While I feel the research detailed in this book is necessary, relevant, and could lead to advances that help me manage my sensory sensitivities better, I got the sense the author did not write this book with autistic readers in mind.  Multiple passages were very upsetting and even dehumanizing to read, as they included views that have led autistic people such as myself to be marginalized, tortured and murdered for ages, with only light, non-confrontational challenging. Some of these ideas were only challenged dozens of pages later. Others never were. In multiple sections I felt so demoralized I wanted to quit reading altogether . I also don't appreciate that the fact that many autistic people don't want or require a cure for their autism was only mentioned in the last few pages, while the rest of the book seemed to allude otherwise. 

I felt the most rewarding passages to read were the ones that explained how autistic people experience sensation much stronger than allistic people, and that autistic people essentially experience a mental 'death by a thousand cuts' that we're unable to forget or recover from as we're forced to navigate a word that feels confusing and even aggressive towards us. I also appreciated the admission that Kai had been traumatized by his early childhood experiences and that it was too late to undo the suffering that had been forced onto him, even when his caretakers had the best intentions. Unfortunately, many parents of autistic children are unwilling to accept responsibility in accidentally traumatizing their child, which makes healing from that trauma difficult, and sometimes impossible. 

Psychology is something I have been passionate about for a long time, and my interest in it has been extremely helpful to me as I've made strides to better understand my behavior and cope with what challenges me. I hope that in coming years I will be able to witness more people in the field utilize empathy to improve understanding of autism and how to actually help autistic individuals without reducing us to a disorder and assuming we require and contain no agency or humanity. However, I don't think it's too much to ask for those who publish and summarize this research to recognize that autistic readers will inevitably engage with it and don't enjoy having old wounds reopened, or new ones created, to coddle the feelings of allistic readers who are uncomfortable with having their ideas and ableism firmly denounced. It's exhausting having to accept that even the narratives claiming to validate my community will also validate the ableism that makes our lives miserable. I don't want to be made to feel that pain any longer.