Autism Memoir

Growing up unknowingly autistic, Livia spent the majority of her young life seeking worth and validation in external achievements. She excelled in her honors classes, competitive sports, and eventually, an eating disorder. Until the control she so desperately sought nearly killed her, Livia made the hardest decision anyone with an eating disorder can make: to trust and surrender to the recovery process.

To the outside world, Emily looks like a typical girl, with a normal family, living an ordinary life. But inside, Emily does not feel typical, and the older she gets, the more she realises that she is different. As she finally discovers when she is 16, Emily is autistic. Girl Unmasked is the extraordinary story of how she got there - and how she very nearly didn't.

Autism shakes up your world. It has changed my life and I wasn't even the one diagnosed with it. My brother's name is Ethan Wolfgang, but we call him Deets. He is one of the greatest gifts my family has ever received. And one of the most challenging.

Marian Schembari was thirty-four years old when she learned she was autistic. By then, she’d spent decades hiding her tics and shutting down in public, wondering why she couldn’t just act like everyone else. Therapists told her she had Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, sensory processing disorder, social anxiety, and recurrent depression. They prescribed breathing techniques and gratitude journaling. Nothing helped. It wasn’t until years later that she finally learned the truth: she wasn’t weird or deficient or moody or sensitive or broken. She was autistic.

Diagnosed with pathological demand avoidance (PDA) in his teenage years, Harry Thompson looks back with wit and humour at the ups and downs of family and romantic relationships, school, work and mental health, as well as his teenage struggle with drugs and alcohol. By embracing neurodiversity and emphasising that autistic people are not flawed human beings, Thompson demonstrates that some merely need to take the 'scenic route' in order to flourish and reach their full potential.

When you have been abused and bullied much of your life, can you raise an emotionally healthy child? What if that child becomes abusive himself? From an early age, my son, Seth, hit me on a regular basis. Because of my history, our interactions triggered me – to the point I began doubting I had the emotional strength to raise Seth successfully – but I knew I needed to push through those fears and stop the cycle of abuse that had been plaguing our family for generations.

Darkness—that’s what Bozena Gasior remembers feeling when she first heard her two-year-old son’s autism diagnosis. What followed was a cacophony of despair and cries, not knowing what to do, say, or feel. It was the day she thought that part of her son’s life had died. But one eventful day some four years later, his fingers touched the piano keys for the first time, and she felt something—a glimmer of light shining down, illuminating her home and family.

Rose Cartwright reveals how the failure of the mental health system to cure her OCD led her to radical action. While she explored her trauma through a series of mind-bending psychedelic trips, Rose started to interrogate our dominant medical paradigm. What if people’s intense distress is not a symptom of illness, but a desperate expression of our need for love and connection? Rose set out on a quest to draw a new map of mental health, interviewing experts in psychiatry and neuroscience along the way: what she discovered will have implications for generations to come.

I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust is a remarkable memoir by a mother and her autistic daughter who’d long been unable to communicate - until a miraculous breakthrough revealed a young woman with a rich and creative interior life, a poet, who’d been trapped inside for more than two decades.

The Last Word is the definitive story of how Katrina Amy Alexandria Alexis Infield became Katie Price. It documents how her life has been shaped by a tradition of strong women, by cycles of abuse which have been repeated through generations, and by the impact of fame and trauma on a close family unit.

Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her. Desperate for a solution, she asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that she could consult. With no blueprint to life, Pang began to create her own, using the language she understands best: Science. That lifelong project eventually resulted in An Outsider's Guide to Humans, an original and incisive exploration of human nature and the strangeness of social norms, written from the outside looking in.

Clem Bastow grew up feeling like she’d missed a key memo on human behaviour. She found the unspoken rules of social engagement confusing, arbitrary and often stressful. Friendships were hard, relationships harder and the office was a fluorescent-lit nightmare of anxiety. It wasn’t until Clem was diagnosed as autistic, at age 36, that things clicked into focus. Clem reflects as an autistic adult on her formative experiences as an undiagnosed young person, from the asphalt playground of St Joseph's Primary School in Melbourne to working as an entertainment journalist in Hollywood.

Join much-loved comedian Shappi Khorsandi as she looks back on her life through the lens of ADHD and finally makes sense of the chaos. From discovering the joys of shoplifting through to finally understanding her attraction to toxic men, Scatter Brain will have you laughing (and crying) as you find out what it's really like to live a life out of control. Whether you suspect you might have ADHD or you're here to enjoy the ride, let Shappi take you on her hilarious journey of self-discovery where you just might learn something useful about yourself too!

First-time parents Joe and Tahni Cullen were thrust into the confusing world of autism when their toddler, Josiah, suddenly lost his ability to speak, play, and socialize. The diagnosis: Autism Spectrum Disorder. In their attempts to see Josiah recover and regain speech, the Cullens underwent overwhelming physical, emotional, and financial struggles. While other kids around him improved, Josiah only got worse.

Through the intimate writing of critically acclaimed autistic author Kay Kerr, Love & Autism presents an uplifting celebration of neurodivergent love, the search for it and a deeper look into the lives of autistic Australians.

Ido in Autismland opens a window into non-verbal autism through dozens of short, autobiographical essays each offering new insights into autism symptoms, effective and ineffective treatments, and the inner emotional life of a severely autistic boy. In his pithy essays, author Ido Kedar, a brilliant 16-year-old with autism, challenges what he believes are misconceptions in many theories that dominate autism treatment today while he simultaneously chronicles his personal growth in his struggles to overcome his limitations.

On July 22, 2009, a special meeting was held with 24 leading scientists at the National Institutes of Health to discuss early findings that a newly discovered retrovirus was linked to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), prostate cancer, lymphoma, and eventually neurodevelopmental disorders in children. When Dr. Judy Mikovits finished her presentation the room was silent for a moment, then one of the scientists said, "Oh my God!" The resulting investigation would be like no other in science.

When Jessica's son Trey was diagnosed with autism, and she was learning to navigate new life situations, she searched for books written by people who were also living through it. The only books she could find were written by doctors. That was fine, but she was longing for a connection with someone who could relate to her family's issues. For a few years, she continued to search and was not successful at finding anything. That's when she knew that one day, she wanted to write a faith-based book about her family's experiences with severe nonverbal autism and the world of special needs.

On the morning of November 14, 1992, Annette Herfkens, a top Dutch banker, packed her luggage for a romantic getaway with her longtime fiancé, Willem. At 6:25 that morning, Annette and Willem boarded a plane out of Ho Chi Minh City, with 23 other passengers and six crew members, excited to finally have a vacation together. Six minutes before landing, flying at speed of 300 miles per hour, the plane lost altitude and crashed along a mountain ridge in the jungle of Vietnam.

As a child, Jory Fleming was wracked by uncontrollable tantrums, had no tolerance for people, and couldn’t manage the outside world. Slightly more than a decade later, he was bound for England, selected to attend one of the world’s premier universities. How to Be Human explores life amid a world constructed for neurotypical brains when yours is not. But the miracle of this book is that instead of dwelling on Jory’s limitations, those who inhabit the neurotypical world will begin to better understand their own.