Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum

by Jennifer Cook O’Toole (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018)

I’ve always been interested in autism. I’ve read most of Temple Grandin’s books. I was reading Thinking in Pictures back in the 90s when I first noticed the similarities between Grandin and my then very young daughter, who doctors assured me was “not autistic”. . . until one day the diagnosis ASD appeared in her medical record (It is still there.). But I had somehow missed the work of Jennifer Cook O’Toole, who wrote a book I wish I had given my daughter in those painful adolescent years: The Asperkid’s (Secret) Book of Social Rules: The Handbook of Not-So-Obvious Social Guidelines for Tweens and Teens with Asperger Syndrome (2013). (Two years later, she wrote Sisterhood of the Spectrum: An Asperger Chick’s Guide to Life.) Autism in Heels is O’Toole’s memoir of growing up with undiagnosed autism. Extremely smart, multi-talented, and high-functioning, she was crippled by her inability to understand and follow the complex social rules that govern all of our interactions with others. This led to ostracism, bullying, self-doubt, perfectionism, abusive relationships, anorexia, and more, all of which is shared in painful detail in the book. Jennifer O’Toole never realized that she was on the spectrum until her three children, including her youngest, a girl, received the diagnosis. As she learned more about autism, she began to question her own life story, especially after her daughter’s diagnosis. Since then, she has become a voice for the many girls and women worldwide who are neurologically different, whose sensitivities rule their daily lives, who struggle to make and maintain friendships. Autism looks different in girls than in boys, but it can still make lives difficult and can sometimes result in astonishingly self-destructive behaviors and choices.

Maybe it isn’t too late to give my daughter those books.