It can be hard to believe that as old as I am I am still reaching new milestones. Milestones are often landmarks that are reached when autistic individuals are children. Despite common belief, milestones can be reached into adulthood and can be the smallest of things to some amazing and big things.

It can be hard to believe that despite having so many struggles last year, there have been so many things that I have learned to do in the past year and even into today. It is not that there has been a willingness or desire for my loved ones to work at trying to teaching me how to do things. Sometimes when the bare minimum was achieved, that was something that my parents just no longer had to worry about.

Sometimes as an autistic adult, it can be a bigger milestone when it comes to learning how to do things because it becomes less of a struggle for us to do things that we have been having struggles with for decades. We have these struggles, but there are times when we do not want to be honest  about them because we may feel we will be misunderstood, or we will be embarrassed. Sometimes, it needs to be someone else that explains things to us that other trusted individuals do not feel comfortable explaining or it is something that is expected for us to understand on or on our own. Or it was expected that we would be given the basic education on it but may need to know the mechanics to successfully complete the task. We need some tools to help us be successful in doing something. Whatever it is, we just need that inspiration and encouragement to do something to make it happen.

There are times when we do not feel comfortable doing something or we feel we do not understand it. But when we feel confident or we see how something works, we feel confident to do something and the relief we feel that we are no longer left in the dark when it comes to having do something improperly or the way that we have become accustomed to that makes us feel sort of frustrated and uncomfortable is finally over. We see that there is light at the end of the tunnel thinking that we are going to struggle with something or must have someone help us do something for us the rest of our lives!

The most important thing to remember is to celebrate the milestones as they come in your own way . Even if you must keep them to yourself, think of something that you can do to feel better and proud of yourself so you can know that all the time you have been struggling with something was well worth the effort in doing what you needed to do to achieve that milestone. It is not going to be perfect at first, but having some progress is better than no progress, no matter how late in life it is, you can always reach new milestones.