Diagnosis Normal

Living with abuse, undiagnosed autism, and COVID-grade crazy

By: Emma Jane

Narrated by: Emma A. Jane

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

I have three gears: glum melancholy, inappropriate outbursts and extreme slapstick. On a good day, I can pass as normal but not for too many minutes. I'm what most people would regard as a hardened introvert.... I like other people. I'm just not very good at them.

Emma Jane has lived a thousand colourful lives. She escaped a small town and a traumatic childhood by moving to Sydney, where she made an indelible imprint on the oppressively blokey mediascape. She played in an all-girl band, married a rock star she hardly knew, had a baby, ditched journalism for academia and changed her name from Emma Tom to Emma Jane. But all the while, she was struggling with her mental health. Then, during the first Sydney lockdown she was accidentally sectioned in a psychiatric ward. At the time, she wasn't sure whether to be more embarrassed by the institutionalisation or the fact she'd forgotten to set her at-home eyebrow dye timer and looked like Groucho Marx. Given everyone suffered some sort of corona-related DIY body hair disaster, however, she decided to focus on her confinement, and when she was subsequently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a number of things suddenly fell into place.

Emma writes candidly about the complex combination of autism, mental illness and childhood sexual abuse that led to her being the person she is, and explores the impact each has on so many others in society. Critically, by breaking the toxic silence surrounding sexual violence and mental illness, she raises the possibility of not just surviving them but thriving. As she writes: we need to speak unspeakable things. We need more un-pretty stories.

©2022 Emma Jane (P)2022 Penguin Random House Australia

Thank you Emma Jane!

It is seldom that I get so enamored with a memoir or biographical work. Maybe in many ways I didn't relate to the story or the author. But that was/is not the case with Diagnosis Normal. It was like listening to a friend open up and sharing their most sacred and fragile self. And finding a bit of yourself in the shared trauma and triumphs. It was like finding lost branch of your family and the belongingness that comes with it.

Thank you

I just wanted to say thank you to the author of this book, and for sharing your story. There is so much to say about this book that I'am unsure how to express. It is a story worth having read/heard it brings up topics that need to be learned. I feel myself more open minded and understanding of hardships of women face that I had a lacking of before. I also have appreciation of my own nerodivergance problems that I have perpetually put on the back burner, as to deal with later. Once again thank you to the author for your story.

Loved it!

Thanks for taking the time to share your story Emma Jane! I enjoyed the Aussie accent, being an Aussie living in USA. Many points well made in this book. Many things that needed to be said.