Book Review: Freaks, Geeks, and Asperger Syndrome

Freaks, Geeks, & Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, by Luke Jackson, is a charmingly written set of essays on topics relating to growing up.  Luke writes like he's having an earnest conversation with you on the subjects, which include important subjects like diagnosis, disclosure, health complications, fitting in at school (or not, as was his experience and mine), bullying (same thing), making friends, dating, and being a moral and principled person.  The book contains various small illustrations by Luke's siblings, which add some extra charm to the various chapters. 

As I read this book, I did somewhat wonder if the conversational tone Luke used here isn't a commonality to autistic writers in general.  I think I tend to write in a similar, albeit more pedantic and less familiar, style; that is, I write somewhat like I'm having a conversation with my reader.  In this book, Luke has the charm of an enthusiastic, helpful preteen boy that hasn't quite hit the rebellious stage that often accompanies adolescence. 

I, on the other hand, probably still write like I swallowed a dictionary at a formative age...  I didn't, but that didn't stop my classmates from accusing me of doing so- or at least assuming I read the dictionary for fun- at Luke's age.  I found dictionaries exceedingly boring to read straight, actually.  My vocabulary came from the plethora of books I read as a child, and I simply osmosised the words from context.  Apparently Luke reads a lot too, so perhaps his next book will have a tone more similar to mine. 

Another similarity here is the use of idioms throughout the book.  While many autistic people find idioms and common phrases to be a stumbling block, Luke tosses them liberally into his book.  Sometimes there's an explanation right next to the idiom, sometimes you have to reference the explanations of them at the back of the book.  But either way, the author thoughtfully made sure his autistic readers would understand the strange twists and turns of English. That's a kindness, because there are 45 of those idioms listed in the back, and Luke is British, so not all the phrases were familiar to me. 

I think I mostly made my way through idioms by asking people when I ran into them, or by puzzling them out from context and the specific words used.  "Loaded for bear" is one I learned recently.  I had to ask about it when I heard it first, but the explanation made enough sense that I won't forget it.  Basically, as settlers went west on the Oregon Trail or other trails, they would need to go hunting sometimes to get fresh meat.  This was dangerous, because deer and bison weren't the only things out there.  So some cautious settlers would bring ammunition to hunt bears as well as ammunition for deer and game animals.  Thus, going somewhere "loaded for bear" means you've made yourself exceptionally well-prepared and ready for trouble if need be. 

Something else Luke and I had in common was our experiences with martial arts.  Right down to what he calls dyspraxia and I call "just not being good at active things."  In essence, neither of us were very good with hand-eye coordination or motor skills.  Naturally these things can be trained... and that's more or less exactly what happened with his Taekwando experience.  I don't agree with Luke that it's the perfect exercise for autistic people, but I'm glad he finds it so predictable, structured, and helpful.  I suppose it's not a perfect comparison: I took Tang Soo Do, which is a different, older, less sport-inclined style. 

But still, it did give me confidence, as it did him, and did train me how to defend myself a bit.  As both of us were targets of bullies (him much, much worse than me), this is very important.  Not merely that you can disable a bully and get away, but simply knowing you have that capability is very reassuring.  It makes you feel, to yourself, less like a potential victim and more like a self-validated person.  This is particularly important for people born female, sadly, as the crime statistics easily show. 

One last thing to point out.  Autistic people, as you probably know from reading this blog, tend to have unusual ways of looking at things and understanding things.   Luke is no exception, and two of his oddities struck me as important to point out.  First, while an autistic person's deep and abiding interesting in a subject or field is very definitely called a "special interest" or "obsession" in the US, Luke has opted to reject those words and instead has chosen "specialist subject" as his description for it.  This is, I think, a good development, as many autistic people make their specialties into jobs.  It's needlessly cruel to start with calling someone's favorite hobby "an obsession" before it hits that actual mark. 

The second thing Luke introduces is calling a diagnosis a signpost, rather than a label.  The idea is that rather than a diagnosis being a box, in which you put people and they supposedly fit perfectly, a diagnosis is a signpost that directs you where you might head next with your life.  This is far more accurate than the label/box idea, particularly when it comes to autism... the saying is that "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism."  We are often very different, and very different things help us thrive and have full lives.  Instead of assuming the diagnosis will tell you who you are and what you need to be doing, the signpost idea is more of a suggestion... which is far more helpful.  This is in keeping with his general attitude through the entire book, which is a modest, "Well I'm still young yet, I don't know everything." 

Read This Book If

You're autistic in the adolescence age range, are a parent with a child in that age range, or simply want to see life from a British adolescent's point of view.  Luke is markedly coherent and easy to read, bringing a youthful and disarming honesty to the subject of growing up autistic.  He has had very difficult experiences, but is remarkably positive about things overall.  This is not an exhaustive guide to an autistic adolescence, but it's a fine primer, and it gets every subject it touches pretty much correct in my opinion.  Brief research tells me this author wrote another book last year regarding adulthood... I may see if I can find that and see where life has taken him.