Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults, by Zosia Zaks, is a must-read book of thoughtful tips, tricks, and explanations for managing adult life on the autism spectrum. Subjects include: dealing with sensory issues, managing a living space (including priorities), a discussion of living on your own (including living by yourself or with roommates), how to go shopping with minimum discomfort, various transportation options, managing your physical and mental health, and a short section on job tips. There are also sections for dating, how to make friends (and two types of friends), being safe out in the world, and how/when/why to disclose your diagnosis.
Overall I found this book an excellent read. The author puts a lot of murky concepts into clear words, with numbered priorities for important concepts. She also provides helpful examples and visual charts, such as a weekly chore calendar and a monthly chore calendar. Though I could ask for blank ones to be included at the end of the book, or perhaps a link to a Google Drive document for easy use and printability.
I found it somewhat telling, I suppose, that the book's spine was broken at the dating section. Almost all of the books I review for this blog are borrowed from my state's library system, and while mostly the wear on a book is incidental, I suspect it's not in this case. Loneliness is a huge problem for autistic people, and the author talks about this, as well as society's preached cure: finding a significant other and following the society-prescribed dating-> marriage -> house -> kids pattern. This pattern doesn't even fit all neurotypical people, why would it be the best solution for us? The author has other solutions to the problem of loneliness, which include volunteer work (also handy for finding a job), clubs, classes, and good self-care.
I was actually surprised to find this book did have a few things to teach me. Mostly, I feel like these books tend to cover the most basic of basics and rarely go further. Ms. Zaks' forthright style of writing and explaining life clarified a few things for me. I didn't, for instance, really consider self-care a loneliness-fighting solution, but she's right, it is. It doesn't solve the problem, but it's harder to be miserable about being lonely when you're enjoying yourself.
I also hope to adapt the Frustration Color Scale (Red= Emergency, down to Green = Neutral), for use at home with my spouse and for my personal understanding, as well as her Emotion Rating Scale (1-10, with 1 being things like dropping a box of paper clips, and 10 being something like a tornado leveling your home). I feel like these tools could be very useful for communicating with my spouse regarding my emotional state, and probably useful for my own understanding also. I don't really have a good way of judging my internal state, so having these scales defined on the wall or something would likely be very helpful, and it would also mean my spouse could potentially just look somewhere in the house to find out how I'm doing.
All that said, this isn't a perfect book. I was initially excited to find out this book was written by an autistic lesbian, and hoped she might offer some thoughts regarding being different on that spectrum also, but the section on that subject was less than a page long. While she had good things to say, I do wish she'd expanded on that section a bit. The statistics are showing that autistic people tend to display a wider variety of sexual orientations and gender identities than the general populace (probably because we aren't as swayed by cultural ideals, so we simply are who we are). So this would seem to me to be a rather important subject, worth its own chapter. Perhaps the publisher disagreed, or the author wasn't aware of how widespread this seems to be.
The dating section is also pretty much just written for an autistic man hoping to date a non-autistic woman. While that is the most common scenario, and the author says "but you can adapt these tips to any situation," I felt kind of uncomfortable about the assumption, given the author's own sexual orientation. The misunderstandings the author talks about could indeed come up in any kind of relationship involving an autistic person, but I guess I'd've been happier if female-female examples were used, or if NT male-autistic female examples were used. I presume, given basic psychology, that I'm most annoyed about the lack of the latter, since it describes my situation.
I also noted a distinct lack of anything beyond safety tips when it comes to discussing sex. Considering the author apparently suffers a good number of sensory issues, it surprised me that there wasn't a discussion of the problems that can cause in physical intimacy. I suppose there's still this book for a catch-all resource regarding that, but I'd have been happier if a book that discusses love and autism also covered this rather central expression of love.
Those lacks aside, I was pleased to find a thorough discussion about the differences between autistic people raised female and those raised male. The author has some excellent things to say on the subject, which I almost entirely agree with and haven't seen anywhere else in print.
I've been tough on this book because it's gotten so much right. It has an excellent discussion of the senses and how sensory issues can crop up, along with what to do about them. Its priorities for home management are spot on, and the example solutions should be customizeable and work well for most people. The transportation, shopping, and health care sections are thoughtful and cover most issues I can think of, at least in the basics. The job section is short for such an important subject, but has excellent advice. And in truth, there are whole books dedicated to exactly that subject, so if this one doesn't entirely manage it, there's other stuff out there.
The philosophy on relationships, friendships, and safety all seemed excellent to me, and the disclosure section was sufficiently nuanced that I felt it covered most scenarios, if not all of them. Overall, I think this book more or less lives up to its title, which is a rare and impressive feat in my experience.
Overall I found this book an excellent read. The author puts a lot of murky concepts into clear words, with numbered priorities for important concepts. She also provides helpful examples and visual charts, such as a weekly chore calendar and a monthly chore calendar. Though I could ask for blank ones to be included at the end of the book, or perhaps a link to a Google Drive document for easy use and printability.
I found it somewhat telling, I suppose, that the book's spine was broken at the dating section. Almost all of the books I review for this blog are borrowed from my state's library system, and while mostly the wear on a book is incidental, I suspect it's not in this case. Loneliness is a huge problem for autistic people, and the author talks about this, as well as society's preached cure: finding a significant other and following the society-prescribed dating-> marriage -> house -> kids pattern. This pattern doesn't even fit all neurotypical people, why would it be the best solution for us? The author has other solutions to the problem of loneliness, which include volunteer work (also handy for finding a job), clubs, classes, and good self-care.
I was actually surprised to find this book did have a few things to teach me. Mostly, I feel like these books tend to cover the most basic of basics and rarely go further. Ms. Zaks' forthright style of writing and explaining life clarified a few things for me. I didn't, for instance, really consider self-care a loneliness-fighting solution, but she's right, it is. It doesn't solve the problem, but it's harder to be miserable about being lonely when you're enjoying yourself.
I also hope to adapt the Frustration Color Scale (Red= Emergency, down to Green = Neutral), for use at home with my spouse and for my personal understanding, as well as her Emotion Rating Scale (1-10, with 1 being things like dropping a box of paper clips, and 10 being something like a tornado leveling your home). I feel like these tools could be very useful for communicating with my spouse regarding my emotional state, and probably useful for my own understanding also. I don't really have a good way of judging my internal state, so having these scales defined on the wall or something would likely be very helpful, and it would also mean my spouse could potentially just look somewhere in the house to find out how I'm doing.
All that said, this isn't a perfect book. I was initially excited to find out this book was written by an autistic lesbian, and hoped she might offer some thoughts regarding being different on that spectrum also, but the section on that subject was less than a page long. While she had good things to say, I do wish she'd expanded on that section a bit. The statistics are showing that autistic people tend to display a wider variety of sexual orientations and gender identities than the general populace (probably because we aren't as swayed by cultural ideals, so we simply are who we are). So this would seem to me to be a rather important subject, worth its own chapter. Perhaps the publisher disagreed, or the author wasn't aware of how widespread this seems to be.
The dating section is also pretty much just written for an autistic man hoping to date a non-autistic woman. While that is the most common scenario, and the author says "but you can adapt these tips to any situation," I felt kind of uncomfortable about the assumption, given the author's own sexual orientation. The misunderstandings the author talks about could indeed come up in any kind of relationship involving an autistic person, but I guess I'd've been happier if female-female examples were used, or if NT male-autistic female examples were used. I presume, given basic psychology, that I'm most annoyed about the lack of the latter, since it describes my situation.
I also noted a distinct lack of anything beyond safety tips when it comes to discussing sex. Considering the author apparently suffers a good number of sensory issues, it surprised me that there wasn't a discussion of the problems that can cause in physical intimacy. I suppose there's still this book for a catch-all resource regarding that, but I'd have been happier if a book that discusses love and autism also covered this rather central expression of love.
Those lacks aside, I was pleased to find a thorough discussion about the differences between autistic people raised female and those raised male. The author has some excellent things to say on the subject, which I almost entirely agree with and haven't seen anywhere else in print.
I've been tough on this book because it's gotten so much right. It has an excellent discussion of the senses and how sensory issues can crop up, along with what to do about them. Its priorities for home management are spot on, and the example solutions should be customizeable and work well for most people. The transportation, shopping, and health care sections are thoughtful and cover most issues I can think of, at least in the basics. The job section is short for such an important subject, but has excellent advice. And in truth, there are whole books dedicated to exactly that subject, so if this one doesn't entirely manage it, there's other stuff out there.
The philosophy on relationships, friendships, and safety all seemed excellent to me, and the disclosure section was sufficiently nuanced that I felt it covered most scenarios, if not all of them. Overall, I think this book more or less lives up to its title, which is a rare and impressive feat in my experience.
Read This Book If
You're autistic, and want a guide to the things on the cover. Or you'd like an autistic's eye view into adult life. This is an excellent book; well-written, clear, and thoughtful. If any Book Clubs or Book Study groups are looking for a good book to select next on self-help skills and living life on the autism spectrum, this is your book. It is also excellent for personal reading, and a valuable asset to any library. In my new house, I will likely have more bookshelves, and I will devote a shelf to stellar books I've found for this blog. This book will be on that shelf.
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