This guest post is by Edward Hoene, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with autism at 8 years of age and attends Northern Essex Community College. Edward is applying for the Spring 2023 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.
Success with Autism comes in phases. My first phase that I experienced is that I felt that I was on sensory overload. It was overwhelming to tune out the sights, sounds, chaos vs. order and smells while most take it for granted. I felt frustrated with sudden changes to schedules and felt anger went someone touched and moved my things. I was seeing life as if I were looking through a different lens; I struggled to concentrate with all the distractions around me, whether the students in the classroom were tapping a pencil so innocently to the scraping of the chair on the floor. My mom would intentionally move my things around in my room and then teach me how to cope with the constant change or movement with my things. She also made the kitchen table the central location for me to complete my homework where it was noisy, so I could learn how to tune out noises in the classroom. It also taught me to tune out the smells and other sounds in the downstairs areas, such as the living room with the TV going. This process was exhausting and made me feel like something was wrong with me, because all I wanted to do was to go play my Legos quietly.
As I reached 5th grade, the social skills of my peers were getting more and more difficult to understand; I could not tell if they were teasing me or just being playful, and this is when I entered the next phase, when social pragmatics were becoming more important, people would notice my quirks more. My typical developing twin sister was gliding through life with almost no difficulty while I often felt frustrated that I am unable to adequately interpret social situations. I studied body language, shifting of feet and crossing of arms to determine if the person I was speaking to was engaged in what I was saying, because I tended to get over enthusiastic about certain subject matter that would be annoying to a non-familiar listener or peer. When I was little, my mom would often exaggerate her body language movements, showing me that my peers were no longer listening; she used these cues to help me, but it often made me feel bad about myself, because I wanted to feel connected to my peers. When I saw these simple gestures from my peers, I learned to switch the subject or change the activity all together, but it was more about accommodating for them than about creating real friendships.
As I got older and learned these skills more efficiently, I entered into a new phase during middle school, when one can start to join clubs or activities. I was better able to stay engaged with my peers and make good friends with those who shared similar interests with regards to hobbies. The marching band was one good example; it is a competitive group that worked together to reach the same goal, and this social environment allowed me to excel. I no longer felt as if I was on the outside looking in, but rather in a group who made me feel apart of something larger than myself. However, the marching band did not allow me the ability to be truly myself with regards to my personal passions and interests outside of marching band.
Once I entered into Early College, I entered into my latest phase. This current phase I am in, allows me the opportunity to express my hyper-focused mentality, due to the social pragmatics of college aged peers. My hyper-focused mentality is now a non-issue, because those around me are equally enthusiastic about what they are learning. I can provide feedback in my classes, voice my opinion in Student Government as a Member at Large, enter art designs in Art Club and help tutor my peers when they struggle. My college peers do not see me as an autistic kid with special needs, because I am just another student in the classroom that can provide insight to a subject. This phase allows me to be myself, which makes me happy.
Through the different phases of my autistic experience, I have transformed from a shy, timid kid to a confident, productive early college student. Through the process of learning different skills and strategies through each new phase of my life, I have gained more self awareness of who I am in my life. There were times that I felt frustrated, overwhelmed, isolated and angry, but it has led me to where I am now, and I finally feel confident, successful and “normal.”
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.
