This guest post is by Sarabeth Campbell, a young woman who was diagnosed with autism at 13 and plans to study anthropology at Augusta University. Sarabeth is applying for the Spring 2023 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.
When I was three years old, I took down a playground bully without saying a word. The bully had decided to conquer the slide and pushed off all of the children who were happily playing on it. I climbed up to the top and sat there as if I was going to slide down. The bully and I locked our eyes. He started yelling at me, but I just sat there and stared at him. Deciding that he would get nowhere with me, he growled, climbed off the slide, and took over the playhouse. I followed him in and closed the door behind me. Our parents, who had been watching this interesting battle of wills, decided to check on me after a few minutes. They opened the door to the playhouse to find the boy crying in the corner while I simply stared at him from my position in the playhouse.
Growing up, I had always been a little odd to say the least. I hardly made eye contact with adults, hated certain foods for their texture, and always seemed to be either a step ahead or a step behind the kids in my age group. My parents watched me grow up with nervous anticipation because they knew that there was something different about me. They had wanted to get me tested for autism, but doctors refused to even test me because I was too “smart” to be autistic. Nevertheless, I went through life unaware of the trouble I would soon face. After all, children cannot remain innocent forever, and I found that as I grew older, the world grew crueler.
The children in my grade would mock me for my voracious appetite for learning and books, I had scores of fake friends who would string me along only to dump me a few weeks later, and classmates would purposefully rile me up just to see my reaction. My teachers all assured my parents and I that it was just a phase that would soon pass but never did. As I grew up, my autism grew with me. Eventually, noise sensitivity was added to my list of woes. My parents tried their best to mitigate the damage, but there was only so much they could do. The Cherokee County school system called my autism anxiety – which I had actually developed due to my previous troubles – and gave me little help in curbing it.
As my fellow classmates socialized with others and grew socially, I hid away behind piles of books and grew intellectually. I soon found myself identifying with the changeling children hidden between the margins of history books. The changeling myth originated in Europe to describe children people thought were left behind by the mysterious faerie people. When we look upon the changeling myth in a modern context, it provides an almost textbook description of autism. I often felt like a changeling child at times growing up. I found myself wishing desperately that I wasn’t so different or that someone could appear and tell me who or what I was. Then I went into the eighth grade.
Eighth grade will forever be considered one of the worst years of my life. I had a panic attack almost every day, my social anxiety worsened, and I developed mild depression. At some points, I considered suicide. I just wanted the pain to end. My suffering did not go unnoticed, and it was because of it that I finally received my autism diagnosis. In the coming years, I would struggle with my autistic identity and try to make sense of it in a world that would either pity me or bully me because of it. When I was diagnosed, I wasn’t really sure what it meant for me. All my life I had heard different things about autism and knowing that I was autistic threw me for a loop. However, as time passed, I began to realize that many of the things that made me special – my passion, creativity, and zeal for learning – were connected to my autism in some way. Eventually, I began to recognize autism as a vital part of my identity to be acknowledged and shared.
My biggest struggle growing up autistic was not even knowing I was autistic. Because doctors dragged their feet with my diagnosis, I had to go thirteen years feeling like a strange changeling child separated from their home and people, and I still feel that way on my bad days. Now, I can hold my head up high because I know I’m not alone. My life isn’t perfect by any means, and I still struggle at times, but I am quickly learning to love myself for who I am. I know that I still have challenges to overcome whether they be big or small, but I know that I can do anything because I know who I am, and that’s enough.
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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.
