This guest post is by Thomas Coxwell, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with Asperger’s and has been accepted into The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Thomas 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.
Despite the difficulties associated with autism, it has not slowed me down in being someone trying to make a difference in the world for the neurodivergent community. As a member of this community that has been overlooked and mistreated for longer than deserved, I feel that it is a task that everyone should take part in for it is something anyone and everyone can make an impact in no matter how small said impact may be.
As I grew up I noticed that I was different from other kids. This classic line is often said by kids who have autism. People often look at me and wonder what is wrong with me. Why I am so weird. Why I am so different. A society looking down on different and unusual is a society I would rather watch be destroyed and rebuilt by a more civilized society built upon a foundation of empathy and sympathy. Though I do not seek pity, I merely seek our modernized world, a world that has come so far into this day and age in other areas, to express some form of understanding and ability to accept us.
Growing up with autism for me proved to be a challenge much more difficult than everyday challenges. The isolation from other kids left me feeling alone and depressed. I wondered why no one played with me on the playground and when they did I was the butt of the joke. The famous game where they would run away from me to avoid being touched by me. At the time it seemed like a fun, innocent game of tag but now that I look back I realize how hurtful it was and finally understand what people thought of me. Someone to avoid because they were different from everyone else. Everyone else was happy, yet I was there like the plague constantly avoided and only accepted by a select few. Even my teachers in my opinion showed no interest in me.
My own family treated me differently. I was not allowed to be myself and therefore I hid away my autistic traits, a tactic commonly used by autistics known as “masking”. Autism more often than not has co-occurring conditions.
One of them for me is my tics. Even today my tics remain, something I learned to hide away despite the harmful effects of doing so just for the happiness of others with no regard for my own well-being.
I was diagnosed at 10 with autism but being so young I didn’t fully understand. It wasn’t until I was 13 that I finally understood everything more clearly but I pushed it away. I avoided learning about autism, about myself. I didn’t want to know that I was autistic, that the reason I was treated so harshly was over something so inadequate as a disorder that made me more unique. Because what was so bad about being unique? That’s a question I ask myself every day as I go to school, prepare for another day, sit at the same lunch table with the same people, have the same conversations, and be “normal”. Though I love my friends and our chats, I feel that I cannot truly be myself in this setting.
At 17 I finally overcame my fear of research. I learned everything I could about myself and ultimately built myself around my diagnosis. I created a community. I became a YouTuber who helps those who need help just as I did. Kids today have more access to technology than I did and if that means that I can help children and adults alike, then I will have accomplished my goal. From the moment I first created the account and built what I have, I had a goal to spread awareness and change the standards that society built around autistic individuals. I never want people to feel isolated from everyone because they are different. I want them to understand themselves better than I understood myself. I want them to feel like they have somewhere to go for information and to feel like they are not alone in the world.
I always looked at my diagnosis as a curse, something I wanted to throw away. Sitting here, waiting for the cure to finally be released, something to free me from the burden of autism. I finally realized that it is not a burden, but a blessing. If I could use who I am and what I know to help others then I could finally view my diagnosis differently, I could view everything differently. I had always avoided it and walked away from it and now I encourage people to embrace it as it won’t go away. People should use their differences to their advantage, to others’ advantage. People will always be scared of the unknown, and that is okay, but running from the unavoidable was a mistake.
In today’s society, you stand out or you fit in, and I don’t want to fit in if it means I can’t be who I was born to be. To finally have the chance to put myself out there and make a change in the world is a major accomplishment to me and I am grateful for my diagnosis and forever will be despite the hardships associated with it. From now on I shall view my diagnosis as a blessing, not a curse, for it has made me who I am today and I am proud of who I am and always will be.
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.
