For the longest time I have acted immaturely towards those who love and support me the most out of thinking that I was not getting all the attention. It is something that I am not the proudest of, but when I am thinking about it in the right way, I do not act that way and do what I need to do to be the person that I need to be.

I often want to put my needs above those of what others are feeling. In the autistic community, it can be seen as not having empathy for others because you do not consider the needs of others when acting on things that you should consider the needs of others before your own. It can be easy to think that we just don’t care when in fact there is a reflex oftentimes that we feel as if we need to get what we want how we want it, but over the past year I had to learn the hard way that just doesn’t happen that way.

Yes, there have been times when I have been selfish in nature especially towards those that love and support me the most. I act the way that I act at times because I had felt that I would get the necessary attention that I desired, but what I was getting was negative and unwanted attention. It was being the person that others did not want me to become, and I knew that, but there were times that I may have been jealous of not being able to be the person that I know that I can be if I wanted to be that person.

Sometimes, it takes being that person that I know that I can be not only in the experience that I currently have with those close to me that I know that I can  by being mature and adult like instead of pointing out all that is wrong and pouting like a little kid because I don’t always get to do what I want to do. There is a fine line between doing things you can’t handle and what you don’t want to do. Sometimes it requires us to buckle up and do what is needed out of necessity, not because we are immature and want to throw the autism card at whoever we think will listen to us as a way to get out of something that we know we can do.

If we as autistic people are unhappy with the way that some things are in our lives, it is up to us to work at attaining the things that we need to attain so we can have the quality of life that we desire, then we don’t have to be that immature and childish person all the time and continue to wallow in self-pity about all that is wrong with the world. We as autistic people, in many cases, have the power if we want and are able to make the changes that we want about ourselves, especially if we know that we can do them and be the person that we need to be.

It takes courage, yes, but we will get there because we need to sometimes and that can mean being tough and disciplined with ourselves. It sometimes doesn’t seem like we can or want to do that, but sometimes it becomes a necessity, and we must follow through with what we have to do to become more mature because it is expected that we do.