Today is Autism Awareness Day. As many of you know, I have autism myself, as I am on the spectrum with high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome. I’d like to talk about autism, how it’s changed my life, and what I’ve learned about it.

Being autistic has largely made me not normal in life although I seem normal from the outside. The truth is that while I seem normal, I am actually very quirky. I lack social skills, struggle with eye contact, and can be seen as “odd” and “weird” by normal people (even though I see myself as unique). Autistic people are obsessed with certain things, and this is why I have several big obsessions (things related to sports, cars, music, etc.). A lot of people don’t understand autism and don’t understand autistic people, and I wish that could be different.

As many of you know, I transferred to an autism school in October of 2021. While I have come to love and embrace my current academic situation, I have also been able to learn A LOT about kids like me. While I knew the autism spectrum had various levels, it has been at this school that I have truly learned more about people like me. While there are kids like me that are high functioning and seem normal, others are different in their own way. Some autistic people are non-verbal altogether and struggle to communicate, and all autistic kids have speech impediments, where we can struggle to verbally communicate, and our speech isn’t perfect by any means. A lot of autistic kids stutter, and autistic kids don’t have the world’s most perfect speech. And that’s okay. Being at this school has given me a better understanding of kids with different forms of autism than I do, and now I have come to understand the various spectrums of autism.