This guest post is by Mario Rabelo, a young man on the autism spectrum who has been accepted into Red Rocks Community College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado State University, Lamar Community College, and the University of Northern Colorado. Mario is applying for the Spring 2022 Making a Difference Autism Scholarship via the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference started by me, Kerry Magro. I was nonverbal till 2.5 and diagnosed with autism at 4 and you can read more about my organization here.
I hope you can support my nonprofit like I’m trying to support these students with scholarship aid for college. Learn more on how you can help our cause with a small donation (just asking for $3 today, equal to your daily cup of coffee) here.
Ever since I was young, both my family and I noticed that there was something different about me that was not quite normal. From the way that I walk to the way I talk and my fidgeting. Multiply people noticed this including my teachers and other students. Other people took notice of things that I did like moving around a lot, fidgeting, and twisting my fingers and ears. And they avoided me because of this. As a result, I literally had no friends in school. Also since my only sibling was a sister several years my junior I spent most of my time by myself watching TV or reading. Since I literally had no one that I could play games with or do group activities with. This went on for years and it has an effect on me to this day. As I still have trouble making friends and generally prefer to spend most of my time alone. In an attempt to cope with my own loneliness I attempted to develop an attitude that I was better off by myself, often saying that I didn’t need or want friends. But I did. Oftentimes during lunch or field trips, I would set there by myself and I would look up and everyone else would be talking with each other in pairs or in groups of people and then there was me sitting by myself. This did bother me and after accepting that I did need and want friends, I basically had to force myself to begin talking and socializing with people. I did this in different ways. Sometimes I would just go and sit at a class or lunch table where other people were sitting. I also joined extracurricular school activities. The results were largely good, as I made many friends and met different people because of it. Besides impacting my social life autism for me also impacted my grades. I lag behind in basically all subjects in school. From reading to math. I was fairly lucky in that for the most part I had good teachers who understood and tried to work with me. But there was only so much they could do. For instance, I didn’t really learn how to actually read until the third grade. And as for math, it wasn’t until around the fourth and fifth grades that I learned how to multiply and divide numbers. Basically, I was stuck on things that most students master early on, which meant I couldn’t really advance until at least I had a very basic understanding of them. Thankfully I did eventually understand reading and math at least a little, allowing me to advance if not quite keep up with other students yet. The year where my grades improved to be just as good if not better than other students would be the sixth grade. This also happened to be the year where I started to talk and socialize more with other students. This was due to a few different reasons. I’d been in therapy for several years. So it was finally starting to have an effect on me. I also started taking medication both of which made it easier to focus in class and also help me calm down in addition to other benefits. And lastly, by then I knew some of them in sixth grade for years, some since the first grade. So by then they just got used to me, and even then, I was only ever close to a few of them.
Follow my journey on Facebook, my Facebook Fan Page, Tiktok, Youtube & Instagram,
My name is Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum that started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue a post-secondary education. Help support me so I can continue to help students with autism go to college by making a tax-deductible donation to our nonprofit here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtgGzKRHT-Y
