Tag: autism

Posted on

What I’m Reading – February 2024



Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope by Rachel Gilmore, Candace Lewis, Tyler Sit, and Matt Temple – This is a Lenten devotional that my pastor is going to be leading a virtual Bible study on during Lent this year. I have read the introduction and first day of the devotional and am very intrigued to read more.

That’s What Love Is by Amy Rose – This is a novel I got for free on Stuff Your Kindle Day. It’s okay but not great.

What I Recently Finished:

Postscript (P.S. I Love You #2) by Cecelia Ahern – An enjoyable follow up to P.S. I Love You, which I loved. I enjoyed this book.

The Summer Getaway by Susan Mallery – This was a fun read. 

Leave It To Us by A.C. Arthur – This was a free book from Amazon First Reads, where they let Prime members pick a free book from a short list each month. I enjoyed this one. It had interesting characters and a good story.

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price – This book has been all over TikTok lately and I am glad I read it. I would highly recommend it for anyone recently diagnosed with autism, but I also found good value as someone who has had their diagnosis for awhile.

Launching Your Autistic Youth to Successful Adulthood by Katharina Manassis – I have been reading this book off and on for several months and finally finished it last month. It is a really good book and would be especially helpful for those with autistic children still in high school. Even though my son graduated over two years ago, I still found it worth reading. It gave me a lot of things to think about as I help my son become an independent adult.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held Evans – This is an exploration of the Bible from a writer I have recently discovered. Although she passed away a few years ago, her books are still very popular with people looking for answers to their faith questions. I appreciated this book a lot.

House Lessons: Renovating a Life by Erica Bauermeister – This memoir was my first 5-star read of the year. I loved it! I have read some of her novels and loved them as well. This tells the story of her life during a house renovation, but goes beyond that in many ways. Highly recommend!

The Bakery on the Cove by Eliza Ester – This was a free book from Stuff Your Kindle Day. I did not like it at all. The writing was bad and the story didn’t even come to a conclusion at the end. It was like reading one episode of a badly written soap opera. Do not recommend!

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say? by Jennifer Bird – I am very interested to learn more about this topic.

She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire – Although I don’t have a daughter, I was a girl who grew up in a toxic environment and am hoping this will bring me some insight.

Blank by Zibby Owens – This is my free Amazon First Reads for February.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

Posted on

What I’m Reading – January 2024

I haven’t written about what I’m reading since December of 2020, but of course I have been reading all along. According to my records on Goodreads, I read 79 books in 2021, 73 books in 2022, and 58 books in 2023. I have decided to start posting about my reading again.

What I’m Reading Now:

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price – This would have been a great book to have when I was first diagnosed with autism, although much of it relates to more recent discoveries about autism and how it is expressed in various marginalized groups.

Launching Your Autistic Youth to Successful Adulthood by Katharina Manassis – This has some really helpful information for parents of kids on the spectrum. It’s another one I wish I had sooner because a lot of it applies to kids who are still in high school. It is still helpful even with Michael being out of school for a couple of years.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan – This is the first book in The Wheel of Time series. For some reason, I never picked it up back when it was first published in 1990, but I have watched both seasons that are out of The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime, so I thought it would be good to read at least the first book in the series. It’s a good book but harder to read because I already know the basic plot from the show. I have borrowed it from the library twice but not finished it yet, and now the Libby app is showing all copies expired. I’m not sure if I want to finish it badly enough to buy it on Kindle.

What I Recently Finished:

I haven’t finished any books yet this year, so I’m not going to list any books here this month. I plan to start listing books I’ve read with the next update.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak – I had started this book a long time ago and didn’t finish it, but I have decided to give it another try. I believe this one is mainly about universal reconciliation. I am interested in reading books on the other beliefs about hell as well.

Leave It To Us by A.C. Arthur – I got this book for free as part of Amazon’s First Reads. It looks like an interesting story about three sisters who inherit their grandmother’s beach house.

Postscript by Cecelia Ahern – This is a sequel to P.S. I Love You, which was a great book. I bought it with some of my Christmas money from my mom.

Freckles by Cecelia Ahern – Another book by Ahern, who I enjoy. Also bought with Mom’s Christmas money.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

Posted on

Asperger’s and Girls

girls

Asperger’s and Girls is a book with nine chapters from different autism experts, some of whom are autistic themselves, about various aspects of Asperger’s as it relates to females.  It was published in 2006 and I’m sure was groundbreaking at the time, as we are still seeing the need for education about the incidence and experience of females with Asperger’s today.

The first few chapters deal with the issue of under-diagnosis of Asperger’s in females and discuss the need for programming and services designed specifically for this population.  Tony Attwood, a clinical psychologist from Australia and prominent author and speaker about autism, starts off the book by talking about the ways that females can present differently from males.  I appreciate him speaking out about this so much; in fact, it was at a conference where he spoke about autism in females that I first suspected I was autistic.  He is followed by Catherine Faherty talking about starting a women’s group in her area and by Sheila Wagner talking about the needs of girls in the educational system.

Chapter Four is about fitting in and having friends, as well as bullying, primarily during the teenage years.  While there is a lot of good information about typical peer structures, the focus is exclusively on how a girl can adapt to fit in with typical peers, rather than accepting herself as she is and finding friends who can accept her as well.

There is a chapter on puberty that has some good information and advice to parents and educators on how to help girls prepare for that time in their life, as well as a chapter about the transition from high school to adulthood which stresses the needs for parents to guide without being overprotective.

By far my favorite chapter is the one on dating, relationships, and marriage.  Written by Jennifer McIlwee Myers, who has Asperger’s, it promotes being comfortable with yourself and looking for a partner who will accept you for who you are.  As she puts it,

You don’t find your one true love by being fake; you find him by living your life and being the best version of you that you can achieve.  A girl or woman with AS isn’t going to find her best life by trying to be neurotypical, but rather by striving to the the best darn Aspie she is able to be.

This is one of the longer chapters in the book and is full of great advice and encouragement.

Chapter Eight is the story of an autistic woman detailing her experiences with motherhood.  She has a total of four children, two of whom are autistic.  Her story is one of gradual discovery and understanding as she learns to support and advocate for her children.

The book ends somewhat abruptly with a short chapter by Temple Grandin talking about her choice to focus on her career and not pursue any sort of dating or romantic relationships.  She explains that this is because of the way she is wired and that other people may wish for different things in their lives, but says she is happy and fulfilled by her solitary life.

All in all, this was a good read with some valuable information about Asperger’s in girls and women.  I would definitely recommend it.

Posted on

On Autism Acceptance

Even though I have been “aware” of autism since 2004, when my son was diagnosed, and even though I myself was diagnosed with Asperger’s in 2012, the idea of autism acceptance is still fairly new to me.

I have spent my whole life feeling like there was something wrong with me and wishing I could be fixed somehow so that I could fit in with other people without so much difficulty.  I have desperately wanted to understand all the little (and big) things that most people seem to just know without thinking about it.  And once I had learned some of those things – through extensive reading and close observation – I still struggled with applying them to my own life.

After I was diagnosed with Asperger’s, I spent time educating my boss on what it meant and advocating for things that would allow me to be more successful in doing my job while maintaining my sanity at the same time.  (Thankfully, she has been extremely understanding and accommodating.)

But underneath it all, even with all the awareness and advocacy, there is still a part of me that is always self-conscious and sometimes even ashamed of who I am.

So now I am learning what it means to accept myself for who I am and how to teach my son to do the same.  It’s a slow process but I am thankful for the many people I am meeting on Twitter and through blogs and websites to learn from.

Hopefully I will look back on this post someday and say that was the old me and that the new me is proud of who she is.