This guest post is by Austin Bowerman-Sullivan, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with PDD-NOS at the age of 3 and has been accepted into Florida Polytechnic University. Austin 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. Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams, our nonprofit’s new book, was released on March 29, 2022, on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults.
As many people have often heard, there is no such thing as being “normal”. Everyone has different social and learning needs, and some may perceive the world in a much different light than others. I am one of those people with these circumstances, as I have a condition known as Austin Spectrum Disorder. However, I disagree with labeling it as a “disorder”, as the spectrum is actually far more complex than what it may seem at the surface. I can support this statement because I myself have been living with the condition for my 18 years of life. Though it doesn’t quite severely affect me as much as a few other cases, it has altered my life in various ways that both make it somewhat more interesting to experience but also sometimes frustrating at the same time. For example, I’ve had trouble with reading verbal and physical cues throughout most of my life. As such, these can be problematic when I try to engage in conversation or simple day-to-day interaction. Also, while my understanding of sarcasm and certain humor has gotten much better over the past few years, there are still many times when I either don’t identify whether someone is being serious about a topic or not.
Other than the above-mentioned, most of my other, er, difficulties come from having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). With the disorder, I tend to be highly compulsive with cleaning and can be overly worried about small incidents and interactions that can happen. While having OCD would be indeed unrelated to having the spectrum, as the former encompasses most of the day-to-day challenges I have as of current, I felt it was still important to mention.
Autism, on the other hand, I do not think should be classified as a disorder, as there are some aspects of it that don’t really impede your cognitive abilities and more just alter them in some ways. I feel with having the autism spectrum has allowed me to view the world from a different and more intuitive perspective. This especially applies to my social interactions: I try to be understanding of people’s emotions and essentially get their perspective the best I can, so I can see if I can find some sort of neutral ground. I also try my best daily to be nice to everyone, and besides some instances of unhealthy people-pleasing, that usually works out well. Also, I did excel at school when I was in the dual enrollment program at Broward College, likely because of my good study habits. One more interesting quirk about my spectrum is that I don’t entirely get why people lie, smoke, or drink alcohol. For the latter two, I question why people would want to damage their bodies like that, but as for honesty, I physically cannot lie to someone whether in text or in person, so even if it’s painful, I usually tell the truth when asked to. All in all, my spectrum, while admittedly disadvantaging in some ways, also has some interesting effects on how I view life in general. As such, one could argue it is in some ways advantageous as well, as I would like to think I have greater intuition and awareness. Simply put, just accepting who you are can lead to greater long-term happiness and fulfillment, and ultimately the message I would like to spread amongst my peers.
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. I started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue 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.
Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams was released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults. 100% of the proceeds from this book will go back to our nonprofit to support initiatives like our autism scholarship program. In addition, this autistic adult’s essay you just read will be featured in a future volume of this book as we plan on making this into a series of books on autistic adults.
