to realize that cuz I didn't get the question.)~~

Well, aside from the "he’s literally me, he just like me, he just like me fr ong no cap" from 90% of the introduction lol, these quotes just describe me:

I believed something was fundamentally wrong with me. I seemed to be broken in ways I couldn't explain, but which everyone else could see at a glance.

After being mocked about our passions, we become secretive about our special interests.

To other people, my tears were immature tantrums and my opinions were condescending diatribes. As I grew up, I learned to be less intense, less embarrassing - less me.

I couldn't describe myself better. Years and years of non-stop bullying followed by my loud crying everyday of my life during childhood and being constantly mocked for the things I liked, all while feeling broken, feeling angry at the other kids, feeling like I didn't belong and that I was an alien, couldn't result in anything other than a mess of an adult that is still traumatized to this day. 🫠

Good thing I'm in therapy at least.

Also, add me to the tag list if you can, please.

What interested you in this book club? Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

There was a time when I questioned whether I was ND, but I ruled it out based on online assessment tests. Also, a therapist dismissed the idea without any questionnaire or deep discussion on the matter, saying it was more likely that some social stuff I struggle with were because of childhood issues.

I have some ND friends, I relate to some of their experiences but not all. When I hang out with NTs, I can't tell if I'm not having a good time because of nd/nt mismatch or because I've yet to meet compatible NTs.

What stood out to you about the introduction?

The mention that masked autism flies under the radar on some diagnostic tests.

Please tag me for the next meetings.

What interested you in this book club?

I've been on a reading and listening (audiobook) binge for months now, and have never read a book about autism that satisfied me. Since I saw a description of this book and played it for like 1 minute I can't stop listening to chapters of it on repeat.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Yes, I'm Autistic with a dash of ADHD. Been aware since I was a child. I've also basically only truly mingled with other Autistic or neurodiverse people, and I'm pretty sure I could try to interpret some family members as such too, but we hardly ever get in touch these days.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

I was very pleasantly surprised that the author tackled the question of how race, gender, sexuality and class affect one's Autistic experience and behaviour. I've always been annoyed at this stereotype I've always called "white autism" of privileged kids who used their diagnosis as a justification to be horrible people. Since "Asperger's Syndrome" is now a discredited term (because people remembered he was a Nazi collaborator), it has become another insult of choice among my groups.

Other than that, the generally hopeful tone caught my eye. I have dealt with Anhedonia for most of my adult life, and generally feel like I don't even mask that much and have never associated it with being Autistic. But now, listening to this random person who never met me just casually list a ton of stuff that I went through as "common things", I'm paying attention.

The exercise for this chapter feels weird to me. There are some moments where I've "felt alive" in a sense, but they're usually incredibly unhealthy moments, either related to gaming addiction or dumb experimentations with my body and metabolism. I'm not sure if these are things I should be encouraging.

Though playing 500 hours of "Fire Emblem: Three Houses" during the pandemic definitely made me realise I'm an actual history nerd and should read more history. So I guess something good came out of that one addiction there.

What interested you in this book club?

I initially stumbled upon a thread on here where this book was recommended and I felt like it described the missing pieces to the puzzle of understanding myself. I have read through the book already and I'd like to read your experiences, as well as to share mine. I'd like to learn to unmask, to be myself, to accept myself as I am, to be compassionate with myself and to find happiness in all of this.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

I am pretty sure that I have ASD. I score pretty high on the different tests that were posted on the other threads. The waitings lists are pretty long to get diagnosed where I am but I should get it sorted next year. Most of my friends have ADHD, I am usually the one that gives them structure and we balance out.

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

I believed something was fundamentally wrong with me. I seemed to be broken in ways I couldn’t explain, but which everyone else could see at a glance. I spent several more years languishing like this, working myself to the point of burnout, having emotional breakdowns, relying on romantic partners for social contact and a sense of worthiness, and googling things like “how to make friends” in the middle of the night. Through it all, I never considered asking for help or sharing with anyone how I felt. I lived by a very narrow set of rules, and remaining independent and invulnerable was chief among them.

Many of these stealthily Autistic people fell back on their intellect or other talents to gain acceptance. Others became incredibly passive, because if they toned down their personalities, they wouldn’t have to risk being too “intense.” Beneath the inoffensive, professional veneers they had developed, their lives were falling apart. Many of them suffered from self-harm, eating disorders, and alcoholism. They were trapped in abusive or unfulfilling relationships, with no clue how to feel seen and appreciated. Nearly all of them were depressed, haunted by a profound sense of emptiness. Their entire lives had been shaped by mistrust in themselves, hatred of their bodies, and fear of their desires.

I'd have a couple more, but the ones that hit me the most were in the next chapters. Thank you for organizing this!

So, my thoughts. CW: suicidal ideation, self-harm, child SA, trauma, really fucking dark depressing thoughts on display.

spoiler

People appreciated my honesty and vulnerability in the The Will to Change thread, so I figured why not wring out my soul in front of a bunch of strangers on the communist anti-Reddit?

My background is pretty bland and depressing. I'm 37 years old, diagnosed ADHD, clinically depressed (as in major depressive disorder), anxiety. Self-diagnosed autistic after reading this book and realizing that yeah, every facet of my outward self is designed to placate people around me, to fit social expectations, and to try and minimize attention to myself because I associate getting attention with humiliation and shame.

I've always been a weirdo. I've made no secret of that here. Social problems fitting in as a child. Incredibly smart from a young age, they tell me. I taught myself to read at age 2, I'm told. I later learned that's sometimes called "hyperlexia" and is strongly indicated with autism. I don't recall doing the "classic" autism things as a kid like lining up my toys instead of playing with them, but I absolutely preferred to be by myself and had trouble relating with other kids. I was bullied from a young age, always had trouble making friends my entire life. I've always felt ostracized, humiliated by my peers more than anything else, unable to relate. I learned I had ADHD at a young age, around 8, and they threw some Ritalin at it and called it a day. Didn't start actually understanding what ADHD is until the last few years, like post-pandemic, when I started really researching it in earnest and finding out a bunch of things that I was always made to feel were personal flaws that made me a shitty, childish person were in fact documented symptoms of ADHD that I didn't understand. When I read the breakdown of what "executive function" is I cried for a long time. Finally, one of my worst demons had a name. It wasn't some shitty thing about me born of cowardice and worthlessness, it was my goddamn brain being weird and not working right, and me not understanding how to work with it. From there, I learned the names of other demons that have tormented me my entire life. Alexithymia. Rejection sensitive dysphoria. Sensory overload. Burnout. Emotional dysregulation. So many things that I'd never been told about and had no idea how to deal with. A place to start. I sought out an ADHD specialist to deal with it, and the anxiety and depression that came along with it.

I've been suicidal since I was 15, in and out of therapy since I was 16. What I mean by "suicidal" is that I think about suicide near-constantly. Most of the time nowadays I'm inured to it, it's like wallpaper, it's like "haha oh brain when will you learn that splattering yourself all over the wall is not the answer, now let's get in the shower to get ready for our job we hate." I used to cut myself when I was under a lot of stress at a grocery deli job when I was 19. I've had a loaded shotgun in my mouth, both hammers cocked. I fantasize about putting my head out the window on the freeway, rubbing it down like an eraser on the center concrete divider, yanking my head off and rolling it down the street like a bowling ball, being impaled by a piece of falling satellite debris, anything to keep it a ridiculous fantasy and not a practical way out of my unending pain. And I do mean pain. Chronic pain from flat feet and a fucked up knee and back and neck issues. Emotional pain from long-term social isolation, very few friends at any point in my life, zero romantic/sexual success despite tons of effort and varying approaches and "working on myself" for decades like everyone told me to with no results. I'm not a virgin, if it matters; I don't think it really does anymore. Favor arranged by a friend. Disappointing for a variety of reasons but... I digress. The real pain is never having been in a relationship, wondering just what the fuck is wrong with me, and learning to hate myself for this and a great number of other reasons over the years, never really knowing the root of my suffering. I really have felt worthless. Useless. I've internally compared myself to toilet paper: something that you keep around because you can use it, then you throw it away. Detestable otherwise. I've felt like it's a certainty I'll die alone never knowing a true friend, never feeling love. Never making anything of myself. Jumping from shit job to shit job, picking up non-transferable skills like knowing a lot about cameras in 2009, how video games are tested, how to make sausage, how to clean an industrial rotisserie grill and dump the chicken grease out of it, and the latest: how to fill out DMV paperwork for California in highly specific circumstances. Never feeling like I was worth much. Always feeling like my emotions were at best an inconvenience to others, that my interests were stupid and lame, and that I was always going to be a weirdo who makes everyone else uncomfortable so I should just hide myself away from the world, or remove myself from it entirely as a matter of moral duty.

I've had a lot of trauma in my life, some of which I've only recently come to terms with. When I was 6 I was inappropriately touched by another boy maybe a year older than me on a playdate, for instance. I felt like it was shameful and dirty, given my Catholic upbringing, and felt like it "didn't count" since I didn't resist, didn't really understand what was happening, and the perpetrator was, indeed, another boy around my age and not an adult. Just some touching, that's all. But the shame and guilt and fear I had associated with it festered in me for years, and it wasn't until I was reading The Body Keeps the Score last year and figured out that dwelling on this memory triggered panic symptoms in me that I said "hey maybe it does count" and talked to my therapist about it. I explored other threads of trauma in my past as well, realizing that yeah, it did fuck me up to have almost no friends, to never fit in, to be convinced I was inherently evil by a church that was at that time covering up mass child molestation. That's trauma. That's real. My fucking brain and body are telling me so. I also started taking seriously the notion that I had autism, like really focusing on it instead of letting be a stray thread of thought that I kept dismissing even though it kept surfacing like a DUNE sandworm sensing a plot development about to happen.

So what convinces me is that I get deeply upset by bright lights and chaotic overlapping voices, and just figured these were just annoyances everyone had to deal with, more or less, and pushed it all down. All of my social problems I attributed to just not paying attention and being "socially r-----ed" as I so eloquently put it as a younger man. I just thought I was cringey, and just dumb to not pay attention. I began to worry I was a sociopath or psychopath because of my "lack of empathy," since I had a hard time understanding why people feel the way they feel in the moment, needing to think about it later on to understand. As I explored the notion of being autistic -- or rather, AuDHD, which I say as "A U D H D" because "Audi HD" sounds like a European luxury sedan -- and relating very directly to more and more things people have posted both here and elsewhere on social media, directly labeling the thing I relate to as autism, an autistic thing that autistic autists diagnosed with autism by autism specialists do, and learned how a professional diagnosis can cost $2000 and often isn't covered by insurance if you're an adult, suddenly the notion that I'm autistic didn't sound so fucking crazy anymore.

So I stumbled on this book while looking for books on the tism, and looked up the author to make sure they weren't a quack. Lo and behold, I see his name loosely associated with Jessica McCabe, the How to ADHD girl, who has never steered me wrong on resources before. So I read this book, cried as I read through damn near every chapter, talked about it with my therapist again, who agreed that yeah, it's expensive as fuck to get assessed and probably not worth it in my circumstances, and instead steered me to some self-diagnostic tools that, as usual, all pinged me as autistic as fuck. The top-rated one (for accuracy, if you knew how to read it and interpret it, as far as separating the normies from the autistics [cool people ] goes) was the RAADS-R. The threshold for "autistic as fuck" is 160, I got a 165 on it. So, yeah, probably. Won't change much in how I treat it with regards to therapy and whatnot, but in terms of how I understand and interpret myself and my needs? Groundbreaking. Very much needed.

And so I saw the Bell Hooks threads and thought, fuck it, why not? I mentioned it, people said they were all for it, they started making threads in anticipation of it, and I thought, it helped me a lot, and it can continue to help me to come back to it and read it again. Why not do it with one of the most principled, accepting, and supportive communities I've ever encountered? Someone here could benefit. Maybe I could actually make a positive impact on someone else's life after all.

I'm going to join on this account too as a kind of prestige class upgrade thing.

Is anyone else ready for Chapter 1? I was sort of looking forward to Hexbear reading this

First off, maintenance post, I'm reposting the tags here in a comment to make them work. Apologies for anyone who already posted, but I don't want anyone to miss out.

Some folks have asked how this will work. This post was kind of testing the waters on that. I've had a chance to read everyone's responses and I'll post my own in a moment, in another comment. How this works is pretty simple: I'll make a thread for each chapter, repost the tag list to keep everyone alerted to it, post a basic overview of the chapter, some of my own initial thoughts, and some discussion questions to try and get some interesting conversations started. As expected, lots of people had serious reactions to the contents of this intro, and even I had a hard time re-reading it, so I figured I'd give everyone a chance to get acquainted with what's in store before they strap in for the unexpected emotional roller coaster this book can be if you're neurodivergent or even just love someone who is. As the book explores, autism is poorly understood even among the medical community. That's not hard to understand when you look at the diagnostic criteria and the list of symptoms are like "poor eye contact" "monotone voice" "bad social skills" "what is this fucking guy's problem" "get a load of this fucking dork" "I'm annoyed, medically, as a doctor" etc. rather than focusing on the internal experience of what it's like to be autistic.

So join us on this enlightening and at times horrifying and agonizing journey through Unmasking Autism, a book about how much it fucking sucks to be neurodivergent in a society that cruelly punishes deviation from the norm or inefficiencies on the generation of profit for the people who can take away your healthcare if you talk back to them. Healthcare, which, if you're an American over the age of 18, pretty much tells you to get fucked when it comes to any sort of assistance. The book covers this too.

The tags:

[email protected] , I was asked to tag you for a sticky on this. I think it might have been stickied before and then unstickied; I'd like it stickied until I can get the Chapter 1 post together in the next day or two, if possible. Thanks.

The following folks asked to be tagged:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

What interested you in this book club?

Diagnosed as autistic ten years ago.

Are you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is?

Autism, bipolar I, C-PTSD

What stood out to you about the introduction? Any choice quotes? Anything you relate to?

The history of abusive/deeply unfufilling relationships.