Dancing in the Grey – Life with my Asperger’s
Written by Rory Matier & Suzanne Wreford
First published in Great Britain in May 2015 by Rory Matier
Copyright © Rory Matier 2015-05-28
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Acknowledgements
Dancing in the Grey was Written in 2015
This book has been a nightmare to write; it was worked and worked again, written and rewritten, scrubbed and written off and then finally written with the passion it deserved. The first draft was way too dark and angry, the second was confused and slightly lost but thankfully the third was accurate.
Suzanne read the first angry portrait in 2013 [‘Yesterday’s Adult, Tomorrow’s Child’], and said “You really are not doing yourself a justice here, you need to give yourself more credit and realise how much you have survived!” I had never looked at myself as being a survivor, all l knew was that l always somehow landed on my feet, but it was not always easy. That same year l commenced the second draft and like the first she read all of those pages and was very constructive in her criticisms. By this time l was aghast at the idea of even contemplating another rewrite, but said l would rest it for six months before reviewing it again. That six months stretched into a year as my life was changing so very fast especially with her in it. And so in March of this year, l started the very final ‘edit’ which soon became the final rewrite. The book of today is the book l am happy with – finally. And l want to thank her for all of her hard work, her support, patience and understanding especially as some of the chapters revisited created an atmosphere of sadness for us. Her tireless work in both proof reading and editing, and of course the stress it must have caused her again as she read even more startling events in my life and although she knew of them all, she never thought l would submit some of them to the book itself.
Without the aid of my two dogs Scrappy and Dora, l would never have survived the first ever writing, they awarded me sanity when my life was fast becoming a hell and l held a damning lack of respect for people. Dora sadly passed away in 2014 and as such was never able to see her Dad’s joy this year of finally achieving completion with this work. But thankfully Scrappy is, and l know that Dora still lives on in her.
28th May 2015