Do not let being autistic be an excuse.
I did not know that I am autistic until 2014, when I was 41 years old. I had spent my whole life struggling with various issues: temperament, social skills, coordination, being socially improper, seeing the world in black and white, extremely narrow point of view, meltdowns that were scary to most people who experienced them, executive function, overly narrow special interests, etc. Life was extremely stressful to me and I was never happy with myself. Not knowing that I was autistic did not stop me from working on elements of my struggles that I could see and understand. Progress was not easy, but I was not happy with the struggles and wanted to overcome them, or at least understand them. For most of my life, my struggles were noticeable and troublesome to everyone who knew me. I started to make real progress in my work around 2010, during my last round of counselling with then Fr. John A., now His Grace Bishop JOHN.
The real progress came in 2014 when I met Akira. Like me, Akira has Aspergers Syndrome. Akira loved me enough to be vulnerable and mirror to me how my actions affected others. Seeing the way my actions hurt someone who I loved dearly was like a swift kick in the gut. Akira opening my eyes to being autistic was an enormous relief to me. Finally I understood the nature of my struggles and began to realize that they were not in vain. I did not use the knowledge of being autistic as an excuse to continue being difficult, but rather as a tool to helping me grow as a person.
After Akira came my friendship with Rhoda. Like me, Rhoda is an artist and has a very spiritual view of the world. When I met Rhoda I could feel her energy and knew immediately that I was in the presence of a kindred soul. Rhoda was able to help me take what Akira had taught me and build on it. Rhoda and I regularly exchanged ideas about art and the meaning of life and the books that we were reading in order to encourage each other in our personal artistic endeavors, and in life in general. Rhoda has been my constant encouragement over the journey of the past 5 years. She encouraged me to keep creating art, even when I stopped painting icons for 3 years. She did not turn on me when she first met me, even though she could see that I was going through a dark time of much introspection and struggle. People who truly love you will always find a way to support you and encourage you when they see that you are working hard to overcome your personal struggles.
Those who meet me today and did not know me 10 years ago have no knowledge of just how much of a struggle the first 41 years of my life were and just how far I have come. I do not want them to know that person. I am not proud of that person. I did not love that person. I do love the person who I have become. The person who understands the struggles and limitations that I have and who seeks to regularly overcome them. The person who is not afraid to be myself and who has finally found a voice to express those things that I could only express in the past through unpleasant means. I am still me. However, I have worked hard to grow and develop as a person. I still have all of the same struggles that I have had my entire life, but now that I understand them and can talk about them, I can work on them. I share this with you so that you know that you have a choice. You can let your struggles limit you, or you can work to understand them and hopefully someday flourish amidst them. It will not be easy and it will not come overnight. For me it took 4 decades, 2 failed marriages and most of the people that I knew turning their back on me before I finally began to make real, noticeable progress. But with hard work it can be done.
