Fern Brady > Quotes

“For most autistics existing in a world not built for them, anxiety is the baseline and constant background hum that their daily life has to play over.”
― Fern Brady, Strong Female Character

“The idea that meltdowns are manipulative is absurd and a cause of gross misunderstanding between autistics and the rest of the world.”
― Fern Brady, Strong Female Character

“I now understand that an aversion to holidays is extremely common in autistic people – the disruption to routine, the unpredictable nature of travel, the lights and noise of the airport and the extreme temperature change on arrival creates a special kind of sensory hell. Sameness is what I thrived on. I’m told that the appeal of holidays for most people is the novelty and break from the humdrum of everyday life. My family concluded among themselves that I was an arsehole. I didn’t know why I was so unhappy on holidays either, so I had no other option but to agree with them.”
― Fern Brady, Strong Female Character

“I was continually over-identifying with fiction to try and find a template for myself and my story.”
― Fern Brady, Strong Female Character

“Though masking is incredibly taxing and causes us a lot of existential turmoil, it’s rewarded and facilitated by neurotypical people. Masking makes autistic people easier to “deal” with.’ —Devon Price, Unmasking Autism”
― Fern Brady, Strong Female Character

“Mum’s theory that I’d simply seen pictures and copied them – rather than accepting that I felt depressed and sought out reflections of that in the culture around me – was such an asinine line of thinking that I didn’t bother challenging it.”
― Fern Brady, Strong Female Character