Ways My Background Has Shaped Me Today

Hardly ever was I well-off financially. My Dad and Mom divorced when I was 9 and there was plenty of financial hardship from it. I have been poor for a long time because of it and there have been times when my Mom helped out financially the most and while that is no longer the case since I'm independent and am on SSI and Food Stamps, she does help out sometime with costs while on a teacher's salary. Having a background as someone who despite working 8 hours or so a week at a paid job, going to school with parents paying, working at home to gain skills to be independent, and volunteering in the community, I am on government funding and will be until I get a Public Relations job. My family gives me some economic privilege and while my Dad helps out with the cell phone and internet and milk, I get help from my Mom for other things too to enable me to be the best person I can be. So I owe my Mom a great deal of gratitude for me this day and every day. I also owe the group home I lived at a great deal of gratitude. My supervisors there were completely incredible in how, through somewhat tough love, got me to be the loving, kind, caring person I am today, and while I have baggage that will keep me in counseling for a while (maybe a long while), the group home got rid of some of that baggage, helped me with independence skills, helped me realize that affection isn't a bad thing but sometimes isn't good, helped me with cooking, helped me with daily tasks, and so many other things now, as someone on the waiver program takes for granted. I also feel like 2 other things, one related to my autism and one unrelated, has helped shape me to be who I am today. The autism one first: I had this person in Community Connections as a mentor who was hard to deal with sometimes because of his temper and because he was tough on me. I later came to the realization that he was tough on me because he wanted to succeed and that is why, when he was disappointed, his temper showed sometimes. He wanted me to not make excuses and to try my hardest and deal with everything as well as I could. He also wanted me to show appreciation for what I got. He was a good guy and a god-send when I moved the first time and he is still a true friend, cheering me on via texting. And since most people reading this know that I'm Christian, the other thing is my bisexuality, which I will explain in a few sentences: I had known that something was different since I was in 6th grade which started off with comments and I, years later dated a few men. Since it's much easier to deny it and be closeted about it, I decided to not acknowledge it until about a couple years ago at a New Years Party. Since then, I've been a lot more open about it being who I am and lost friends and, for the most part, a church home over it. But I have gained respect over it through other people and it is something that, for sure shapes my life. Having a lot of privilege is something that went out the door when I was born and I realize that. God's plan? Maybe, maybe not, no use dwelling on that. How I was created? Absolutely. And God is singing at the successes I've had despite all of this background struggle and triumph with lots of school success and even in the struggles of being bullied and teased and having hurt things said to me every day in high school and sometimes by people in college that I think I respect, it helps me realize that without those experiences, I wouldn't be stronger and I wouldn't be me.

Personal Fullfillment

We all search for the deep meaning of ourselves. I get it through friends, through family, through support, and through coffee. Other people look for other items to get through to their own personal fulfillment in how they use their own lives. I particularly find exercise and advocacy to be fulfilling. Exercise because it gives me personal achievement and relaxation and self-advocacy because it gives me joy and it gives me life-long friends. But none of this is even comparable to my enjoyment that I get from the Lord without trying to sound all religious. My relationship with the Lord, and since this is a public blog it will be passing outside of these few sentences, is one of the more solid relationships with anyone I could have. Closer than family and friend, this is the kind of unconditional love I would want people to remember anything that high for. But even in that, I feel structured to say that if I wasn't encouraged by my family, I wouldn't have it as strong. Fulfillment is something that has to be learned thoroughly, not given freely in ones likeness of choosing. I feel fulfilled by all my activities, but the more I see people getting help, the more I realize that I need help. My life is personally fulfilled by all who realize how far I've come and continue to and to me it seems like people don't know the lengths that I've gone to remedy what is in the past until they've seen it first-hand. I live strongly and admire the people I've grown accustomed to loving and the fulfillment comes from within. Personal fulfillment is just that: very personal.

My Appreciation For Individuality

Sometimes I do things that might seem out-of-the ordinary for most. Sometimes I can be over-excited or loud. But I think (because I've heard this over and over), that one of the biggest reasons why I am well-liked and well-known is because I'm not afraid of what other people think of me and I'm open about what I pursue and when I want something, I pursue after it. I'm also an authentic individual- I'm normally not going to tip-toe around things or tell people what they want to hear if it's not the truth. I think sometimes people can't tell that I have autism unless they know what to look for, however, I think that because autism is so individualistic, everyone who has autism is an individualist. I've come to appreciate the various friends that I know with autism well for the things they have taught me- everything from true love and acceptance of all to having energy to having road-map like conversations to touching peoples lives to social cues being hard but doable in many different things. And people with autism have varying careers of varying degrees of difficulty. Not to discount Temple Grandin, but this is slowly becoming the exception for college-based people with autism rather than the norm. The majority I have met have dreams of helping their fellow people with autism and doing so by majoring in Psychology, Disability Studies, Communications, Art, Anthropology, and so on. These things were less possible ten years ago, now they are common. And I think that life would be so boring if there weren't individualism in the autism community. I am more than sure that someday more people with autism, even more than now, will be able to get a great education and go to college. And when that continues to happen, I will be yet another amazing advocate that can mentor even more of them and create a safe place for their parents and support system. That's one more reason why I'm looked up to and can look up to individualism, whether people have autism or not.