This guest post is by Adam Presley, a young man who is diagnosed with autism and will attend Lee University. Adam 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: 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.
| My name is Adam Presley, I am a 36-year-old young man that is autistic and college freshman at Lee University in Cleveland TN. While growing up I was bullied by my peers and looked at like I was less than everyone else. After being diagnosed as autistic at age 18 there was a lot of challenges that I had to endure in maturation and developing who I am to this day. Over the years I am still maturing in areas that is vital to the call that God has on my life with his wisdom and knowledge with knowing how to navigate in the world that we are living in. What the world looks at as a total mistake, God views it as a chip off his stone that the builders rejected that He set apart and made different to confound the wise. Even though there has always been challenges that pops up every single day. There is that conscious decision that my mother helps me with by the leading of the Holy Ghost to ask the Lord how He wants me to do things. Even though it gets me in trouble with rejection, one thing that the Lord has always shown himself strong in is exposing the falsehoods and corrupt agendas of man. While in high school it operated as a good ole boys club and tolerated religious things to a certain degree. If it broke out into something that they couldn’t control or have a handle on they shut it down quickly because man wants control and manipulation and most of the worst debacles came over people that just wanted to hear what they wanted to hear and not the truth. That is one thing that is in my core beliefs is the truth and nobody can take that away from me. A year ago, I was a person that compromised with lies and truth. I got delivered from that and it makes a sick feeling inside my stomach when people are around, and they lie like dogs and are heavily deceived. In the mountains of Virginia, the older generation had a saying when people were fools, and it goes “Bless their hearts”. This scholarship would help finish paying off my tuition bill for this semester and relieve the burden that is on my mother and me. When God presents a door then it’s in our best interest to walk through that door. I once heard a story about a man that was in a predicament and basically refused help, then another worse situation happened and still refused help, then a massive flood happened and there was a helicopter lowering a ladder to help evacuate him from the roof of his house that was almost submerged in heavy flood waters. He denied that help. The point is angels sometimes manifest in human form when help is on the way. My mother taught me that it’s best to do things in excellence and high integrity instead of halfway doing everything.
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. |
