Autism research that fixes your life

My Autism Workshop runs Dec. 3, 4, 5, 6 from 8-9pm Eastern. The cost is $150 now and $195 after Thanksgiving weekend. You should join. People say to me, “Why does it matter if I have autism or not?” The answer is you can transform your life by using what we know about autism to […]

If autism means genius why do I stay in bed?

I kept this picture to remind myself that when I don’t want to get out of bed and I do anyway, I’m glad I did. The picture doesn’t inspire me, so I’m putting it here to remind us all that tricks for self-discipline that work for most people do not work for people with autism. […]

Open letter to Boston University’s business school students

I was walking my dog in the Boston Common today, near the Embrace. A controversial sculpture is a great place to train an Australian Shepherd because people approach from all angles in the park with intention. Then people slow down and meander, directionless, trying to understand which way to look at the sculpture. Herding dogs do […]

What happens if you ditch talk therapy and focus on behavior? (And Happy Mardi Gras!)

I’m in New Orleans on the floor of my hotel room while Z sleeps. He sleeps in the middle of the day so we can go out at night. The first night we saw jazz bands at 2am. Accidentally. They were so loud underneath our window that we went outside to find a band on […]

I’m a guest on this podcast. Does that mean we’re friends?

I’ve stopped saying yes to interviews because I piss people off. Or I scare them. I’m not sure I can tell the difference. If someone hangs up in the middle I know they hate me, but if someone doesn’t hang up in the middle but also doesn’t use the interview, I think, maybe they liked […]

Read this quick. I’m breaking news about Harry and Meghan!

Why is no one wondering why Netflix paid so much money? I’m surprised. It seems so obvious to me, so I haven’t said anything, but it’s one day before the show starts and I have to say it now so everyone knows I was right. Before I tell you what’s in the Netflix movie, I […]

Why autistic women have brains built for writing memoir

  My earliest memory is when I learned to read. I was three. I sat in a tiny rocking chair in my grandma’s house with Dick and Jane. And it just clicked. I didn’t know how I read the words, but I did. In kindergarten a teacher asked, “Who knows what elamenopee means?” I could […]

Autism workshop/seminar/discussion magnum opus coursus.

As you may know, I’m doing research at a lab at Harvard where I focus on autistic women. One thing I’ve learned is there are lots of easy, objective tests we can give ourselves to determine if we have biological markers for autism. I’m excited to share those with you so we don’t have to […]

How to turn a failure into success, oink oink

During Hurricane Ian millions of gallons of pig feces whooshed across North Carolina. Pig poop gets my attention. I raised my kids on a hog farm and the water was too contaminated to drink due to decades of farming with gestation crates: a birthing invention of factory farms that is a stacked storage system to […]

Your partner isn’t a narcissist. He has autism. And so do you.

No one has devised a perfect questionnaire for determining a narcissist, which is why the New York Times makes the argument for cutting narcissism from the DSM. We know what narcissism looks like: pompous clowns who are sad on the inside, treat people like shit wherever they go, and perhaps most importantly, have no idea […]

© 2023 Penelope Trunk