But Everyone Feels This Way

I'm not sure I agree with Paige's take on identity v person first language and high support needs v low functioning, I should listen to those parts again. I need to examine my biases and possibly unlearn or reassess.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, around the end the book takes a turn from the memoir genre to that of self-help. In the self-help section there was too much use of the word ‘perfect' for my taste. Not everything is for me.

And speaking of ‘not everything is for me', I don't think I'm the intended audience for this book. I want to hear from ‘actually Autistic' voices, but I'm also picky about craft. Paige's writing style and choices sometimes threw me. I really appreciate that at some point Paige talks about contradictions because there feels like there's a lot in here, but she has a point, life is messy and complicated and contains contradictions. Normally, I love exploring the contradictory nature of life (I used to say ‘life is simply complex and complexly simple) but they don't feel explored and at times I felt annoyance, doubt, disbelief, and defensive, at times thinking ‘but you said x earlier' or ‘but you're capable of y'.
Sigh I did feel sympathy and a sense of injustice for Paige, for example when she didn't realize that she could have had accommodations for university until already more than 1 or 2 years in, ugh didn't her high school support system teach her to self-advocate, to ask for help or to tell her to talk to student services.