I'm eighteen years old.
When I was an infant my mother, along with the rest of my family, saw that I couldn't keep eye contact for very long, and ever since then I cannot keep eye contact for very long. When I was at the age of four I was diagnosed with autism. I had no idea I had autism until I was five since that's when my mom told me because she thought I wouldn't understand at the age of four.
When I entered sixth grade in my Middle School that I went to, my life began to change. The teachers there were more strict than in Elementary School and when the first day came around I didn't do well. After that I got into problems with some of my teachers since I couldn't keep eye contact for very long.
However, when I entered High School in ninth grade my behavior started to change from not paying attention to sort of paying attention. When I was a Sophomore I began my first sports activity since fifth grade which was Outdoor Track and I began to become more and more happy and excited. This was due to doing a sport.
Just a few weeks ago, on August 5th, I got a job at Goodwill though a place called Voc. Rehab. I'm being trained right now and some of the stuff is hard for me since some times I move slow and the work there has a fast pace to it so its going to be very hard to adapt to this job as a Sales Associate 2. Plus my thinking speed is not that fast at times so that's another down side to the job.
Tomorrow I'm going to be going to my first day of college. I'm a Freshman now and I'm really nervous as expected. A lot of people that I went to High School with knew I was autistic. However, this is college so its going to be like Kindergarten all over again meaning I have to make new friends meaning going out of my comfort zone.
Topsham, ME
