Autism gave me answers

It gave me a reason why, at the age of 22, I would regularly end up crying in public. It wasn't because I was spoiled and trying to get my way. It wasn't because I was trying to make people feel sorry for me. It was because my brain would sometimes get overwhelmed.

It gave me an answer to why sometimes my voice stopped working. It wasn't because I was just being difficult. It was just because I was me.

It gave me an answer to why I so often would break down after really fun days without anything really going wrong (even though other people didn't) (a lot of these really fun, awesome days involved a lot of things that would normally stress me out, like socializing and people and talking and stuff, and even with the fun, it just eventually built up to be overwhelming). I was just overwhelmed. 

It gave me an answer to why social things so often didn't work out. It explained why I had so much trouble understanding and following large conversations. It explained why things seemed so hard that other people found so easy. Because they quite possibly, most actually are.

It gave me an answer to why I couldn't sit still, to why I was abnormally always in motion. It told me why I was always humming, counting, bouncing. It told me that was ok.

It gave me new tools to try, new resources to use. It gave me new people to meet. It gave me new ideas.

Autism told me I wasn't broken.

Autism gave me hope.