A Little Less Broken Quotes

“My feelings didn't have enough space inside my body.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I never fully relaxed around them either, as if I were playing the part of their friend and never truly connecting with my own needs.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“To be cared for means to be visible - trusting others to see you & not turn away.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“She couldn't have been the mother she wanted to be because she didn't know either. I'm sure all she saw was this awkward, antisocial girl who sucked her hair & read books & refused to play with her brothers. I felt sad for her and her inability to know me until now.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“The skin on my face itched in the places her eyes touched me.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Labels dull the ache of dismissal.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“We don't live in a perfect world, & it's cruel to decide that someone who's struggling should continue to struggle because a label makes you uncomfortable.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I might not be great with people, but I'm emotive and empathetic and well-spoken. I'm not completely clueless about human beings and their experiences. Didn't that go against everything that made autism autism?”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I ached to hold the 9 and 22 and 31 year old versions of me who ran sobbing out of bars and flung her possessions into walls, feeling like the loneliest, angriest person in the world.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“My diagnosis gave me permission to honor what my brain needed.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“For a long, painful minute I stuttered through my update while also trying to read everyone's facial expressions while also worrying about my own while also getting philosophical about eye contact.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Once they learned the name for how they showed up in the world, there was space to think, change their environment, & forgive themselves for all the ways they had thought they were broken.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Knowing my brain is physically wired in this particular way has allowed me to stop fiddling with the cables & just let them be.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“This whole time I thought I was broken. I'd wasted so much life trying to pick up the shrapnel, slicing my fingers in the process, trying to mosaic myself into the shape of a human, & now suddenly, with a word, I was whole.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I felt like I was having to defend a thesis, not have an intelligent adult conversation with a doctor I'd known & liked for two years.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“All I wanted was someone to watch me as I carried out my day, to take a look inside my brain and tell me one way or the other why I'd felt like an alien my whole life.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“It wasn't that I didn't believe them: I only believed them. I believed them to the point of dismissing my own instincts.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I'd never fully trusted my own interpretation of myself.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I learned that autistic girls are a group most likely to mask, simply by nature of the way we're raised. From birth we're enrolled in an intensive, lifelong training of putting others first. Sit still. Be quiet. Be helpful. Be agreeable. Keep tidy. Be pretty. Be friendly, but not too friendly - that's flirting, don't be a slut.
We can't walk down the street without strangers ordering us to smile. So on top of suppressing any unladylike behaviors, autistic girls double down on the mask by suppressing our stims, our sensory needs, our interests. We force eye contact and conversation and grit our teeth through the noise and the light and the itchy tags and sock seams and underwires digging into our rib cages. Because why the hell not? We're shoving it all down anyway. What's a little eye twitching when you're already caked in layers of makeup, Spanx, and exhaustion?”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Hans Asperger started researching the idea of autism as a spectrum, identifying a segment of autistic kids who acted like 'little professors' and whose intense absorption could provide valuable contributions to our society. None of the children in his initial study were girls.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I worried I was trying to align myself with the oppressed to feel special & excuse myself a lifetime of shitty behavior.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Autistic people were eight-year-old boys who didn't talk, or did talk but only about trains or robots or dinosaurs. Autistic people screamed in public and flapped their hands and banged their heads against the wall. My face flooded with shame at the thought. I was a monster.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Eighty percent of autistic girls remain undiagnosed by the time they're eighteen. The fact that I found out at all is a miracle.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Self-care felt ludicrous, like putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I hate being interrupted. Whether I'm focusing on work or watching a show or giving a monologue about my vegetable garden, an interruption feels like I've been happily gliding across a frozen lake when all at once the ice cracks & I'm plunged into the frigid water.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I learned to stop forcing myself to perform in an environment that wasn't built for me. It was the kindest thing I had ever done for myself.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Eye contact has never been my favorite thing. It's a physical discomfort, like a bra strap digging into your shoulder or a small rock in your shoe. Something is just wrong.
If my hand were to brush a hot stove, my body would yank away. I don't sit around analyzing why, my body just does it. The same is true for eye contact. My reflex is. always, to pull away. I can hold it for a little while, but the whole time I'm thinking about when I can stop.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“Should I kiss him? It was maybe five steps. It took twelve years.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“He showed it off like a toddler with a crayon drawing, & I melted at the vulnerability of him.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole

“I wanted to hate him for giving up on us. I wanted to keep fighting until he caved. But I didn't hate him because I didn't blame him. I wouldn't love me either.”
― Marian Schembari, A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole