Price moves to a new city for graduate school and gradually falls into debilitating isolation and sensory overwhelm.

A family conversation about a cousin's recent Autism assessment prompts Price to wonder whether Autism runs in his family.

Price privately researches Autism and begins recognizing his own life experiences in what he reads.

Price discovers the Autistic self-advocacy community and connects meaningfully with other Autistic people for the first time.

Price challenges the stereotype that Autism primarily affects young, white, upper-middle-class boys, arguing it overlooks most Autistic people.

Price argues that 'female Autism' is not a biological subtype but a masking response driven by social pressure.

Price defines masking as two behaviors: camouflage, which hides Autistic traits, and compensation, which simulates high functioning.

Price critiques ABA therapy as a harmful treatment that prioritizes neurotypical compliance over Autistic children's well-being.

Price explains that the pressure of masking drives many Autistic people toward substance abuse and eating disorders.

Price describes how Autistic people's unmet need for belonging makes them vulnerable to high-control groups and cults.

Price encourages Autistic individuals to reclaim special interests as sources of joy and strength rather than sources of shame.

Price reveals that masking shapes not just social behavior but also career choices, living arrangements, and daily habits.

Price contrasts the medical model of disability with the social model, advocating for the social model as more inclusive and just.

Price calls for universal healthcare, basic income, and broader systemic legal reform to better support Autistic individuals.

Price declares that refusing neurotypical conformity is an act of disability justice and self-love, and urges Autistic people toward freedom.

Devon Price begins by recounting his difficult graduate school years, where isolation and sensory overwhelm led him to question his own identity. A family conversation about Autism triggers a period of private research and eventual self-recognition, followed by his discovery of the Autistic self-advocacy community. Price challenges the narrow stereotype of Autism as affecting only white boys, arguing that masking—split into camouflage and compensation—hides Autism in women, people of color, and other marginalized groups. He criticizes ABA therapy as harmful and documents the costly coping mechanisms masking produces, including substance abuse, eating disorders, and involvement in high-control groups. Price calls for Autistic individuals to reclaim their special interests and embrace their true selves, while simultaneously demanding systemic change through healthcare reform and legal protections. The book closes with Price declaring that unmasking is not just personal liberation but a collective act of disability justice.

Devon Price's journey to Autistic identity and his core arguments about masking and neurodiversity.

Price reflects on excelling academically before graduate school while secretly struggling with an eating disorder and gender dysphoria.

Price recalls childhood memories of being shamed for special interests and labeled too 'weird' by those around him.

Price explains that Autistic brains show unique hyperconnected and under-connected patterns compared to neurotypical brains.

Price describes Autistic information processing as bottom-up, focusing on details before the whole, unlike allistic top-down processing.

Price discusses how Autistic girls' meltdowns are frequently dismissed as emotional outbursts rather than recognized as signs of Autism.

Price describes how racism embedded in psychiatry's history has led to Autistic people of color being overlooked and underdiagnosed.

Price highlights significant overlap between Autism and conditions like PTSD, ADHD, anxiety disorders, OCD, and borderline personality disorder.

Price describes the double bind where masked Autistics who prove they can suffer in silence face endless pressure to continue doing so.

Price explains that years of masking lead many Autistic people to dissociate and struggle to recognize their own emotions.

Price shares his personal values—courage and candor—arguing that his Autism, not his mask, allows him to live by them.

Price references Marta Rose's divergent design framework for creating living spaces suited to Autistic sensory and organizational needs.

Price describes Autistic people's experience of time as a spiral rather than a linear progression.

Price shares Samuel's story of creating an emoji system in his phone contacts to identify and prioritize genuinely supportive friendships.

Price presents research showing Autistic people communicate efficiently with each other but are frequently misunderstood by neurotypical partners.

Price criticizes the ADA for not going far enough and calls for laws to be reworked to better empower Autistic self-advocacy.

Before graduate school, Price had already been quietly struggling with an eating disorder, gender dysphoria, and a childhood shaped by shame around his Autistic traits. He explains the neuroscience of Autism—unique brain connectivity patterns and bottom-up processing—and documents how Autistic girls, people of color, and those with overlapping diagnoses are systemically misidentified. He details how masking creates a double bind of enforced silence, and the toll it takes over time, driving dissociation and emotional numbness in many Autistic people. Price then turns toward rebuilding Autistic life, drawing on Marta Rose's divergent design philosophy and a spiral model of time to offer practical frameworks for self-acceptance. Through Samuel's story and communication research, he shows that Autistic people are capable of deep connection when their communication styles are met rather than corrected. He ends by calling for stronger legal protections and arguing that the ADA, while a meaningful start, still fails the neurodiverse community.

The deeper details of Price's backstory, the science of Autism, and his vision for Autistic community and living.

Price admits he initially resisted the possibility of being Autistic because he had internalized deep shame about what Autism meant.

Price recognizes he had been gradually conditioned to suppress his Autistic traits and become 'less of himself' over time.

Price explains he capitalizes 'Autistic' as a marker of cultural pride and identity, similar to the Deaf community's use of 'Deaf.'

Price argues that extroverted and sensory-seeking Autistic individuals are rarely diagnosed correctly because they defy the standard Autism image.

Price argues that functioning labels like 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' reflect capitalist productivity values rather than genuine well-being.

Price reveals that ABA therapy uses aversive punishments including spraying children with water or vinegar and administering electric shocks.

Price reveals that many Autistic adults who underwent ABA therapy as children later report developing PTSD as a direct result.

Price discloses that a former ABA therapist confessed she likely conditioned her patients to be vulnerable to abuse and manipulation.

Price explains that many masked Autistic people adopt fawning—compulsive people-pleasing—as a trauma response, increasing vulnerability to domestic abuse.

Price reframes supposedly negative Autistic traits like stubbornness and childishness as principled behavior and joyful, open curiosity.

Price introduces radical visibility as an approach to living openly as Autistic, directly contrasting it with the experience of masking.

Price challenges Autistic readers to reject the ableist myth of hyper-independence and instead embrace an interdependent way of living.

Price asserts that defunding police and abolishing the prison system would specifically help liberate Black Autistic people from systemic harm.

Price reveals that approximately half of all people killed by police have disabilities, with Black Autistics at especially elevated risk.

Price draws a parallel between masked Autism and being in the closet about being gay and transgender, framing both as externally imposed self-concealment.

Price begins with the personal turning point of acknowledging his Autistic identity, admitting the shame that made him resist this label and the slow realization that he had spent years suppressing who he truly was. He introduces pivotal reframings: capitalizing 'Autistic' as a marker of cultural pride, challenging functioning labels as tools of capitalist ableism, and recognizing that extroverted and sensory-seeking Autistics are routinely missed by diagnosticians. The most disturbing revelations center on ABA therapy, exposing its aversive punishments, its documented role in causing PTSD, and a former therapist's confession that her methods likely conditioned children toward abuse. Price then illuminates the emotional costs of masking—fawning, vulnerability to harm, and the suppression of selfhood—before proposing antidotes like reframing stigmatized traits, practicing radical visibility, and embracing interdependent relationships. In the final chapter, he delivers sharp political revelations, including the disproportionate police violence against disabled people and the specific danger faced by Black Autistics. The conclusion lands the final turning point: unmasking, like coming out, is not a single moment but an ongoing process of integration and self-reclamation.

The key realizations, disturbing revelations, and transformative moments that reshape how Price and readers understand Autism.