Autobiografie osob s autismem: neznámé pohledy na prožívání autistického postižení

The article analyses three autobiographies of autistic individuals translated into the Czech language – Nobody nowhere (Donna Williams), Life behind glass (Wendy Lawson), and Life with Asperger syndrome: a story of psychotherapy (Christine Preissmann). It shows, how the authors describe their specific symptoms and interests, family and partner relationships and career. The analysis focuses on strategies that were selected by the authors for coping with the autistic handicap. It comes to a conclusion that autistic persons consider different symptoms to be the worst than those conventionally described in textbooks and monographs on autism. In these three autobiographies, sensory overload in stressful situations was estimated from the subjective point of view to be the most unpleasant symptom.