Over the past few months, a lot of things have changed in my life and in fact there have been some challenges, yet I have been recognized by others of how proud they are for me being able to do so many things that at one time seemed impossible or that progress has been made. For myself, there is difficult to proudly acknowledge the recognition that has been given to me because it can be hard to understand why others are giving it to me.

I have always said that I have come from the dark ages of autism. It was before autism was brought to the forefront of the world as it is now. In those early days, accommodations and acceptance was something that wasn’t easily accepted by others, it took people to deeply realize that I did have potential and it required a lot of having to be able to manage and mask myself in a world where I was not able to be able to be the genuine autistic person that I am.

Therefore, being recognized for getting through challenging situations is something that is just a standard procedure, because for far too long there were little accommodations due to neurodiversity was not as affluent as it is today, particularly in those such as myself who very much from the outside cannot appear as having the challenges as I do. As such, I was often expected to be able to conduct myself that was expected of both my peers and colleagues because not everyone was properly educated on how to best accommodate my needs. Granted, it was my parents and treasured professionals that did countless hours of online research at a time when information was very limited and abstract, and even at times by those who did not want to recognize it and rather think that I was a just a “bad kid”, I was held to the same expectations as everyone else.

Therefore, for several years even after the diagnosis itself was finally confirmed, there was always an expectation that I was to conduct myself in the same manner as the rest of the world because I had always felt that there was no ability to have wiggle room from the expectations set forth and that even doing so presented myself as having some sort of weakness.

As such, it has been continually difficult for me to be recognized when someone shows a token of appreciation for the progress that I have made because I have always had the expectation of having to bear reality and fall into the form of neurotypical practices without the necessity of asking for accommodations because I had always felt doing so was weak, but as time has evolved to the current moment, I am being more aware of my need to advocate for myself and ask for accommodations when necessary due to the fact of autism being a more prevalent thing in the world that we live in along with recognizing the challenges I have made to get to where I am today in a world that has indeed been against me many times but I have continued to keep on doing what I need to do to manage.