It’s not easy to feel like you’ve lost your voice. It’s important to not allow it to get away if you can control that.
At some point around Kindergarten, whether before or after, I was diagnosed with OCD on a more debilitating degree, due to a lack of focus in classes and general lifestyle. I found myself constantly counting and trying to memorize things to the point where my brain was completely strained and it actually hurt to think at times.
Since I like to describe myself as being born an adventurer, somebody who always strives for the truth and yearns to solve life’s mysteries in a creative way, this was a struggle for me. Imagine wanting to be really amazing at everything and being able to do next to none of those things. This was my life.
Back then, in the early 2000s or so, I’m not sure what the world’s stance on Autism was, or any form on the spectrum. If you asked me to pull the knowledge out of my ass, I would simply say, “The world was not yet enlightened enough on it” because, for me, it went unnoticed. I continued to make few VERY close friends in school and march to my own beat of the drum.
This was okay. I made it through.
I found an even balance in my life and though plagued by constant thoughts of striving for perfection and not being able to achieve it, wanting to just leap out of a window during class and run to the nearest hill and stargaze for hours (my favorite thing to do when I was a child) and getting off track continuously as I considered my future rather than ‘living in the now’. A brain that was constantly whirring, nonstop.
I was fourteen when I spoke to a psychologist (this was hard for me, very hard, because I was terrified of doctors in any form) and after running some tests that seemed endless at the time, I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.
For those who don’t know anything about it, that’s okay. I can just very briefly sum it up in one sentence: it is listed on the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) characterized by social impairment, including how you interact with others, and repetitive restrictions, which is where the OCD comes in. It sounds unusual, I’m sure, to those who don’t know much about it, but consider yourself to be in my shoes as I continue on.
It’s not easy.
It has become EASIER in the past few years, but by no means is it easy. I denied myself of medication in any form because I wanted to take on the battle myself. Why did I want to get a diagnosis in the first place? Because simply put, I wanted answers. My life is all about wanting answers and this was not limited.
It is very easy for somebody to get on my nerves. I love my parents, but there’s a severe lack of communication due to this, so imagine that as well as you imagine the struggle. Not being able to voice to them exactly what is going through your mind, ending in constant frustration.
For those of you who have talked to me in person, I smile. I obviously smile. Things make me happy, yes. A common misconception is that people with AS don’t smile, can’t love, can’t do anything. That’s bull. 
Things make me happy, things make me sad, things make me angry.
But it’s the being able to correctly portray them, that sucks. I have few very, very close friends and the ones that I do, I sometimes push away for weeks on end because they aren’t like me. I relate more to people who share my interests, who I can ramble nonstop about art, writing, marine biology, cars, the works – for hours on end, and not have them say, “You’re boring the hell out of me, just shut up.”
Most often times if I can sense sarcasm (which is a struggle as well) or a bored tone of voice, I will shut them out for a little while until I feel comfortable, I take that as a ‘trust’ thing. I end up trusting almost everybody until they prove me wrong because I don’t know what it feels like to lie. And I’m perfectly fine with that.
When I was fourteen I got into my first real relationship which lasted for six years and included, somewhere in those years, giving birth to my first child, a little girl who does not have Autism in any form. My significant other started out very supportive of me but as time went on, we grew distant and I do believe that me being completely different from he was a defining factor in this – once again, that was okay, I had to accept that.
Recently I have found somebody who loves me for me, and now I have a wonderful little family and I’m able to lean on somebody’s shoulder for once in my life and know that he has a good grasp, that he can put himself in my shoes without actually having been THROUGH this.
I used to, as a child, wonder if I would ever fall in love, like a fairytale of sorts. I grew somewhat pessimistic of the fact and decided I would probably wander the rest of my life alone, but this isn’t the case. We DO love, and we can BE loved.
I just ask that those who love me, work with me. Relationships and aspects of my life have been destroyed because of this, but I still move on and push forward, and yes I am genuinely happy!
And furthermore, yes this gets easier as I continue to find my way. I really love meeting people through Facebook and forums with Asperger Syndrome just to get a feel of what they go through, because we’re all different. I don’t like to look at other people as NTs (Neuro-typicals) as they call them, BECAUSE I like to think I’m just like you. And that’s all there is to it.
Autism speaks, and so do I. And I’m not going to stop, either.
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