Marian Schembari was 34 years old when she finally learned she was autistic. Until then, through her childhood, youth, adolescence, college years, first loves, marriage and arrival of her first child, she just thought she didn’t fit in. She was made believe “there was something wrong with her.” Therapists and psychiatrists diagnosed her with Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, sensory processing disorder, social anxiety, and recurrent depression. But whatever they prescribed, it never helped, and sometimes the side effects were worse than the problem in the first place.
A Little Less Broken is a passionate autobiography. Marian tells her story from her point of view, and we get to understand what autism is, and what it feels like. To that end, the book helps greatly in understanding autism and dealing with autistic people, understanding them, and recognizing them.
I have read several books by another famous autistic person, Daniel Tammet.
Born on a Blue Day was very insightful and shows how vastly different an autistic savant thinks about concepts that are ordinary to the rest of us.
In Embracing the Wide Sky, Tammet illustrates how the mind works.
A Little Less Broken, unlike Tammet’s books, is less of a technical or illustrative story, but rather the emotional and passionate recollection of growing up in a body and mind that did not seem to fit in with the rest of the world.
