Anyone read Pretending to Be Normal?

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It was an interesting autobiography from a female Aspie and while I could relate to some stuff and find it interesting the others issues she has had. I bought it for $10 on my EVO Kindle App and read it in a day. Awfully short book.

Yes I've read it. I think most of it was her sensory issues she had problems with.

Yes a lot of Sensory issues. I don't have nearly as many.

I don't "pretend" to be an NT, but I refrain from manifesting my AS unnecessarily. I am married to an NT and most of the people I interact with are NIT so I do not do anything to put them off their stride if I can help it. It also makes my life easier.

ruveyn

I read it but weirdly had trouble relating even to the parts that resembled me.

It seemed her sensory issues were mainly hypersensitivities (often to specific things) and misophonia (which is what her dislike of certain shapes of noses struck me as despite not being auditory... the misophonic rage came through loud and clear). I have a whole lot of sensory issues but I feel like the most important parts for me are not the specific hypersensitivities -- maybe that's why I couldn't relate as well as I do to some other authors. I also found her use of language extremely hard to comprehend for some reason.

None of that makes her books bad. I just feel like she and I are on very different wavelengths. And it's hard to try and get to know her despite that all, because trying to read her word use causes me physical pain. Just too incompatible with my brain. Which is unfortunate because it's not like it's on purpose, and I usually like learning from people who are very different from me.

I haven't read it yet.

I was consdering reading it, but she didn't seem similar to me. So I didn't.

What were her main AS traits?

I remember one of them was taking things literally and being very pedantic. Like if the teacher called an object something else, she wouldn't understand what the teacher wanted. Like one time in class, the teacher told her students to take out something (I forget what it was called) to nap on and she wouldn't do it because she didn't have that item to nap on. The teacher called it something else. Apparently Laine couldn't even watch what other students were doing to connect the dots so she just stood there doing nothing.

Another thing was sensory issues and another thing was if you told her you are going to Safeway and then Wal Mart but instead you go to Wal Mart first, she'd have a hard time with it because she was expecting to go to those places in order what you listed. I could so relate there but I got over it.

I think she also mentioned how it bugs her when people don't follow rules and they break them so it upsets her. It used to upset me too but I got over it. Now I don't let it bother me and I just ignore it. It did start to bother me again last year but I assume those were my pregnancy hormones doing it.

I've read it.

I read it several years ago. I felt it to be more relevent to who i was as a child/teen. I find that my symptoms have lessened in severity as i have gotten older. Im not NT by any strech of the imagination, but my traits have calmed down quite a bit.