Los Angeles Magazine Publication

When I was 19, I got my first paid writing job. My assignment was to write a personal essay on what it was like being on the autism spectrum. The personal essay, published online in the Los Angeles Magazine, titled ‘Overload,’ is about having severe, severe social anxiety in conjunction with ever-so subtle features of an autism spectrum disorder. 

I Speak For Myself

They say when you meet someone with autism, you’ve met one person with autism, which means anyone who you meet who has autism exhibits all unique and different traits. So, when we hear people say they are on the autism spectrum, the syndrome speaks for itself: autism is on a spectrum.

Having a developmental disability due to extreme birth prematurity is a neurodevelopment disorder. Whether I like it or not, the way people see me is that I am on the spectrum, but I see myself on my own spectrum, as I was born extremely early. Autism affects me in terms of not meeting milestones independently and socially, but as I get older, I have learned to close the gap between having developmental challenges over a life time as I reach newly improved milestones.

Despite the neurodevelopment challenges I have experienced across my life so far, when I observe and examine my strengths, I feel I communicate extremely well and as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize a significant factor in my ability to communicate so well is because I taught myself how to write at an extremely young age.  Without learning to discover myself through writing, if I never wrote and expressed my own ideas, I wouldn’t have been able to communicate to others the extent that I am capable of.  

I’m “Me” With Meaning

As a teenager, when I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, I never related to the diagnosis; I still don’t. I would always try to make people understand my own dichotomy.  So, allow me to explain the root of my socialization problems.  

I’ve always resonated with anxiety being the culprit of my trouble with meeting and making friends. However, to others, their explanation is completely different because from their point of view, my high anxiety looked like I had autism.  This was because I didn’t talk and I looked like I didn’t know what to say. Someone told me I didn’t know basic social skills and people told me I didn’t know how to socialize and that really hurt me deep inside because that never explained my real struggle.  The social awareness was there and the ability was there, but the authenticity of who I was felt extremely hidden.  Others observed me in many ways I would never consider myself as. 

My best strength in life are my written and verbal communication skills.  Based on my ability to have great communication skills, sometimes I question whether I’m on the spectrum or not.  I think a lot of my questioning has to do with my inability to accept myself.  

Tell Me How To Heal, Don’t Tell Me How To Feel

There are certain ways of defining who I am that I am appreciative of and all I ask is: Don’t tell me how I feel, tell me how to heal.  These descriptions of my past haven’t yet dissolved and the pictures that represent me have now changed. 

How I Define A Miracle

Now I see myself fully. I see you and you see me, as I have grown up and moved on from the NICU. I have devoted my whole life trying to understand myself in relation to being born extremely early. Today, I have dropped that necessity and the need for an answer because you can’t define a miracle. Why would I anyways? It happened, I survived and I’m living to tell you who I am. Not as a voiceless baby, but as an adult, who has persevered and come out the other side stronger and more resilient.