I Must Be Autistic: Growing Up Without Knowing How or Why I Was Different

By Rowan Keene

This book traces the years that formed him - from childhood through adolescence and into early adulthood. Rowan learned to stay quiet in rooms where words felt too heavy, to navigate classrooms and hallways that overwhelmed him, and later to move through adult spaces that expected certainty he didn't yet have. He studied the world the way other people studied faces, learning to mimic, to mask, to appear "normal," even as the effort wore him down from the inside. Without language for what he was experiencing, he built a life around guessing, compensating, and enduring.

Rowan's early life is captured by showing what he experienced, identifying the autistic traits that shaped those moments, and making clear what kinds of support would have changed his path. It reveals how his sensory and cognitive patterns influenced the way he interpreted the world, how those traits guided his reactions long before he had language for them, and what kinds of internal, interpersonal, and environmental support could have helped him navigate those moments more safely. Few books show all three of these layers together - the lived moment, the autistic traits beneath it, and the supports that were missing - and that is what makes this story different. Together, these perspectives show not only what happened, but how an autistic mind develops, adapts, and struggles when the world around it does not recognize what it needs.

For autistic readers, it offers recognition and relief: the experience of finally seeing your own mind described with honesty and without shame. For non-autistic readers - parents, teachers, pediatricians, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, school psychologists, and other professionals who work with children and adolescents - it offers a window into a perceptual world that is often misunderstood, revealing how autistic communication, attention, and sensory experience shape daily life in ways others rarely see.

And for anyone who has ever felt out of place, it offers a way to turn difference into direction and uncertainty into possibility.

From the early rooms where silence felt safer than speech to the first steps into adulthood, this is the beginning of a lifelong journey toward finally understanding his own mind. It shows how recognizing a neurodivergent way of seeing the world can reveal strengths that were always there - clarity, focus, creativity, pattern-sense - and how those strengths can become a foundation for belonging and possibility.

This is the story of a young person trying to fit into a world that never fit him back.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HBNNG9V6
• ISBN13: 9798189043284
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"