FA+
Shop
Autusm Awareness Day
6 years ago
General
So, I just remembered that today was Autism Awareness Day, and I feel like, since I have Asperger syndrome, which is a form of autism, I should at least try to say something, convey some part of my own personal story with this condition. So...here goes, I guess.
I was first diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when I was in elementary school. I got to lie down in an MRI machine and had pictures taken of my brain and everything. At least that's the experience I had outside of normal, everyday interactions with people in school and home and what have you. Those everyday interactions tended to not be pleasant, either because I was dealing with kids my age who were in just as bad a state as me if not worse, and at home I was caught between the struggles of my two siblings, one older and one younger. It only got worse once I myself started middle school, and even worse still once I reached high school and my younger sister started middle school, because middle school is an awful place and everyone in it is evil.
Anyway, during my time in middle school, I had to deal with all the other kids treating me like shit, the teachers putting forth no effort to try and address any of the actions that the other kids performed towards me, which included, but wasn't limited to, tripping me, teasing me, shoving me, slapping me, saying mean things about me behind my back, provoking me into fights to get me in trouble, and various other activities that I'd rather not go into the details of. Trust me; it sucked. Anyway, possibly as a result of how awful people were in middle school, I pretty much became a recluse once I got to high school. I interacted with very few people, except for my older sister and her friends. I slowly started opening up to people once I started my junior year, but for the most part I tended to not speak because I didn't trust myself to not say something embarrassing or stupid.
Surprisingly, starting in middle school, I'd developed an interest in art, and even took a few 2D art courses once I was in high school. I also played the trombone, which led to me performing in jazz band for most of my high school tenure, as well as in the marching band for one year (though I didn't get to play my trombone for most of it, since they were worried about the slide hitting people while they were on the field, so instead I played this huge, ugly thing called a marching baritone). I also performed in the chorus for a good chunk of my high school tenure, eventually joining the vocal ensemble in my junior year, but not really opening up to the other members until my senior year. That's not to say I was entirely closed off from people; I did talk to people, but I tended to apologize for everything, possibly because I didn't want to give the impression that I wanted to wish bad things upon people. Also because I felt like apologizing was the only way I could interact with people. However, I also found myself solving a lot of logic based puzzles like Sudoku, possibly because I'd found a fascination with solving number puzzles with logic rather than math, even though I ended up doing much better at math by the time I got to high school.
This was also around when I started dating girls. Mainly, I ended up wanting to go out with girls who showed interest in me,
possibly because I had low self-esteem myself. I never ended up having sex with any of them though, mainly because I was still hesitant to do so until I'd graduated high school. Granted, once I did graduate, I was still hesitant to have sex with my then-girlfriend, and I kept making excuses to cover up the fact that I wasn't all that interested in sex. It wasn't until around my second semester of college that I realized that I was more romantically and sexually interested in guys than girls. Of course, my coming out of the closet to my parents had me scared, but they were both very supportive, and I'm incredibly grateful to both of them for that, but even more so for my older sister, who was supportive of me right from the get-go. Sadly, this was also around the same time that I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression.
Fortunately, I've been seeing various therapists since then, and have been working with them to develop my skills at interacting with people, coping with stress, and gaining a better understanding of the world around me and myself. Of course, it also helped that college was around when I discovered the furry community and started interacting with people and making friends online. I found that I was a lot better about being open with people online than I was in face-to-face interaction. I've since gotten better at socializing with people in person.
Anyway, that's my personal experience growing up with autism. If anyone would like to comment or share their own story, I'd be happy to listen. Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Take care, and stay awesome.
I was first diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when I was in elementary school. I got to lie down in an MRI machine and had pictures taken of my brain and everything. At least that's the experience I had outside of normal, everyday interactions with people in school and home and what have you. Those everyday interactions tended to not be pleasant, either because I was dealing with kids my age who were in just as bad a state as me if not worse, and at home I was caught between the struggles of my two siblings, one older and one younger. It only got worse once I myself started middle school, and even worse still once I reached high school and my younger sister started middle school, because middle school is an awful place and everyone in it is evil.
Anyway, during my time in middle school, I had to deal with all the other kids treating me like shit, the teachers putting forth no effort to try and address any of the actions that the other kids performed towards me, which included, but wasn't limited to, tripping me, teasing me, shoving me, slapping me, saying mean things about me behind my back, provoking me into fights to get me in trouble, and various other activities that I'd rather not go into the details of. Trust me; it sucked. Anyway, possibly as a result of how awful people were in middle school, I pretty much became a recluse once I got to high school. I interacted with very few people, except for my older sister and her friends. I slowly started opening up to people once I started my junior year, but for the most part I tended to not speak because I didn't trust myself to not say something embarrassing or stupid.
Surprisingly, starting in middle school, I'd developed an interest in art, and even took a few 2D art courses once I was in high school. I also played the trombone, which led to me performing in jazz band for most of my high school tenure, as well as in the marching band for one year (though I didn't get to play my trombone for most of it, since they were worried about the slide hitting people while they were on the field, so instead I played this huge, ugly thing called a marching baritone). I also performed in the chorus for a good chunk of my high school tenure, eventually joining the vocal ensemble in my junior year, but not really opening up to the other members until my senior year. That's not to say I was entirely closed off from people; I did talk to people, but I tended to apologize for everything, possibly because I didn't want to give the impression that I wanted to wish bad things upon people. Also because I felt like apologizing was the only way I could interact with people. However, I also found myself solving a lot of logic based puzzles like Sudoku, possibly because I'd found a fascination with solving number puzzles with logic rather than math, even though I ended up doing much better at math by the time I got to high school.
This was also around when I started dating girls. Mainly, I ended up wanting to go out with girls who showed interest in me,
possibly because I had low self-esteem myself. I never ended up having sex with any of them though, mainly because I was still hesitant to do so until I'd graduated high school. Granted, once I did graduate, I was still hesitant to have sex with my then-girlfriend, and I kept making excuses to cover up the fact that I wasn't all that interested in sex. It wasn't until around my second semester of college that I realized that I was more romantically and sexually interested in guys than girls. Of course, my coming out of the closet to my parents had me scared, but they were both very supportive, and I'm incredibly grateful to both of them for that, but even more so for my older sister, who was supportive of me right from the get-go. Sadly, this was also around the same time that I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression.
Fortunately, I've been seeing various therapists since then, and have been working with them to develop my skills at interacting with people, coping with stress, and gaining a better understanding of the world around me and myself. Of course, it also helped that college was around when I discovered the furry community and started interacting with people and making friends online. I found that I was a lot better about being open with people online than I was in face-to-face interaction. I've since gotten better at socializing with people in person.
Anyway, that's my personal experience growing up with autism. If anyone would like to comment or share their own story, I'd be happy to listen. Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Take care, and stay awesome.
Zooks
~zookeeper00
I was diagnosed with autism from birth, few years later they labelled it Aspergers. My family was told there's a potential that I wouldn't be able to function like a human being 'cause it was "so serious", but I proved the docs wrong. My experience may have not been as bad as yours, but I 100% understand where you come from. I'll support you all the way my dude, you still have a long life to live!
