Love & Autism explores all corners of love from a broad autism spectrum.
Kay Kerr shares her own personal story of love and autism alongside a rich and full collection of stories, introducing us to Michael, Chloë, Noor, Jess and Tim, who open up about being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.
Written for the neurotypical to understand autism through an autistic lens, and for the neurodivergent to see themselves in their own love stories, Love & Autism is the type of storytelling we need in the world right now. The chapters flow like conversations with friends rather than a lecture from a so-called expert. It allows autistic people to have a voice, including those, like Tim, who are non-speaking and use alternative methods to communicate.
The stories delve deeply into how an autistic individual moves through the world and how society often sees unique characteristics as character defects.
Kerr and Jess discuss labels as they describe their experiences growing up. Adolescence is when these labels start to stick in one’s head, and begin to be used against the individual from both peers and people in power. Bullying and abuse are huge in influencing the young personality, especially in how neurodivergent people see themselves. Jess felt as a young person the pressure to internalise it all.
Kerr explains that even the label ‘autism’ can bring both understanding and confusion. Self-soothing techniques Tim would normally use to manage overload were not allowed when he moved schools, for example. Consciously or unconsciously, neurodivergent people are trying to fit into the ‘norm’, masking traits that make them unique. Kerr suggests that we need to give the power back to the individual dependent on their needs.
‘Being very sensitive may mean things are hard, but it also means that I can experience good things in ways non-autistics can never even fathom,’ Chloë says.
As the book adventures through love and heartbreak, the heart stings as Chloë’s first boyfriend dumps her, while joy leaps from the page as Michael talks us through his famous-slash-fictional crushes. Treading gently into Noor’s secret relationships in early years, we see the reality of marriage and hardships of divorce through an autistic eye. Kerr even shares her own pregnancy and parenting journey, her real and raw experience laid bare: ‘My body fades away as my stomach expands, and my mind feels suspended in this sunken place.’
There are chapters breaking up the main stories with perspectives on love and autism from autistic writers as well as an autistic psychologist, allowing more on the spectrum to be seen and heard.
Love & Autism asks the reader to be kinder and gentler to others, and to one’s self. There is a hope in this book that when we see certain characteristics in others we don’t jump to judgement, but instead be more empathetic.
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Love & Autism celebrates embracing the true self – neurodivergent and neurotypical – with the heart of the work being that what really connects us all is that we all are worthy of love.
Love & Autism, Kay Kerr
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
SBN: 9781761266447
Format: Paperback
Pages: 290pp
Publication date: 28 March 2023
RRP: $36.99
