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High functioning autism explains most of my life. From the time I was young, I always felt a bit disconnected from others. As a young kid, I was homeschooled and was unaware of high functioning autism altogether. My parents and peers never had any suspicion I was on the autism spectrum. Most of my days were spent fairly disconnected from the world… I would spend hours and hours in my basement playing World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Warcraft 3, Halo 2, or whatever other video games I was currently obsessed with playing. High functioning autism did not really show its face until I got married, joined the Army, and moved away from home.
I attended college first at Howard Community College (still living at home) and then transferred to Lycoming College in PA where I completed Army ROTC. Lycoming College is an extremely small College with about 1400 students total. Honestly, the reason I chose to attend such a small college was that I felt overwhelmed by the noise and environment at the larger Universities I had visited. In hindsight, this is one of those situations where high functioning autism certainly reared it’s head a bit to influence my decision-making process.
Watch this video to hear the full story:
High functioning autism is sneaky because it hides in plain side. Again, in hindsight, I see very clearly where I was somewhat at the whims of the disorder without realizing what was happening. At college, I was a total loner. I avoided people because it felt a bit overwhelming. I hated going to parties because it was too loud and I always felt really awkward. Mostly, I stayed in the library at the same computers every day working on homework or browsing the internet. I loved martial arts… I still do!
High functioning autism did not really affect my life until I got married. You see, I had been doing Army ROTC during my time at Lycoming College and had commissioned as an officer in the US Army Military Police Corps. I was going to be stationed in Germany for three years. At this time, my girlfriend and I decided to get married so she could come. After all, she was my absolute best friend and we wanted to continue having fun together.
We got married and moved to Germany. Almost immediately, high functioning autism reared its head and the real problems began to emerge. Keep in mind: I still have no clue about high functioning autism or any of the details of how this works… All that I know is that my life SUCKS. For whatever reason, It’s difficult for me to function at my new job.
Meanwhile, my relationship is falling apart practically right from the beginning. Although the friendship between us is still strong, I’m realizing that I’m not a very emotionally supportive spouse.
High functioning autism was at the root of so many of the issues that I had… Now, when I finally found out about it, things clicked… For the longest time, I absolutely hated my life. I was miserable, things were just getting worse, and it felt like I was cursed with a terrible life. This is about 1.5 years ago. My marriage was getting worse and worse.
It wasn’t until I unlocked the key to evolving my mindset and connecting with my spirituality that things began to shift. I learned about the Law of Attraction, I learned about self-love and acceptance, I began to get to the root of some serious limiting beliefs. So many limiting beliefs around self-acceptance, self-approval, and self-love began to emerge. What was the result of this intense period of self-discovery?
Well, I’m gay. It explained so much… It explained why my emotions were always overwhelming me. I had blamed this high functioning autism thing but really it was unexpressed sexual emotions that were locked up inside. Once I began this period of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-realization, everything changed. High functioning autism is a superpower. All that needed to change was ME and how I view the world, myself, and my “disorder”. My life radically changed. Share this video with someone in the event they’re fighting a battle you know nothing about.
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Previously published on beyondhomosapien.com.
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