My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll

“Being identified as autistic at an advanced age is a revelation—an “aha!” moment of the first order. It’s like being told, at sixty-five, “But mon ami, you are French! You did not know?” Suddenly, and for the very first time, the accent, the beret, the funny car, and your weirdly intense interest in Jerry Lewis all make sense.”

Peter O’Neil had just such a “moment” after a forty year legal career, a second marriage, three kids, a granddaughter, seven unusually solitary years of college, and a lifetime of “special interests.” O’Neil tells his story with humor and grace, and makes the case that autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people bring different ways of seeing and understanding to the workplace and are valuable and necessary to any human endeavor.

Peter O'Neil is a Seattle attorney who learned he is autistic after a 40 year legal career.