BOOK REVIEW - Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing our Hidden Neurodiversity by Dr Devon Price

My third book this year was an eye-opening treatise on living with masked autism, trying to present as neurotypical when you're not, and the difficulties one can face as a result. I've often ended up feeling burnt out, exhausted, unable to do anything after even short periods of work, and reading Unmasking Autism brought a lot of familiar feelings to the surface that I had forgotten.

Too often we forget that the world is not made for us - the grind of daily 9-5, social obligations full of unwritten rules, and tedious tasks which seem utterly pointless, all serve to drain the energy of neurodivergent folk. For myself, I've struggled to hold down jobs and work without experiencing severe burnout as a result of my undiagnosed mental conditions. This book has finally explained why.

Dr Devon Price is an austistic social psychologist, and he's put his career to excellent use to construct a field guide to living with autism from the inside out. Too often, mental health conditions are diagnosed and researched from outside, with the scientist's demand for a dispassionate eye; Dr Price proves that lived experience can be invaluable to expanding our understanding of mental health, as he takes us through the history of autism research and explores the lived experiences of autistic individuals who have lived for many decades without a diagnosis. He calls out autism as currently viewed as a rich, white, male disorder, a problem codified by the eugenicist researchers who originally named it, and explores the condition in greater depth and scope, examining how it manifests in women and people of colour. He also looks at society as a whole, how it is structured to exclude those with autism and other disabilities, and points out how we can change all this to better support and encourage autistic people.

Overall this was an eye-opening book. It was greatly detailed and there were points where I found myself pausing in the realisation that Dr Price was expounding on a topic I had struggled with for much of my life. It has the problem that is quickly becoming familiar - that the chapters are too long to comfortably read in one sitting, and it feels as though Dr Price would try to find too many examples to demonstrate a topic at times. But for an examination of masking as an autistic person, and a guide to autism from someone who understands it with their whole life, it's a unique and long-overdue book.

JOMP Book Photo Challenge

April 12, 2023 - This is so Important ✨

I’m currently reading ‘Unmasking Autism’ by @drdemonprince. My favourite quote from it so far is

“When you’re trapped under the mask, all love feels conditional.” 

This one hit deeeep for me.

Even since primary school I was praised and even awarded for how ‘kind’ I was. However, I never felt as though I deserved the praise I got. It felt like my kindness didn’t come from a kind heart. Or a good nature. It came from a battle for survival. A desperate need for attention and acceptance.

In primary school I tried to make friends with my classmates but they all fizzled out over time. To make up for my difficulties connecting with others I started masking and people pleasing. I did have one friend all throughout my schooling, but they turned out to be neurodivergent too. I thought I was normal and people just didn’t like me, but looking back the other kids must’ve sensed I was ‘different’ somehow.

To try and connect I would change my personality to suit whoever I wanted to try and get along with.

In high school it got to the point where I was TERRIFIED of different friend groups in my life meeting each other. I masked really differently for different people and if they met I was so scared that I would be called out for ‘pretending’ or ‘lying’.

Masking inadvertently landed me in the ‘therapist’ role and into being the ‘leader’ of my main friendship group in high school. I was the one who organised events, who initiated hang outs and meet ups. No one ever invited me to anything.

I felt like I was being used. But the reality is, is that my mask was making me seem eager to be used. All my friends had social anxiety and so they were happy for me to take control, and I seemed eager to. I always had a mask of either joy or indifference. Nothing ever seemed to bother me. So why would anyone check in? But I felt like my friends didn’t care. I didn’t know that I had to express my needs for people to fulfill them.

I felt like if I did express my needs or ask for help, I wouldn’t be loved anymore. This made me really depressed obviously.

But then there are a couple of phrases I heard that helped me to break free from my mask.

“If you never express your needs, you never give others the chance to fulfill them.”

This quote made me realise that it wasn’t that my friends didn’t want to help me, it was that I never gave them the chance. If one of my friends had asked me for help, I would happily oblige. Helping those close to me is important to me, it’s important to me that they feel okay. I realised I never gave my friends or partners the chance to try and help me. I realised how damaging that was for me.

The second phrase was “Stop asking why people love you. They just do.”

Part of the reasoning for my masking was to try and give reasons for people to love me. Part of maintaining that mask was to try and focus on the parts that people did love. But this quote made me realise that I don’t love people for specific reasons. Maybe I became friends with them because we are similar, but as time passes I begin to appreciate them for who they are, even if they change. It made me realise how pointless masking was. Those who truly love me would (and did) continue to love me without the mask.

Disclaimer: Not all masking is bad. It can be a helpful tool, but for me I was masking to even my long term partner and my life-long best friend. But yeah, basically thank you Dr Price for summarising this experience for me so eloquently.

Heartbreaking: Scientific book that contains everything student wants to learn is 262 pages long

I just started this book! I’m still on the first chapter, but so far it’s been very relatable

Dr. Devon Price wrote this article on RSD [rejection social dysphoria], social rejection, and being told you’re “too sensitive” for being upset about things that are genuinely upsetting to you, as someone who is autistic.

Personally, I found this to be a refreshing take, and validating of, well, all of the social and cultural ‘you’re too sensitive/overreacting/being overdramatic/etc.’ messages that neurodivergent* and/or mentally ill people get told.

*I do mean neurodivergent as close to the original definition as possible, by which I mean, it doesn’t just mean ‘is autistic and/or has ADHD’

was reading this after his latest piece on PDA autism (his takes are often inspirational and resonate with me) and this quote struck me:

"The version of me that transitioned was a person on the run — and how a person behaves, thinks, and self-conceives when they are fleeing is not a great reflection of whom they might be if they were safe."

I'd like to have the opportunity some day to be/become myself fully, to know who I am and who I could be absent the abusive environment I currently live in. so much energy is taken up by keeping myself small and inoffensive, protecting myself by curling up into a false self. despite being aware of this, I can't stop it or do anything differently except keep a seed of hope in the back of my mind for things to change. and while I still long for the freedom to change and grow into someone new, I know it too is still in there. it will be ready for sunlight and water when the opportunity arises.

"Perhaps I’ll be on the run from gender the whole rest of my life. If none of the gender destinations that society has to offer are safe places for me to stay, then my wellbeing can only be found in the ability to move."

I know that for many people there truly is a feeling of a closer, more authentic connection at a live, in-person meeting, and that for them, face-to-face events foster a greater ability to speak off the cuff. Many non-Autistic, non-disabled people feel that a video chat introduces the boundaries of time and distance to the interaction, which can make communication feel halting or artificial. But it is those very same boundaries of time and distance that help to keep disabled people like myself authentically engaged, participating at our own speeds, and protected from the sensory pains and viral risks that an in-person event introduces.

In person, I do not have the time to reflect on my true feelings, translate those feelings into words, and locate the right moment to share them in polite, neuroconformist speech. Instead, it feels like I’m steering a runaway train while constantly laying down some new track for myself. You can’t let a comment hang in the air for more than a second without responding to it, or else someone will interrupt you. But you also can’t interrupt anyone else after they have cut in.  And so I reach for whatever superficial word or gesture that will keep the conversation moving, regardless of whether I believe in it. I reach for pre-scripted questions about the weather, repeat cliched jokes and platitudes, and smile in a forced way that gives me a headache, but puts non-Autistics at ease.  They don’t think I’m a cold-blooded serial killer, I say to myself when I retreat to the bathroom to let my face fall. I got away with it this time. I conjured up a specter of an appropriate human and I allowed him to completely overtake me. What’s “special” to me about this interaction is that I’m not there for it at all. 

At this point, the rate of prior COVID exposure is so high and the chance of worsened symptoms with each successive infection is so great that nearly everyone in attendance at an event runs the potential risk of developing Long COVID. In a very real way, by mandating that an event only occur in person you are not only reducing the number of disabled scholars that can attend it, but you are potentially creating new disabled scholars who will no longer be able to work as easily in the future. 

When we mistakenly assert that there’s something “special” about being together in-person that no other method of communication can replace, this is where it leads us. The contributions that disabled people have to offer from behind our protective barriers get completely discounted as not valuable, not worthy of consideration, as not “real.” 

Though the scientific evidence on worker productivity did not support a forced return to the office, countless managers pushed for it the moment vaccines became widely adopted. They believed, as the organizers of this symposium do, that there is some ineffable “special” quality to being together in person. The widely unpopular return to work caused employee morale to drop, inspired waves of mass resignation, and led business leaders to publish countless works of back-to-office propaganda in the popular press. 

Work environments are veiled in constant threat — the threat of firing, the threat of arrest, the threat of being cast aside for being too angry, too difficult, and too weird. There, we need some distance. We need control over which sides of ourselves that we reveal. We need a mask — both figuratively, and in order to prevent people from getting sick.

This was an interesting read, and I particularly want to highlight this comment by Marta:

I also recently did a set of workshops in DDS about so-called “executive functioning” skills, noting, as you have, that they are really only compulsory for people with less power in a relationship — I’m expected to be on time, but my doctor, for whom I wait sometimes hours in a nightmare of a waiting room, is not. Also, anyone who can hire someone to do their executive functioning for them, or better yet get it done free by a spouse or family member (usually a wife or mother), isn’t required to have these “skills” and can be freed up to go make art or design things in non-linear, iterative ways.

anybody know dr devon price’s tumblr?? he posted on ig today that he’s gonna really try to stop going on insta and to follow on medium and tumblr. obviously i already follow on medium but what’s his tumblr? he has comments on ig turned off lol so i can’t just ask quickly lol

I think the speculations about gender are so different than about sexuality because he's never expressed discomfort with it. Like, when someone says they're straight or attracted to women it's because they either are or they want people to believe it. He hasn't proje ted the same message about gender and so I think talking about it is okay! Obviously assigning someone a level (or diagnosis) is different than talking about what you connect with, but the discussion is SO different than sexuality

It's certainly different, yes, Dan said he's comfortable with his identity but never did align himself with cisness for that matter and said he's fine with all pronouns (also I used to be like "yeah I don't really care about gender so whatever works" before realising how much it aligns with agender experiences)

Also may I please add here that more people who use the word "neurodivergence" actually need to engage with where that term comes from and what it means because it is in itself a rejection of the idea of pathology and 'diagnoses' wrt these neurodivergences. Read some literature by people engaged in neurodivergence movements and see the history. It's identification not diagnosis. If you wish to use the medical model instead of the neurodivergence model that's your choice I guess but when I use the term neurodivergence I do it with full understanding of the movement. There's no diagnosis over here, any more than speculations about gender are "diagnosing people with dysphoria". Because those are old oppressive ways of going about this stuff.

extremely tempted to take a weed break and a caffeine break this spring. i wanna know what my baseline is i have a feeling that both are contributing heavily to my insane person anxiety levels

Girl help I’m having a career crisis again

From Dr. Devon Price's book, Unmasking Autism -- an exercise in chapter 1 asks, "Has anyone ever told you that you 'don't look Autistic' or that you 'can't be Autistic'? What do you think they meant by that?" And this is my response:

Yes. I think they meant, "You don't fit the very limited and stereotyped understanding of autism that I have, so it's easier for me to continue classifying you as not-autistic instead of giving any consideration at all to the possibility that a belief that I hold might be wrong."

I think it's similar to, if not the same as, the defensive reaction that people have when they are told they are wrong about something. It's not really about believing that autism should be defined a certain way; I think people just don't want to be wrong.

I read the Introduction to Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price tonight

i finally feel heard:

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