A raw, darkly humorous, and unflinchingly honest memoir about neurodivergence, trauma, identity, and survival. Chronically Awkward explores autism, ADHD, CPTSD, chronic illness, queer identity, and lifelong misunderstanding through a deeply personal lens — offering connection, clarity, and resonance for anyone who has ever felt out of place in their own life.
What if your entire life suddenly made sense; not because anything changed, but because you finally understood the lens you’d been seeing it through all along?
Chronically Awkward is a brutally honest, darkly funny, and deeply reflective memoir from Jason Pierre: a late-diagnosed autistic ADHDer, trauma survivor, and queer creator who spent decades trying to navigate a world that never quite fit.
After a dangerous level of burnout from a long and challenging career in the charity sector, Jason began dismantling his life to understand why everything had always felt “off.” What followed was the discovery of autism, ADHD, CPTSD, and complex physical health conditions; diagnoses that finally offered retrospective clarity on years of confusion, exhaustion, miscommunication, masking, over-adaptation, and survival.
This memoir isn’t a chronological retelling of events. It’s a tour through perception — a reconstruction of a life through the combined lenses of neurodivergence, trauma, sexuality, chronic illness, and hindsight. Told in vignettes, observations, and sharply reflective moments, Jason revisits the experiences that shaped him, not to sensationalise them, but to understand their lifelong impact with compassion and context he never had at the time.
Despite exploring extremely heavy territory, the narrative is threaded with dark humour, absurdity, & gallows wit familiar to many trauma survivors. Where the story is painful, the humour is never cruel; where the story is shocking, it is never played for shock value.
This is a memoir about surviving, reframing, and refusing to be defined solely by what happened.
Names are intentionally omitted, identities protected, and the focus remains on one thing: the author’s lived experience and evolving understanding of a world he was never built to seamlessly assimilate into — and no longer tries to.
Who This Memoir Speaks To
Readers who may find deep resonance include:
- Autistic and ADHD adults, especially late-diagnosed
- LGBTQ+ readers
- Trauma survivors
- People navigating CPTSD, chronic illness, burnout, identity, or masking
- Readers who prefer reflective, nonlinear, perception-driven memoirs
- Anyone who has felt “chronically awkward” in a world built around sameness.
Trigger Warnings (Please Read)This memoir contains honest discussion of:
- Sexual abuse & sexual assault
- Forced prostitution (from age 15)
- Domestic abuse
- Psychological abuse, bullying (school, workplace, relationships)
- Foster care trauma & difficult family dynamics
- Death, grief, withdrawal of life support
- Murder (discussed non-graphically)
- Drug & alcohol addiction
- Suicidal thoughts & attempts; suicide of another (non-graphic)
- Self-harm
- Police interactions
- Open, non-graphic discussions of sex
Additional in-book content warnings, provided clearly and repeatedly so readers can skip stories if needed. Your wellbeing while reading matters.
Author’s Note
This memoir was written during a period of rebuilding, a slow, often painful process of finally understanding the foundations I had: autism, ADHD, CPTSD, chronic illness, & the weight of experiences I never had the language for. This book is not just about what happened. It is about learning to see it clearly, sometimes for the 1st time
