Safety Skills for Asperger Women Quotes

“Females with ASDs often develop ‘coping mechanisms’ that can cover up the intrinsic difficulties they experience. They may mimic their peers, watch from the sidelines, use their intellect to figure out the best ways to remain undetected, and they will study, practice, and learn appropriate approaches to social situations. Sounds easy enough, but in fact these strategies take a lot of work and can more often than not lead to exhaustion, withdrawal, anxiety, selective mutism, and depression. -Dr. Shana Nichols”
― Liane Holliday Willey, Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life

“Girls and women who have Asperger’s syndrome can be like chameleons, changing personas according to the situation, with no one knowing the genuine person. They believe that the real person must remain secret because they fear that person is defective.”
― Liane Holliday Willey, Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life

“Some girls may not seek integration, but instead escape into imagination. A girl may feel that if she cannot be successful with her peers, she can try to find an alternative world where she is valued and appreciated.”
― Liane Holliday Willey, Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life

“It is emotionally exhausting to be constantly observing and analyzing social behaviour, and trying not to make a social error; adopting an alternative persona can lead to confusion with self-identity and low self-esteem. Both of these coping and camouflaging strategies can contribute to a clinical depression in a young adult. Girls and women who have Asperger’s syndrome can spend many years searching for an explanation of why they are different, questioning whether they are defective or demented and why they feel so depressed.”
― Liane Holliday Willey, Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life