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Bittersweet on the Autism Spectrum
In this rich and diverse collection, 28 writers describe what positive experiences they have had as an autistic person, and show how the most unexpected subject areas can be a source of the positive. They demonstrate that individuals can, and do, experience life in positive ways, sometimes in the face of adversity. Sharing both dark and joyful moments with unreserved honesty, their insights are moving, often hilarious, creative, and highly intelligent, and usually surprising. From hair-raising travelling experiences to parenting with verve, volunteering to teaching, running a marathon to taking on a PhD, they show that autism need not limit life. Introduced by Luke Beardon and Dean Worton, their stories challenge stereotypes surrounding autism, empower, and entertain.
272 pages, Paperback
Published January 19, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 16, 2017
I just got diagnosed with AS and I thought picking up a book about positive experiences from other people with AS would give me some more insight, make me feel more positive about Being autistic and tell me that I'm not alone. I wanted to learn more about it and this book showed me all sorts of experiences and life stories centred around AS, leaving me with a sense of positivity about myself, reading these stories about overcoming obstacles and reaching your goals and dreams despite being different. I loved the read and I am so happy I picked it up :)
October 7, 2017
I enjoyed this book. I love that it focused on positive experiences and each chapter was interesting and well written by autistic people who told how autism has impacted their life in positive ways. A good read.
October 13, 2022
Great concept - We need more positive content on autism. Skip the introductions. All of the introductions are superfluous and many of them are horrendously patronising.
September 7, 2021
Dnf at page 92
Some interesting stories. I didn’t feel the intros from the academic were necessary, I actually felt they detracted from the lived experiences of the contributors.
Some interesting stories. I didn’t feel the intros from the academic were necessary, I actually felt they detracted from the lived experiences of the contributors.
August 23, 2017
[ Old St Paul's folks now have the review shared there. (: ]
So, there are a fine variety of characters to meet here. Some tell of how they got through really dangerous experiences that their autism let them blunder into, even worse than my school crisis, including one shocking escape story on getting tricked almost into prostitution while abroad. One tells of how she coped through being around the London bombing in 2005, one of an oppressive music teacher. And this in a book that originally planned to be about positive experiences!
Life caught up with that objective, and forced the book instead to be something which is far more real: coping successes and the search for positives, amid life's melange of good and bad, and importantly for bouncing back and surviving when the bad hits you. Hence "Bittersweet". This, as the way the whole book turned out, outstandingly vindicates my chapter. For I wrote the controversial defence of dwelling on bad things and finding the good in your fightback against them, in successful use of anger. Of which getting the chapter published is itself a nicely positive example! I'm the angry survivor of a childhood seriously wronged by greedy school pressurisers, and authoritarian social services too, including completely unnecessary loss of the chance to be a child author. There is nowhere I could ever find inanely complacent positive life blotting it out, nor would that be morally right. Instead, successful hitting back by exposing and damaging them, and everything that asserts my liberty against the stuff they had wanted for me, gives me great mountains of victory to be positive about. The best thing I did a positive to society by writing, was against the very commonplace brutalising use of the word "unfortunately", and how the positions of minorities and survivors ban it.
The diversity of positive experiences' nature is how the editors sum up. Many of the chapters are on how folks succeeded, against daunted feelings, in doing wanted good new things on their lives. But the overall trend across all the contributors has been that you have to find positives in your successful steps taken against negatives, hence keeping negatives fully in thought. Pleased and vindicated that there are several chapters, mine among them, on this sentiment, including "How our negative experiences can raise awareness of autism," and "Turning a negative into a positive" which closes the book.
Otherwise life's negatives just come along and hit you: and it is not positive, and leads to nowhere positive, to accept and "let go" or complacently blot injustices out of your thoughts. This is overall a greatly positive message, because: it's empowered, it's rational, it works, it's moral and fairer than the nasty passive-acceptist way, and it builds up fairer outcomes in practice.
So, there are a fine variety of characters to meet here. Some tell of how they got through really dangerous experiences that their autism let them blunder into, even worse than my school crisis, including one shocking escape story on getting tricked almost into prostitution while abroad. One tells of how she coped through being around the London bombing in 2005, one of an oppressive music teacher. And this in a book that originally planned to be about positive experiences!
Life caught up with that objective, and forced the book instead to be something which is far more real: coping successes and the search for positives, amid life's melange of good and bad, and importantly for bouncing back and surviving when the bad hits you. Hence "Bittersweet". This, as the way the whole book turned out, outstandingly vindicates my chapter. For I wrote the controversial defence of dwelling on bad things and finding the good in your fightback against them, in successful use of anger. Of which getting the chapter published is itself a nicely positive example! I'm the angry survivor of a childhood seriously wronged by greedy school pressurisers, and authoritarian social services too, including completely unnecessary loss of the chance to be a child author. There is nowhere I could ever find inanely complacent positive life blotting it out, nor would that be morally right. Instead, successful hitting back by exposing and damaging them, and everything that asserts my liberty against the stuff they had wanted for me, gives me great mountains of victory to be positive about. The best thing I did a positive to society by writing, was against the very commonplace brutalising use of the word "unfortunately", and how the positions of minorities and survivors ban it.
The diversity of positive experiences' nature is how the editors sum up. Many of the chapters are on how folks succeeded, against daunted feelings, in doing wanted good new things on their lives. But the overall trend across all the contributors has been that you have to find positives in your successful steps taken against negatives, hence keeping negatives fully in thought. Pleased and vindicated that there are several chapters, mine among them, on this sentiment, including "How our negative experiences can raise awareness of autism," and "Turning a negative into a positive" which closes the book.
Otherwise life's negatives just come along and hit you: and it is not positive, and leads to nowhere positive, to accept and "let go" or complacently blot injustices out of your thoughts. This is overall a greatly positive message, because: it's empowered, it's rational, it works, it's moral and fairer than the nasty passive-acceptist way, and it builds up fairer outcomes in practice.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews