What would you tell a person about receiving a diagnosis of autism?
It is probably no secret that, as individuals, people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are considered to be more idiosyncratic than those classified as neurotypical. I should know because I am someone who has autism. We think differently. We see the world differently. And that, in turn, affects how we interact with those whom we come into contact. Yet, despite these differences, we share one thing in common with neurotypicals: We want to know that our lives have meaning and that our worth is greater than the sum of our characteristics.
I was not diagnosed with ASD until I was nearly an adult, so growing up with unexplained behaviors brought me nothing but confusion and heartache. I learned firsthand what it was like to be looked down on by others who saw my abnormalities as something to be mocked and ridiculed. My peers in school would bully me every day at recess, and my teachers would punish me for behavior that I did not know was socially unacceptable. Even my neighbors and members of my church community ostracized me simply because I did not act like a normal kid. All of this took a significant toll on my mental health, which led me to develop other psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and depression.
Things only got worse as I grew from being a child to a teenager. It was at about this time that I began to demonstrate more erratic symptoms, which led me to act out in ways that made me a danger to myself and the people near me. By this point, my parents had managed to obtain for me the medical care needed to treat such conditions, and I was soon diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and paranoid psychosis. This was on top of my ASD—which had not yet been formally diagnosed—as well as my many other diagnoses, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and Tourette’s syndrome. When combined with the hormones that come with puberty, it wound up creating a perfect storm that threatened to commit me to a state mental institution for the rest of my life.
Fortunately for me, my doctors were able to prescribe the proper medications to treat my diagnosed disorders, which allowed me to feel stable for the first time in my life. These medications had to be adjusted over the years, and new ones would eventually be added to better stabilize my condition. Still, the medication, along with the guidance of competent medical personnel, gave me hope that I could live a normal life as long as I was willing to put in the work and do what my doctors told me to do. However, my condition proved to be more complex than I had thought it would be. When I was finally diagnosed with Asperger syndrome—which was one of several neurodevelopmental disorders that were later reclassified as ASD—I was told that my autism, in conjunction with my other disorders, would make a normal life very difficult to achieve.
I did not let that deter me. There was nothing I wanted more than to live life as an average person would. I did everything in my power to rise above my circumstances. I went to therapy to address the trauma I had experienced. I graduated from a university and earned a master’s degree so that I could one day find employment at a college and gain a salary and benefits that would allow me to live independently from my parents. I read every book I could about interpersonal communication to improve my social skills so I could make friends and one day find a woman to marry, settle down with, and raise a family. I did everything the way I was told was proper and correct so that I would someday realize my dream of being self-sufficient and find acceptance within a world ruled by neurotypical people.
But then, one day, I began to realize that maybe I was never meant to live a normal life. After experiencing a few rough years post-graduation, I began to reflect on my life and recognize how certain events in my earlier years had been preparing me for something more than I had initially hoped to achieve: my experience with autism; the trauma from my maltreatment in the community; the agony of having to live with unrelenting depression and anxiety. I had to endure all of that to know what it was like to feel absolutely worthless. This would give me the empathy I would need to relate to countless other people around the world who have felt like I have, especially those living with a neurodevelopmental disorder such as autism. This would then give me the insight I needed to accomplish the one task I had longed to accomplish yet was afraid to pursue given the low probability of success: to write and publish an epic fantasy novel that is about finding self-worth amid great trials.
I knew I had the talent to succeed. My English teacher in high school told me that I wrote some of the most inventive stories she had ever read and that I had a future as a writer if I only dared to pursue it. Of course, I wanted to pursue it with all my heart, more so than any other career I had ever considered. But I knew the statistics. I knew that only one in a million aspiring authors ever finds the success that leads to multimillion-dollar book deals and worldwide acclaim. Everyone else would only see mediocre returns on their creative investments, which I knew would not be enough to obtain the life I wanted. So, for years, I treated my writing ventures as a hobby, believing that I needed to focus my energies on other pursuits in order to get the kind of job that paid enough for me to live on my own. Yet, despite my best efforts, I could never shake the feeling that I was meant to write a certain story. Something that only I was uniquely qualified to write. And the more I fought the urge to write it, the more unhappy I became.
By the time I graduated from college, I had written what I thought was a pretty good epic fantasy novel, at least for an amateur writer. As I started applying for jobs, I found myself re-examining the story I had written and discovered that it held great potential to become something truly remarkable. It was a tale about a young man’s struggle to find peace in a chaotic world, much like a young person with autism who is searching for stability in a world that is outside of his control. It was also a story about finding faith in oneself, which was certainly something that could be considered a universal experience. But most of all, it was a story about uncovering the truth about one’s innate worth as a human being, which was a message I knew that so many people could benefit from hearing. I knew I had written something extraordinary. Something that would not only help me beat the odds of achieving success, but also help me attain the life I had always wanted.
As of the time of this writing, I have finished work on this same novel and am preparing to release it as an audiobook. I know it has the potential to succeed, and I have taken steps to ensure that readers from around the world will have access to this story once it is finally released. My only hope is that readers will discover something truly remarkable about themselves as they are led on a journey through a world full of colorful characters and places designed to help them see themselves in a new, exciting way.
I take the opportunity to say that although every person with autism may experience life in a different way than I did, their worth as human beings is no greater or less than my own. Our worth is based not on what we currently are, but on what we have the potential to become—and I know from my own experiences that we all have the potential to become something truly extraordinary. So, the next time you come across someone who has a neurodevelopmental disorder, know that they are no different than you. They want to be loved. They want to be accepted. And above all, they want to find meaning in this crazy journey we call life. Let’s do as Charles Dickens once admonished us and begin to see our fellow human beings “as fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys” (A Christmas Carol, 1843).
Footnotes
Mr. Watts reports no financial relationships with commercial interests.
