This guest post is by Patrick-Michael Green, a young man on the autism spectrum. Patrick attends Southeastern Louisiana University. Patrick is applying for our Summer 2017 Making a Difference Autism Scholarship via the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference. You can read more about the organization and how to apply for our scholarship here.
Living with Asperger’s leads to many complications in life. Despite these problems you have to keep moving forward.
One of the grading parts of dealing with my Asperger’s is dealing with the medication. Over my life, I’ve only ever had to take one prescription a day at least for my Asperger’s. The issue lies with dosage in every pill I take. When I received a new prescription after using the same drug for years the results were varied. As far as I could tell it was not very effective so we ended up increasing the dosage twice. I went back to my old medication again, just to try before we got a refill on the new medication. The old one seemed more effective, but changing them may have had some side effects. They were mostly gas. Overall the medication can be annoying, but what is more annoying is how you can never tell how well the medication affects you. We keep increasing the dose size for the new medication since it isn’t effective, and the old one did seem make me stay focused for a longer period, but there is no real way to really tell the exact difference. That relates to another distinct problem.
Because of my Asperger’s I can never truly be able if something I did was something simply because of me or if my Asperger’s had a large part to play in the situation. A key example in this is when I take exams, tests, or quizzes. When I take them, my mind tends to wander off, so if I get a bad grade I am never sure if it was me just no being focused or if my Asperger’s is what caused me to be more distracted. This is a bigger problem when it comes to things like job interviews. This issue is more present in situations like job interviews because of more subtle things like my mannerisms. If I do not get the job I am not able to tell if it was of my qualifications or if having Asperger’s has hindered my chances somehow.
One of the main things I have deal with when living with Asperger’s is dealing with confrontation. I do not mean confrontation in the traditional sense. When I refer to confrontation I am mainly referring to certain interactions. I do not like having to talk to people directly epically if they have a position of authority over me. If I do have to confront someone I will typically do everything to avoid it. When I had an English class one day I was late, but never told the teacher so she could mark me present for the day. That is mostly likely a product of another issue dealing wit emotions.
I find that one issue that I personally deal with is having to deal with emotions. When I was younger whenever someone yelled at me I always found it annoying, and somewhat insulting, when someone changed their tone shortly after. I found it insulting because whenever someone yelled at me I would become upset, if not downright depressed, so it seemed to me that they did not care upset they made me. Yet another issue I must contend with.
In conclusion having Asperger’s, at least for me, has a good bit of issues that come with is, but despite them you must keep going. If you do not try to move forward despite the problems then you will never get anywhere.
Kerry Magro, an international speaker and best-selling author 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 contacting him here.
