AustLit

Diagnosed in the 1960s as psychotic at the age of two when autism was known as Childhood Psychosis, Donna has lived 26 years believing she was born mad.  Now, Donna meets psychologist and autism expert Dr Marek who reconfirms her diagnosis with the more modern day term of autism and offers to work with her.  But when he suggests he can give her training in social skills and handshakes, she is not interested in learning to further bury herself in 'acting normal'.  Instead she determines to get from him the non-autistic translations for the array of experiences and concepts she has only ever made sense of in her own special language, kept secret within her own world.  

Dr Marek is soon not the only teacher.  Navigating the combinations of xenophobia, charity, curiosity and kindness, Donna graduates as a teacher and travels overseas to work with autistic children and other adults like herself.  In the process, she finds a way of belonging and 'simply being' among others without selling out who she really is and lays foundations for changing forever the way autism is understood by the wider world.

(Source: author's website)

After discovering that triggering technique of 'checking' can help them access their felt emotions buried deep under programed responses, Donna becomes unwittingly dared into marriage with Ian; a schizoid, fragmented man also on the autism spectrum.  But where Donna has spent years tearing down the invisible walls of her Exposure Anxiety in order to join the wider world, Ian has plans for them to move to an isolated farm in the middle of the Welsh countryside, away from humans, to live with sheep, pigs and a 'horse that simply is'.

Within this story is the moving account of their friendship with Alex, a teenager with autism, just beginning to find his voice for the first time through typed communication and determined not to be 'left behind'.  After Alex gets tinted lenses that help him encounter a remarkable cohesive 3D world he's never known, Donna and Ian follow, seeing for the first time a world that their own visual perceptual fragmentation has never shown them.

(Source: author's website)

'Published in 2004, Everyday Heaven is the fourth book in the autobiographical series and like each book can be read as a stand alone book. 

'Living on the Welsh farm with the obsessive and isolating Ian, their house and solitude has been taken over.   Donna has invited a film crew to spend six weeks on the farm with them, filming a TV documentary, Jam Jar.  But things do not at all go to plan.  

'Out of the blue, she learns her father, aged 59 and back in Australia, has two weeks to live. Spending those two weeks sharing all they've never said over the phone he insists she stays safe, 10,000 miles away from where he is dying.  Ten days after his death it is the second wedding anniversary of her marriage to Ian.  After getting her to dress up in her wedding dress and filming the property and all their belongings, he announces he is leaving her and having stayed married for two years this self identified Aspie now insists he wants nothing less than his full 'legal entitlement' - half of everything she has ever made as an international bestselling author.  Suddenly, Donna has to manage loss, grief, abandonment, a messy divorce and the awakening of her sexuality as only this wacky autie can.

'Perhaps the funniest of all of her autiebiographies, Everyday Heaven is a not to be missed, humorous, riveting, roller-coaster of an autistic adventure through gender identity, sexuality, divorce, death, spirituality, loss, grief, true love, remarriage and migration.

'This book also introduces the reader to the man she ultimately was married to for 17 years, Chris Samuel, her closest friend and the love of her life.'

(Source: author's website)