Could Try Harder

You just need to stay calm. You should be able to manage. You should have grown out of that by now. You could try harder.

What does it feel like to grow up autistic when nobody – including you – knows you’re autistic? Eliza Fricker takes us back to her adolescence; a time of constant confusion, exhaustion, and the relentless message that she simply wasn’t trying hard enough. Through evocative illustrations and raw honesty, she reveals the invisible struggle of an undiagnosed autistic girl: the masking; the meltdowns mistaken for being difficult; the desperate attempts to decode social rules that seemed to come naturally to everyone else.

Could Try Harder captures the gap between how the world sees you and what is really happening inside – the sensory overload, the anxiety, the exhaustion of performing ‘normal’ every single day. This is essential reading for anyone who was told they had ‘so much potential’ but could never quite reach it, and for parents, teachers and clinicians who need to understand what they might be missing. A compassionate reckoning with the past and a lifeline for those still searching for answers.