Everyday Heaven. Donna Williams

      Jessica Kingsley Publishers London and Philadelphia

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2004

      This edition published in 2010

      by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

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      Copyright © Donna Williams 2004 and 2010

      The right of Donna Williams to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

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       Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

      A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

       British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      ISBN 978 1 84310 211 3

      eISBN 978 1 84642 081 8

      To my inspirations, Sheila, Bobeth, Serge and, of course, my wonderful husband Chris. And to the holistic doctors and clinicians who have dared to be pioneers in the labyrinth of autism and think outside of the box. Finally, to Jackie Paper, Margo, Monty and Jean. Always with me.

      Foreword

      Autism is a fruit salad and every journey with it is different. There are questions of where does condition end and self begin or are the two so intertwined as to be interchangeable. There are questions of culture verses cure or treatment. Where is that ethical, spiritually healthy, socially humane? There are questions of whether there is autism or autisms, whether autism makes one alien amidst general social or, like looking through a microscope at humanness itself, does it illuminate experiences we all have, uncover things people hide about their own world and the secrets of self just under the surface or buried deeply.

      I was assessed as psychotic at the age of two in a three day inpatient hospital assessment in 1965. By late childhood I was still echolalic, had a language of my own, was labelled disturbed and still being tested for deafness. My meaning deafness was discovered when I was nine and interventions led to me gradually acquiring and becoming fluent in 'functional speech' but it would be decades more before I could use that to deeply express and gain answers about my own ‘fruit salad’ or the passions, fears, perspectives I had about others, life and myself.

      Living with meaning deafness, meaning blindness, disconnectedness with my body, mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders and gut, immune, metabolic disorders as part of my own fruit salad, my dance with autism has been a lively one, a dynamic one. As one of the most well known people diagnosed with autism in the world, it has been a controversial journey. I’ve captured that journey across nine books in which Everyday Heaven is book four in my four stand-alone autobiographical works.

      The first one, Nobody Nowhere became an international best seller in 1992 and is now set to become a Hollywood film. Against one of the challenging social backdrops, I wrote of my simultaneous battle to join the world and to keep the world out and the adaptations and magic in between those battles. The book became a touchstone in the autism world but, more importantly, illuminated the human condition itself.

      Somebody Somewhere followed a few years later, again becoming an international best seller. In it, I became a qualified teacher meeting children and adults with autism and began teaching others about the my world, how to ‘Simply Be’ and the exploration of self versus condition.

      By the mid nineties my autobiographies had a worldwide following. I followed the first two with a third book,