Scottish comedian Fern Brady’s autobiographical account of growing up with undiagnosed autism is sometimes not an easy read. But while detailing a life as a perpetual outsider in an unsympathetic world could have allowed her to wallow in self-pity, Brady manages to plot a course between the drama of repeated brutal encounters and her inner thoughts with a mixture of excruciating honesty and dark humour.

Having said that, she certainly doesn’t make light of her experiences, and describing her treatment at the hands of family, schools and the medical profession leaves the reader with worrying questions about how inept society is in dealing with anyone who is not neurotypical.

She offers up a great deal of information about autistic females, quoting from psychological studies in the footnotes. For instance, she explains early on that the lazy way of thinking about autism and Asperger’s – that we are all on a spectrum – is wrong. “No one is a little bit autistic,” she writes. “You’re autistic or you’re not. The spectrum describes your support needs.”

Due to medical professionals who don’t seem to grasp this, she is constantly misdiagnosed – if she could look someone in the eye, or had a boyfriend, they opined, she couldn’t have Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

The real problem, for Brady as for many autistic women, is the constant need to mask her divergent behaviour – trying to read social signals and act “normally” which, she says, “is like having a computer which should only be running two or three programmes at once but forcing it to run up to ten.” It leads to silent shutdowns, violent meltdowns and self-destructive behaviour.

Being born into an Irish Catholic family in Bathgate seems to add to her confusion about making sense of society. She explains that many autistic girls are sexually active from a young age, and when her mother discovers that she has lost her virginity, she warns Brady constantly about “getting into trouble.” However, for Brady the metaphor is meaningless – she is a straight-A pupil, so she feels that getting into trouble is the least of her concerns.

This disjunct in communication is most brutally highlighted at the special school she is sent to. A fellow patient has been referred after a rape has left her severely traumatised. When eventually she starts opening up about her experience, she uses a swear word. The therapist cuts short her impassioned statements and admonishes her: “Natalie, that is not how we speak here.”

I don’t know if Brady is a great writer in part because she is autistic, but her deeply personal account of bullying, stripping, homelessness and stand-up is shocking and incredibly moving – and it will make you laugh at subjects that you didn’t think possible.

Fern Brady, Strong Female Character, Octopus Books, £16.99

Book review: Strong Character, by Fern Brady