Daily Inspiration Quote by Temple Grandin

Grandin’s line lands like a pragmatic interruption to a culture that loves purity tests about treatment. Prozac isn’t framed as a moral compromise or a betrayal of neurodiversity; it’s presented as a tool that, for some people, works. The phrase “a number of autistic adults” does quiet rhetorical work: it’s anecdotal, yes, but it’s also a deliberate appeal to lived outcomes over ideology. Grandin isn’t offering Prozac as a universal fix. She’s normalizing the idea that medication can be part of an autistic adult’s stable, successful life.

The subtext is a pushback against two common pressures. One comes from outside: the reflex to medicalize autism itself, as if SSRIs are meant to “treat” autistic identity. The other comes from inside communities and families: the suspicion that meds are surrender, chemical conformity, or an attempt to sand down difference for other people’s comfort. By specifying “doing extremely well,” Grandin shifts the metric from “acting normal” to functioning, relief, and quality of life - likely targeting the comorbid realities many autistic adults navigate (anxiety, depression, OCD, burnout), where SSRIs are actually prescribed.

Context matters: Grandin is a high-profile autistic thinker with credibility in both clinical-adjacent spaces and neurodiversity conversations. Her tone is educator-practical, not evangelical. It’s a small sentence with a big cultural implication: autonomy includes the right to use medication, and “acceptance” isn’t supposed to mean refusing help when help helps.