A few months ago, my mother told me that I have something called autism, which means that my brain works differently compared to other children.
In life, sometimes I do feel frustrated as sometimes I think other children find things easier than me when I don’t succeed in something. Usually thoughts go around my head one hundred miles an hour, especially when I’m trying to sleep, which can make me stressed as I find it hard to try stop thinking about things. It can also make you sad to realize that you think differently to other children. For example, sometimes, when you see the rest of the class managing to solve a maths question that you can’t, you think they all have a brain with the ability to understand the question and that your brain struggles with it, and you feel lonely and jealous, thinking, “It’s not fair! Why can’t I do that?”
However, in life, dismissing the fact that my brain works differently, I keep on trying the things I love, for example: sports and coding, and I try to achieve my targets in a different way that is comfortable for my brain to take step by step. I try to practise sports with my friends and sometimes with my father, while learning to score goals, practise my dribbling, do some beautiful flicks of the ball with my hockey stick, bowl batsman out, and hit some beautiful sixes. I try to play Minecraft with my sister every day as we learn from each other along the way.
As you are learning, you are training your own brain to take on everyday life in your own way. For example, if you want to be an artist, focus in any way that is comfortable for your brain to paint pictures; if you want to be a sportsman, focus in your learning in a comfortable way for your brain and focus on your target of playing sports; if you want to be a writer, try and come up with ideas for beautiful writing in a way that your brain can understand, and let it take you through the process of writing wonderful stories according to your abilities.
Remember, all of our brains work differently, and it’s up to you to train your brain to take on life as an adventure and go through its path and your dreams in your own way however it works and understands life, and most importantly, to do what you want to in the future.
Person with autism, age 11
