Like Color to the Blind:: Soul Searching and Soul Finding [Hardcover]

Donna Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 9, 1996

The bestselling author of Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere offers an intimate diary of the universal joys and stresses of falling in lo ve as she continues her struggle with autism. "Donna Williams isn't just teaching us what it is like to be austistic. She is teaching us what it is like to be human."--Deborah Tannen, New York Times Book Review.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her earlier, popular books (Nobody Nowhere; Somebody Somewhere), Australian-born Williams tracked the arduous journey by which she took control of her life after being diagnosed as autistic. Her emergence into the "vast fish tank called the world" was accompanied by often negative inner defenses, aspects of her personality to which she gives names. In her mid-20s, in England, she meets Ian, a similarly "high-functioning" autistic man. Their attempt to share life exposes them to a wider realm fraught with sudden changes and challenges. Williams, widely traveled and sought after by sufferers of the pervasive developmental disorder of autism, reveals how she coped with fragmented visual and auditory reception, the limitations of defensive security and the emotional challenge of finally "having a specialship with someone like myself." It comes as a surprise, then, to learn she is no longer married to Ian. With forward-looking elan, Williams indicates that her daunting trek to reconcile inner and outer worlds will take another turn.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Continuing the story of her life begun in Nobody, Nowhere (LJ 9/92) and Somebody, Somewhere (LJ 2/1/94), Williams does an outstanding job of taking the reader into the mind of an intelligent, high-functioning autistic person and letting us see the thought processes that are taking place. With poignancy, she chronicles her evolving relationship and subsequent marriage to Ian, who is also autistic, their house hunting and eventual move, and the interviews and book tours that resulted from the publication of her second book. While the book is being marketed as a work on love and intimacy with universal appeal, this title will be most welcome as an inspirational and edifying work for parents, doctors, educators, and all people struggling with autism. For public and academic libraries.?Marguerite Mroz, Baltimore Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 290 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (July 9, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812926404
• ISBN-13: 978-0812926408
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,793 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi,

Welcome, I'm Donna Williams.

Many people know me through the autism world but my books are read way beyond that field; people with all kinds of mental and emotional health issues, people from abusive backgrounds and in abusive relationships, students who have Nobody Nowhere as their high school text, people who stumbled on one of my biographical works and wrote that they suddenly changed their lives, even saved their lives, because of what they read, those who like wierdos and those who are fascinated by them and people who thought they were 'normal' and are left questioning whether such a beast really exists.

I know myself best as a compulsive creator. Whether its writing books or films, painting, sculpting, composing, gardening, a lot of my life revolves around creating. When I'm not creating I like being. When I'm not creating or being I'm usually giving. I don't have a lot of time for brooding or worrying because I enjoy crating, being and giving more so brooding and worrying only get to first base. If they want to get to second then I head them off one way or another.

I'm a sociologist and teacher, basically good fields for people who work with systems. My take on the world comes from being those things and an artist.

I'm totally into being equal. Heirachy isn't my thing. I'm one of those eccentrics for whom all people and animals and nature and objects are all equal and I live in a perceptual world in which all things are deemed possible. I struggle a lot with meaning-deafness and meaning-blindness but they are also blessings. There's nothing like relying on pattern, theme, feel for reminding us we are basically well trained ferals (and that training isn't always reliable or identified with).

I'm a Taoist. No, that's not a religion, its a philosophy. But it has a bearing on my feelings about religion and essentially everything. I believe that peace is the balanced acceptance of chaos and that we spend a lot of energy chasing myths that exist only in our internal worlds and getting upset when they don't exist larger than life forever and ever just for us out there in the external world. I believe in mini world in very simple things and that we have many selves not one, however much we might ignore all but the most shiny and convenient ones.

I'm silly, I'm complex, I'm a systematician and a human animal. I am committed not to ever take myself so seriously that I can't change. Freedom to change, adapt, improvise is like breathing and without it we stagnate and wonder why our 'perfection' got us into such a corner.

I've had plenty of labels; deaf, stupid, moron, spastic, psychotic, disturbed, autistic, but we are all far more than labels on a jam jar. Who cares about the packaging. I believe there is a 'me' even if I am always my self in the becoming of it.

I hope my books become friends to travel with, mirrors with which to better see yourself, adventures that broaden understanding of our species and bridges of equality between foreign realities.

Thanks for listening.

Warmly,

Donna Williams
www.donnawilliams.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding and laboriously sticking to the true self., October 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Like Color to the Blind:: Soul Searching and Soul Finding (Hardcover)

"Like Color to the Blind" is the third book by Donna Williams, after "Nobody Nowhere" and "Somebody Somewhere" but it could easily stand by itself. Donna, who is autistic, puts forth an amazing effort to break through the socially acceptable masks that she had grown in order to relate to society. She is in a relationship with a man who has similar problems, and they help each other as much as they can. A very important part of this book is the account of Irlen filters, tinted lenses that reduce the many symptoms of visual overload. Anyone who has thought about obtaining these lenses should read this, as it is a very eloquent account of these problems and their disappearance. The author, though going through understandable rough periods, seems to put all of her free effort into retaining who she is. I could use any number of cliche's here (touching, great read, etc) but I will just say that I loved this book and I hope that other people will, too.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful tale of love and humanity, April 9, 2000

By 

Benjamin Drasin (Kansas City, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like Color to the Blind (Paperback)

Before I read this book I didn't know anything about autism, and I didnt even realize what the auther's mental condition was until a fair way into the book. I happened to pick up this book at the library (catchy title, I guess), and loved it. This is not so much a story about autism, but rather a painfully personal account of the difficulties involved in sharing a life with another human being.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like chainsaws in a rainforest- a wild human journey, September 29, 2005

By 

Mark Twain - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like Color to the Blind:: Soul Searching and Soul Finding (Hardcover)

Autistic author Donna Williams never knew what it was to feel her hand and her leg at the same time let alone experience herself and other person within one moment of processing. Nor did she know the difference between real felt communication and the push button learned 'talking doll' responses and charicatures that made up almost all of her so called 'purposeful' communication and actions with others.

Now, in her new relationship with Ian, an Asexual man with 'multiple personalities' and somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum, finding out what is real from what is not becomes their life's quest.

With hilarious and reckless results they develop an NLP like strategy called 'checking' which appeals only to the feeling part of the brain and gets around stored learned responses. This 'checking' essentially triggers the thoughts, feelings and choices of the 'real self' buried under society-endorsed robotic facades and socially reinforced learned charicatures.

Like chainsaws in the rainforest of their lives, they pledge to follow through at all costs with what they find are their real wants and likes. The results are that they throw out much of the household furniture, their clothes, the contents of the cupboards and then realise they want to be married (but fail to check that it is actually to each other!) so, within a two week very Autistic marriage preparation, they recklessly marry one another!

Intertwined with their hilarious and surreal story is the story of their friendship with Alex, a functionally non-verbal teenager who knows all about being rather multiple, Autistic and out of control of one's own appearance, utterances and actions. Alex has just managed to communicate for the first time in his life through typing and afraid of being left behind by his reckless friends, he pleads movingly with great power and beauty through this only voice he has, not to be left behind. Along the way Donna, Ian and Alex all journey into the world of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and discover the world beyond visual fragmentation, meaning blindness, face blindness and fragmented bodies as they see each other and the world as cohesive, whole and three dimensional for the first time.

You will laugh and you will cry, you will cringe and you will cheer your way through Like Color To The Blind.