Discovering My Autism: Apologia Pro Vita Sua

by Edgar Schneider

In 1978, under immense pressure at work, Edgar Schneider suffered a nervous breakdown. After convalescing, he returned to work, but within a few months he was again suffering from problems involving short-term memory and concentration. He was described as eccentric, tangential, illogical and hallucinatory; and misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. Sixteen years later, the chance reading of an article on autistic savants alerted Schneider to the possibility that he had been misdiagnosed. This proved to be the he is believed to be a high-functioning autistic, with attention deficit disorder (ADD). Suddenly, many apparently paradoxical or inexplicable elements of Schneider's life made sense. He calls the discovery of his autism 'liberating'. Schneider attributes his autism to brain damage caused by infectious diseases in early childhood. In Discovering My Autism, he reflects on his experiences and his memories of his childhood and teenage years as a clever and artistic loner. He explains how in order to experience 'emotions' such as grief, sympathy or desire, he must intellectualise or aestheticise them. Dispassionately, he examines his difficulties with relationships, his high pain threshold, his lack of concentration and his highly absorbant intelligence, all of which are related to his autism. He also describes the pleasure he derives from art, music and literature; the importance to him of his religious beliefs; and his work with parents' support groups. As an account of how it feels to be a high-functioning autistic, this book should be read by parents of autistic children, professionals working with them, and people with autism, Asperger's Syndrome, or ADD themselves.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Amarildo Henrique da Conceição Junior · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked very much this book. Schneider expresses many points of his life as an Autistic person. While talking about his relationship with arts and his personal tastes, you can perceive the way we sees the reality by his descriptions of some famous art pieces, both in painting, sculpture, classical music, opera, and so many others.
Also, his history as an miss diagnosed psychiatric patient is a beacon for people like me that are involved in healthcare, to think about the way we are treating our patients. Schneider, while describing his process of Autism self-diagnosis, shows how we need to consider the opinion of the patient too when we are setting a diagnosis or choosing a treatment, knowing that our actions not just influence the patient’s “physiology”, they affect the patient’s family, the patient’s friends, the patient’s work, the patient’s happiness and, finally, the patient’s life.
I think that every health student or professional should read this book, not just to understand more about autism (which is very poorly taught in the universities (at least here in Brazil)), but also to think about what type of professionals, what type of human beings we want to be. I also think that people that live together with autistic people like parents, wifes, husbands, brothers and sisters, should also read this book.

My only critique is regarding the chapter Schneider is describing his life as a husband of a non-autistic woman. He explains very well the major difficulty autistic people face in relationships that can be summarized as an inability to comprehend the other person’s emotions in a first look. This chapter may be very useful to people that live in a similar situation as Schneider, but the text is a little wordy and repetitive, and boring to read.

Having considering this, it is a great book. Strongly recommend!

[Slt]

Sounds so good!