Download Hello Stranger My Life on the Autism Spectrum Barbara Moran Karl Williams 9780999742259 Books

Product details Paperback 240 pages Publisher KiCam Projects LLC (March 19, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 0999742256

Hello Stranger My Life on the Autism Spectrum Barbara Moran Karl Williams 9780999742259 Books Reviews

• Reading about Barbara’s experiences proved to be an eye opener for me. I have a brother who is autistic, and he doesn’t have the ability to verbalize his thoughts or feelings. I’ve never heard him speak a single word. So much of my childhood consisted of trying to figure out what he needed, to go by his reactions, the emotions he’d display, and I couldn’t help but imagine that so much of what Barbara references from her own experiences could easily pertain to my brother.
  
  While my brother’s diagnosis had come during the mid 1980’s, a time when I still feel there was so much to learn and understand about autism, Barbara’s childhood, teen years and much of her adult years were spent in the dark, shuffled between doctors who had no clue as to why she behaved the way she did, attempting to ply her with medications that only made her suffer more. All in the name of “progress”. Often, when she couldn’t become or live up to the person they’d wanted her to be, they would blame her. That she “acted up” on purpose. This was a hurdle we’d also faced with my brother, who would often behave in certain ways that was not relatable or accepted by many.
  
  The friendships with inanimate objects really spoke to me, considering the toys or random artifacts my brother would carry around, depending on whatever was interesting to him at the time. One time, it was pencils, piles and piles of pencils he’d store inside a bag, and he’d take them out, one by one, focusing on the minute details of wood and graphite. There was the short-lived connection with balls; rubber, fiber, leather. All shapes and sizes, kept safe inside a carrier made of netting. There were many other connections he’d made with objects over the years, and while Barbara’s connection with her own special objects may sound far-fetched, I understand it. For her, this was a means in keeping sane during a time where her life was chaos, and a way for her to have someone (or something) that may have cared about her. It made me wonder if my brother had those same emotions about his own objects.
  
  What so was motivating about Barbara’s story, was her ability to survive during the most difficult time in her life. Not only was she not living up to what “normal” had been perceived as, but she wasn’t sure who she was, or where she fit in. As the synopsis indicates, it’s an honest look into one woman’s struggle in finding her identity, while opening the eyes and hearts of those who had a narrow view on what being different means. Research has come such a long way since those days, and even since the time my brother had been diagnosed, with much more compassion and understanding. It was nice to verbally hear a voice, one that could very easily be that of my brother’s.
• I just read Hello, Stranger. I laughed, I cried.
  Now that may sound like a mocking comment on dust-jacket blurbisms, but I mean - l laughed and I cried. "Kiss my little Irish apse" – in its context, it is not only hilarious, but beyond brilliant. Then so much palpable, and seemingly inescapable, pain.
  
  Barbara's self-awareness was staggering. I'm sure Karl Williams helped effectuate that, and certainly gave voice to it.
  
  Barbara's self-analysis was as relentless and penetrating as anything I have come upon since Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. The comparison may not be apt since he was a fictional criminal, but, then, wasn't Barbara punished for fictional crimes? Didn't her own doctors find it necessary to speak in condemnatory terms about behaviors they deemed beyond normative boundaries?
  
  I know that everyone, including Barbara herself, felt her social radar was defective. Nonetheless, she detected and decyphered other's motives with far greater accuracy than the principals could have themselves.
  
  When I read, whether scientific literature or novels, (or, for that matter, when I view paintings and sculpture or listen to music) I seek two somewhat paradoxical things - recognition and discovery. On the one hand, I'm looking for the familiar - does it ring true with my experience. On the other hand, I'm looking for the unfamiliar - does it expand my experience or enhance it by causing me to re-see, re-hear, re-feel, or re-think. I know I have crossed the desired threshold when I put it down, turn it off, or turn away and yet my mind and heart are still full with it. This book has made me full.
• Love this story! It's honest and forward. Great easy read!