I Found Something Interesting and Want to Know Your Opinion

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So I was writing up my latest book review for my website, www.shaynagier.com/book-reviews, when I was pinged on Twitter with an article from HarperCollins retweeting an article by the New York Times entitled "The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction." and I had to click and read it. Link here

Anyways, this started my brain spinning. Last year I was diagnosed with Asperger's, I'm 23, and while symptoms of it have been undeniably in my life since I was born, things have really only gotten bad in the last 3 years that I worked full time. And I think this may be the reason.

I have always loved to read. Anytime I'm reading a book, if it's any good at all, it becomes my "special interest" of the moment. I'll read it straight through without stopping, or if I do stop it's to research topics in the books. I have such volatile and real reactions to what my family and few friends are always reminding me "it's just fiction". And in school I always read. When I stayed inside for recess in elementary because of rain- I read. When I got home from school, I curled up and read. When it was summer and there was no school to be had- I read nearly 24/7 and was begged by my mother to "go out and play" and "stop wasting your time reading". And in high school, at the end of class I'd put everything in my backpack, grab my book-of-the-moment, and read while walking to my next class.

Again, durring all this Asperger's, despite my not knowing it, was a very real part of my life. I'm not saying that fiction can cure Asperger's, I don't think anything can, and I wouldn't want to cure it if I could. I love who I am- I just don't like the feeling of being disabled in society.

Anyways... back to my thought process. Through my whole life, I read. Book after book after book. Until I started working a full time job. At first I did continue to read. I read at night after I got off work, but eventually, I no longer had the energy to read after work, and I ended up moving out of my mom's house so I had actual chores with my roomates and life I had to deal with, which took away reading time as well. Eventually, I couldn't maintain the energy to do said chores, and began to live my life in a "Wake, work, sleep, wake, work, sleep..." schedule. Leaving no time for anything else, much less time to indulge in a book. I tried to compensate by listening to audiobooks, as that was allowed, but while it helped me survive day-by-day, I don't think it was enough to sustain. Eventually, in September of last year, I crashed and could not continue working. I was put on short term disablility for 3 months, and when my doctor withdrew support of it, was forced to quit my job.

Since then, I've picked back up on reading and started "working" as a book reviewer on my author site. I love it! I feel alive and normal- until I go out and about in society at least. And one may say that I should feel normal more-or-less at home.... and while that's true, I don't deal with the stress of life too well at home, unless I'm reading. And it's not foolproof certain stressors can still really hit me, but it's MUCH less common and I feel absolutely normal when saturating my days with reading.

I love writing too, but when you hear authors say "my family makes me take time to write because if I don't, I'm cranky" That's me and reading. And, often, reading will stimulate my desire to write- but it's the not-reading that makes me cranky.

Anyways, that's my story. After reading the New York Time's article, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps I skipped under the radar as neurotypical for so long because of how much I read. And if that's so... is it possible to employ "book/fiction therapy" to help with autism/Asperger's Syndrome in general? Does anyone else have similar experience? What's your opinion?

I love to read too, and was much like you in regards to books as a child and a young woman. I've had to work full-time to support myself since I was sixteen, and have been a mom since I was eighteen, but I always found time to read, because I loved it so much. When I started college at 40, and worked full-time, and had kids and grandkids, I had to give up reading for pleasure. There was just no time and I didn't have the energy. How I think this may apply to what you are talking about is that gradually, over the years of added stress and responsiblility, I have had less and less time for myself. Books, fiction in particular, are an escape from the "real" world and all it's stresses. I have always needed time to be alone, to escape into other worlds. Any time I have been deprived of it, my mental state has suffered. When I was a child, unless you were LFA, no one would have considered autism as a possibility. But I was adament about being alone, and the thing I was most consistently in trouble for was reading in class. As an adult, I can no longer make those demands, and I often suffer the consequences of not enough alone time and too little time to do things for me, such as read. So I guess what I am trying to say with all this is that I think the act of reading, of having that time to be in your own head, in a world apart from this one with all its stresses, is what helps. Does this make any sense? I'm feeling really scattered today...

It makes sense. And sometimes I need to be on my own, I definitely did when working full time, but somehow reading tends to "heal" me quicker than just time alone, or even time doing a different activity does.

But at least it appears to have some benefit as you said your mental state did suffer eventually. Anyways, thanks for commenting! I'm intrigued