A Person with Autism’s Guide to the Galaxy

This guest post is by Juliet Steel, a young woman on the autism spectrum who aspires to seek out to attend Cincinnati State Community and Technical College. Juliet is applying for the Spring 2025 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 the Next Chapter: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams will be released on Amazon on 3/25/25 and looks at the lives over 75 Autistic adults. 100% of the proceeds from this book will go back to supporting our nonprofits many initiatives, like this scholarship program. Check out the book here.

I was born in Seattle, Washington in 2005 and moved to Canada when I was 5. Within that time frame, I struggled with outbursts and got into a lot of trouble during preschool and kindergarten. I’m talking about biting and kicking other classmates and teachers. Nobody knew why I was like that at the time.
Even so, I had two friends named Arlo and Atticus. They were there for me despite all of that. I remember when Atticus and I tried to dig an underground tunnel in his backyard to build a secret base. It rained after we dug a foot deep and we gave up afterwards. These were the friends who stuck by me in my early life regardless of my outbursts and autism.

Later in life when I moved to Ohio at age 6, I made a friend at a school designed to help improve my behavior. Their name was Alexis and we had a lot of fun playing imagination (pretending sticks were swords and battling pretend monsters). We gave our parents numbers to each other after 4th grade and we graduated from the behavioural school but we lost touch after that. They also stuck by me and asked if I was okay after my outbursts. I couldn’t ask for a better friend.
I still had outbursts through 5th grade, 6th grade, and had to go back to the behavioral school in 7th grade. I started becoming more emotional to what people would think of me and more emotional to slurs others would call me.
At age 14, I was diagnosed with ASD and when I was told that, I cried. I felt like something was wrong with me and I thought I knew why. My thought process was: “Why wasn’t I diagnosed until now?” “Everyone was right.” “Why couldn’t I have been diagnosed sooner?” and I kept spiraling and spiraling. My Mom comforted me but it didn’t help at the time. All those outbursts and it was because of my autism. “I wish I didn’t have autism” I thought.
After being diagnosed with ASD, I went to a middle school class for students with Autism. On my first day, feeling kind of down and the bus was taking me home: I saw Alexis again. After 5 years of us not hanging out with each other, we hugged. We exchanged numbers and we hung out a lot. Turns out they were also diagnosed with autism. I never would have guessed that they were.

High school was the best and worst time of my life so far. It was a high school for people on the spectrum and I made a lot of friends. But I lost a lot because of an outburst I had towards a friend who wouldn’t stop calling me a name that I told her I had a lot of bad memories from. I apologized and admitted I was wrong and it turned out they were calling me slurs behind my back and continued to do so even after that.
Yet after all of that, a friend from 9th grade reached out to me asking how I was doing. I was shocked and relieved. His name is Aiden and we became great friends, if not one of my best. He is going to the same college that I got accepted to this summer. Aiden and I have autism as well and we tend to hyper-fixate on special interests like our favorite video games.

Despite everything I went through:

Alexis and I went to every Sonic the Hedgehog movie until now (1,2, and 3), we hung out voicing our characters while playing Cult of the Lamb (a video game), and we would walk to a convenience store and get ice cream. Aiden and I would play Guilty Gear Strive together (a fighting video game), watch anime together, and we would walk around downtown every now and then. My friends and I have autism and we still manage to have fun despite all the hard times thrown at us.
What was I spiraling for? Yes, I was called slurs, yes I was the topic of horrible gossip, but who cares? If I wasn’t diagnosed when I was, I never would have seen Alexis again. If I wasn’t diagnosed with autism, I wouldn’t have been friends with Aiden. Because of my autism: I am the person I am today and despite all those hard times. I am happy with who I am.
I may sound like I’m absolutely happy with everything now but even then, as people (whether you have autism or not), we will have rough days. We will cry some days. But we will get back up again and try again. As my Mom always says: “We don’t regret trying and failing the most, we regret not trying at all.”
As someone with autism, it has been very difficult but I’m not any less of a person than someone without autism. We are all human and we need people who see things in a different light. We need people with autism. Some of the greatest people had autism and they changed the universe for everyone.

For people with autism who are lost in the galaxy:

Remember to have fun with the people that care about you. You can do amazing things with what you have.

Together, we can reach for the stars.

Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue a post-secondary education. Help us continue to help students with autism go to college by making a tax-deductible donation to our nonprofit here.

Also, consider having Kerry, one of the only professionally accredited speakers on the spectrum in the country, speak at your next event by sending him an inquiry here. If you have a referral for someone who many want him to speak please reach out as well! Kerry speaks with schools, businesses, government agencies, colleges, nonprofit organizations, parent groups and other special events on topics ranging from employment, how to succeed in college with a learning disability, internal communication, living with autism, bullying prevention, social media best practices, innovation, presentation best practices and much more!