The Human Rubric

A memoir of life in a neurotypical world

The Human Rubric is a memoir about autism, belonging, masking and the lifelong attempt to build a rulebook for being acceptable in a world where the rules are rarely explained.

Dr James P. Manning writes about exclusion, social decoding, love, clinical training, professional performance, self-protection and the gradual recognition that survival is not the same as alignment.

This is a book for anyone who has ever felt as if ordinary life came with an invisible marking scheme.

About the book

Some people grow up learning the rules by instinct.

Others have to build a system.

The Human Rubric follows the author’s attempt to understand the hidden social, emotional and professional rules that seemed to govern ordinary life. It is a story of watching, copying, analysing, adapting and trying to become acceptable without fully understanding what acceptance required.

At the centre of the book is a painful question:

What happens when a person becomes skilled at decoding everyone else while slowly losing contact with himself?

For readers interested in

Autism
Masking
Late recognition
Belonging
Emotional truth
Neurotypical rules
Social decoding
Psychological survival
Memoir
Clinical psychology
The cost of appearing capable

Why this book may help

Many autistic adults are praised for functioning while privately carrying the cost of that functioning.

They may look articulate, capable, thoughtful, professional or calm.

Inside, life may be organised around observation, correction, rehearsal, recovery and the constant fear of getting something wrong.

The Human Rubric explores that hidden cost from the inside.

It is not a textbook about autism.

It is the story of a life spent trying to pass an exam whose rules were never handed out.

The Human Rubric: A Memoir of Life in a Neurotypical World is available to reserve now.