In my daily posts since last year, one of the hashtags that I used to use was labeled Autism Strong. It was taken after a fire department sold t-shirts with that on the chest. It got me to think over the years how strong I am not physically, but living with the challenges that being autistic brings me. There is so much in the world that authority figures growing up never believed that I could do because of the behaviors that I exhibited back then.

It has no doubt been a long road and has taken a lot of work to get where I am today. It can be hard to always see and admit that, but none the nonetheless, I accomplished it. It could be that I had a supportive family that saw the potential shine through when others could only see what was wrong with me and want me to not be a spoke in their machine they were in charge of. I believe that if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have been able to rebound as quickly as I did back then.

Then there are those moments over the past few years that have brought setbacks. I kept going no matter what. It could have been easy to not fight the fight that was needed to be fought, but in many ways, I worked feverishly to get where I have gotten to and am blessed to have the opportunities that have been provided to me. It wasn’t always easy to see that along with those early days when it was really challenging for both me and my parents. Somedays just getting through a day outburst or restraint free was a challenge, but it got better within time.

When I began to live independently, I lost focus of what it meant to take care of myself and do the things that my parents always instilled in me. Because they were a witness of me in my fury decades ago, they knew the dangers of when I did not take care of myself even when I could not see it. Sometimes we want things without realizing the harm we are doing to ourselves. Eventually I found out what that harm was and made more of a pledge to be more serious about caring for myself. Is it always easy? No. But you do it, because in my life there is no giving up. There may be thoughts of giving up, but they are just words, and I am doing better this year at removing them from my vocabulary, because I recognized that I needed to.

It can be hard sometimes and seem like life is unfair, but if any lesson that I learned in the past year is that you are taught the hand that you are dealt with because you are never a quitter and you never give up as much as you want to, you have to at least try something before you throw in the towel. It can be hard to do something sometimes, but being what I call autism strong gives me the courage to do what I need to do and live my life to the fullest potential. I am intending that going forward I am going to make my life the best that I can because I am worthy of it and the quality of life that has been provided to me.