This guest post is by Essence B. Scott, a writer on the autism spectrum who was accepted into National University. Essence is applying for the Spring 2021 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. I hope you can support my nonprofit like I’m trying to support these students with scholarship aid for college. Learn more on how you can help our cause with a small donation (just asking for $3 today, equal to your daily cup of coffee) here.
There was always something different about me. Sure, there’s something different about everyone, but something about me made me extra special. For years, my mom and dad had told me that I had a learning disability. This meant for me that I learned slower than my peers, they said. I never paid that any attention. So, what if I learned slower than my peers; I’m still going to college like everyone else. I still having a boyfriend like some others. But the big bus came to pick me up every morning to take me to a special school when I was little. No one laughed. I was never made fun of.
You could say I lived a remote childhood and adolescence. I was not sociable; I had no core group of friends. I moved a lot. This made it hard for the child study team to pin me down into any one category. Put me in classes that were too easy, and I would be bored for at least twenty minutes. But if you put me in classes that were too hard, I would have challenges. There was no happy medium.
Already a quiet, introverted, but hardworking student, I knew nothing about advocating for myself as a student with disabilities. When I began to show severe signs of mental illness, professionals intervened. It has only been in the past four years I have been gaining my life back. I recently finished my Associate’s degree program at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, New Jersey.
I moved to North Carolina to get married, and that didn’t work out well. And things began to change… My provider noticed that I showed signs of “high functioning autism.” She asked me if I wanted to get tested. Since the beginning of 2020, I had been curious to know what my initial diagnosis for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments was since I had been receiving them at such a young age.
I did not think “learning disability” was enough. At the end of 2020, I began calling around and asking how to get documentation that dated back to 1994 that would hopefully provide some insight to no avail. I eventually gave up. But one of my providers at the time had noticed the way I held my hands. The way I tried hard to make eye contact and could not. How I stimmed. I told her about the sensory overload I would get when I was out and about and wore headphones all the time to buffer myself against the sound.
She took this into account and said she thought I had a lot of the signs for autism. Then, she asked the big-ticket question: “Would you like to get tested for autism?”
“I can get tested for that here? I’m thirty years old.”
“Yeah, Ms. Essence, we can get you tested—if that’s what you want.”
“I do want to be tested!” I cried. “It would put so much of my youth and adolescence into perspective,” I calmed myself down. “Because I’ve… I’ve always known something was different. My dad had said I was autistic; I was 14 when he said this—he said I was autistic and my mom was like, ‘No, she’s not, she has a learning disability’ and our room—I was living in a motel room with my mom, brother, and sister; Dad was visiting—just got this awkward silence, like he wasn’t supposed to say anything. I think that is the truest thing he ever said in my entire life.”
I find it horrible that I only just learned that I have autism. It is a disservice to all of society. We who have disabilities become ineffective advocates as we grow up without knowing all the facts.
Nevertheless, I am glad to know now that I am autistic. I can go to school with confidence that I can self-advocate for the services I need as an online student at National University, as a writer with the goal of publishing literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry and generating income from that, even having a business of my own.
I want everyone to know that just because my diagnosis came much later than “usual,” I am still Essence Breshanté Scott. I just have another diagnosis: Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Follow my journey on Facebook, my Facebook Fan Page, & Instagram! My name is Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum that started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue a 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.
