When we read the first draft of Mary H.K. Choi’s essay about getting diagnosed with autism in her 40s, a phrase that kept surfacing among the editors was “extremely relatable.” Most of us fall in the neurotypical range, yet we all caught glimpses of ourselves in the litany of Mary’s behaviors and habits that flummoxed her before her diagnosis. (Many of my colleagues, it turns out, understand what it’s like to try to avoid a spouse at home.) In some ways, this ambiguous reading experience is part of the point. Autism hinges on a behavioral diagnosis, and one of the things Mary wrestles with is the difficulty of drawing a bright line between what precisely about her can be attributed to autism and what to the other sedimentary sources that have shaped her over her lifetime. It’s a fascinating and vulnerable essay that raises thorny questions about what the “self” even is and chronicles one writer’s experience of upheaving her entire life story at 43. |
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