Book Recommendations from a Queer, Neurodivergent Therapist: Masking, Survival, Identity and Connection

Books I Recommend as a Queer, Neurodivergent Therapist

As a therapist, you do a lot of reading. There are journal articles, theory books, practicum texts - all the research to obtain your degree. Then there’s the ongoing professional development: learning new modalities, the latest ethics on risk assessment, the evolution of counselling… it’s never-ending!

Luckily, I love to read. And as incredible as my professional reading is, it’s often the stories I read for leisure that I find richest and sometimes the most useful in my work. Reading memoirs or fiction allows me to understand people’s experiences in a deeply human, nonclinical way. These stories contextualise theories, experiences, and challenges I hear in the counselling room every day. In a way that feels more natural and real.

I thought I’d share some of my favourite books I’ve read. Books I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and which I also believe have helped me as a counsellor. Some are fiction, some are memoirs, some are non-fiction, and some are graphic novels. Full transparency: this is a very indulgent post! But if these books helped me, I hope they can help you too. Whether that’s to understand yourself, someone you love, to feel less alone, comforted, or even to find hope. Which sometimes feels like a rare gift in today’s world.

My job is to hear people’s stories, so I wanted to share some of my favourite stories from wonderful people, and spread a little love and compassion along the way.

Note: Some of these books contain discussions of traumatic events including child abuse, eating disorders, and other challenging content. I encourage you to look up specific trigger warnings if you have concerns.

My Book Recommendations

Unmasking Autism - Devon Price

A powerful read for anyone exploring neurodivergence, especially adults navigating life after a late diagnosis. It validates experiences many of us feel but don’t have words for, and celebrates authenticity over masking.

Price unpacks the exhausting labour of pretending to be neurotypical to fit in and how it affects our mental health, relationships, and sense of self. The book validates experiences many of us feel but don't have words for and celebrates authenticity over performance. It's essential reading for understanding how survival strategies can become prisons and why unmasking is both terrifying and liberating.

What My Bones Know - Stephanie Foo

A memoir about trauma, survival, and healing that isn’t linear or neat. It’s raw, honest, and reminds us that grief, anger, and recovery are deeply human experiences.

Foo chronicles her journey with Complex PTSD after a childhood of abuse, weaving together therapy sessions, neuroscience, and the messy reality of recovery. What I love therapeutically about it is how Foo refuses to offer a tidy resolution to her story. It honours the reality that healing doesn't mean forgetting and that we can build meaningful lives whilst still carrying our history.

I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy

Dark, funny, candid and deeply honest. This book names harm without minimising it, showing the liberating power of telling the truth about complicated parent–child relationships.

McCurdy writes about growing up as a child actor under an abusive, controlling mother, and the complicated grief that follows her death. It's a masterclass in ambivalence and the complicated balance between the grief you can have for someone alongside the relief you experience now that they're gone. It validates that difficult feelings aren't wrong or bad, they just are.

This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel

A tender story about family, love, and gender. It highlights the beauty in learning and accepting differences within familial relationships.

The novel follows a family navigating their youngest child's journey with gender identity, exploring themes of acceptance, fear, protection, and unconditional love. It highlights the beauty in learning and accepting differences within relationships, and the ways families grow when they choose curiosity over rigidity. It gently reminds us that supporting loved ones through identity exploration or any life experience isn't about having all the answers- it's about showing up with love. Also, the four older brothers in this story melted my already incredibly gooey heart!

Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters

A complex, emotionally layered novel exploring identity, desire, parenthood, and ambiguity through the lives of three people navigating unconventional family structures.

It's messy, beautiful, and allows the reader to sit with contradictions. There are no clear heroes or villains in this book, just a trio of loving and flawed humans trying to figure out connection, idendity and belonging. This novel resists simplistic narratives about trans identity or relationships and allows its characters to live and breathe in their morally grey inner worlds, whilst they navigate a confined outer world.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

A story about loneliness, routine, and quietly surviving. Eleanor is socially awkward, isolated, and living a rigidly controlled life until unexpected friendships begin to crack open her world. Her journey toward connection is awkward, relatable, and awe-inspiring. The fear of vulnerability, the comfort of routine, the deep longing for belonging beneath the surface…these are themes I’ve had clients relay to me all too often. This novel is a beautiful illustration of how healing or changing often starts with one small moment of human connection.

Heartstopper - Alice Oseman (graphic novels)

Gentle, hopeful queer stories that show not all queer narratives need to be painful to be meaningful.

The series follows Charlie and Nick as they navigate friendship, identity, and first love, while also addressing mental health, coming out, and self-acceptance. Perfect for anyone seeking warmth, connection, and joy in storytelling. I recommend these often to younger adults because they model healthy relationships, consent, and communication in ways that feel accessible and real. They also show unabashedly celebrate queer joy!

Closing Thoughts

I’m often drawn to stories about people who feel different, misunderstood, or slightly out of sync with the world. In my counselling work, I meet many people who love books for this exact same reason.

If these stories resonate with you, and you're curious about exploring your own experiences with a trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming counsellor, learn more about my services here.

Written by Liz O'Neill
BSc (Psych), MA (Couns), Registered Integrative Counsellor

I'm a registered counsellor working from trauma-informed, emotion-focused and narrative approaches. If you're looking for support that sees your complexity and doesn't reduce you to your struggles, or want to discuss any of the topics raised in this blog post, reach out today.