Strong Female Character - Book Review by Saskia

Content Warning for this book:self-harm, suicidal ideation, sexual violence, eating disorders, domestic violence, medical neglect, sex work, ableism, homelessness.

This book is Fern Brady's autobiography. Fern is a bisexual Scottish comedian who was diagnosed autistic as an adult. The book focuses mostly on her teenage years and early career as an undiagnosed autistic up to shortly after her diagnosis at the age of 35, although it is not fully in chronological order.

The dark topics in this book are treated with black humour, a feminist viewpoint and tries to highlight the absurdity of some of the situations she ended up in. Or the unexpected fun that arose from them, like falling in love with another girl during an inpatient stay at the children and adolescent mental health hospital and the staff being so hetero centered that they did not even consider that patients could be LGBT+. 

I personally related most to her description of finding fun at school. I attended a Montesorri school in France, all the way until university. I liked her descriptions learning about very niche topics and teaching herself multiple languages.

Her description of health and mental health services in the UK highlights the difficulties women face to be taken seriously by medical professionals and the added difficulty to access any relevant care as an autistic woman.

I found her discussion of her work as a stripper really interesting and balanced. Her take on why this was an oddly safe and convenient environment for her as an autistic woman, unlike more traditional student jobs, was very enlightening and one that I have never seen discussed before.

Despite my best efforts, I  didn't understand her relationship with her parents nor why they kicked her out several times as a teen. I did however find her description of the homelessness that followed very insightful as it is more a sofa surfing with different friends'  rather than the sleeping in the street every night for months on end that most people imagine when thinking about homelessness.

She also covers how she tried and somewhat succeeded for a while to self medicate with various substances (medical as well as illicit) and how post diagnosis she has found better ways to regulate herself including weight lifting and more realistic touring schedules.

This book also describes what it is like for her to have violent meltdowns in detail which I was very grateful for as it is rarely described from the perspective of the autistic person. She also shares what steps she has taken, sometimes with the help of her boyfriend, to reduce the frequency and severity of meltdowns.

Overall a half fun/half deeply dark book that includes a lot of original takes on the important aspects of being a woman & traumatised autistic woman in 21st century UK.

https://fernbradycomedian.com/