This guest post is by Amythyst Drew Nicole Morris, a woman on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with Aspergers at 14 and is now attending East Tennessee State University. Amythyst 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.
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s under the DM-4 in 2013 a few months before a lot of things, including my diagnosis, were compiled into ASD under the then new DM-5. If I am completely truthful, things were incredibly rough before and after my diagnosis. This next part of this essay is going to be incredibly raw. I cannot pretend things were peachy. However, I was thankfully able to power through the problems I had. Hopefully, what I say here will help others in some way, whether it is another kid going through what I did, someone watching it happen and needing to know the signs, or simply to know the difficulty of what some of us may go through.
I was diagnosed incredibly late for someone my age. In part, I grew up in an incredibly regressed area with next to no help for any sort of mental health issues, let alone anyone who may be neurodivergant. In another, I was near the bottom end of socio-economic classes, and that came with its own set of stereotypes and challenges paying for anything.
I started seeing a psychiatrist by the time I was 10 because I was suicidal from a young age. I had to deal with someone who was alcoholic could be violent. At school, I had to deal with bullies for eight hours a day. One of the earliest signs that I had autism was that I could not properly socialize with my peers, and that I had distinctly different body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.
Going to the psychiatrist was unhelpful because of the circumstances of how I felt. Despite her constant thought that nothing was wrong, I was on various different mental medications that did not work for years on end.
In the meantime at school, there was a prevailing thought that I was “retarded” from my teachers. It is an incredibly outdated term I loathe, and it was thrown in my face constantly. While I have said it here once in this essay because that memory is explicitly seared into my mind, I would like to also explicitly state that you should never call anyone that word. It is harmful. It is damaging.
I underwent multiple tests through my school to test for low intellect explicitly because my teachers thought there was no way I could not be mentally challenged because of how I socialized. This stigma was actively encouraged by my teachers, and it gave my bullies an open pass to say whatthey wanted to without any consequences.
I eventually ended up moving schools for my 8ᵗʰ grade year because my teachers could not force me into special ed classes and were tired of dealing with me, I was becoming a “problem child” for starting to stand up against physical force used against me, my mental health was plummeting, and my grades were not the best thanks to this environment, even though I could comprehend school materials as good, if not occasionally better than my peers. After a quieter 8ᵗʰ grade transition year, I changed schools again to the high school I would graduate from. This is where things started to look up for me. After years of fighting with my psychiatrist to test for Asperger’s, she finally referred me to an outside specialist my 9ᵗʰ grade year explicitly to prove my mother wrong, as my mother had thought that was the case for years and had been pushing for it this whole time.
Not only was my mother right, but because I had transferred to an environment where I was not having people insult me to my face constantly. I was free to do my schoolwork in peace without people knowing who I was or bothering me. My grades skyrocketed. I went from having a C average with a few Ds to having all As and Bs. From my freshman year to sophomore year, I went from all Standard classes to all Honors classes. By my senior year, I was taking Advanced Placement classes in different areas that offered it. I graduated within the Top 10%. I still deal with these memories over a decade later. It sometimes hurts, even now. I still have to deal with the mistrust I automatically have with anyone in that industry because even though I have other comorbidities that come with an autism diagnosis that medication may help, the way that situation was handled years ago still leaves a bitter taste.
However, I take joy in the fact that I made it when no one else thought I would. I am happy with proving every single person who thought I was stupid wrong. It’s an accomplishment to some that I’m somehow still alive after everything I have gone through.
Here is what I would like to say to anyone who is going through this like I did: You are not stupid, even if they say you are. You have skills that you are great at, even if they are overlooked. You are valuable, even if no one else gives a damn. You can bounce back at least some, even if you have been through Hell and back.
To anyone else: If you see this happen, call it out. My life would have been drastically better if I had one person in that school that would have stood up for me. Your words matter, for better or worse they have an impact on the people around you.
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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.
