I am autistic and school has always been something I deeply struggled with growing up. All sorts of different problems would get in the way, as a result I ended up not continuing my studies further into university.
After my 19th birthday, I tried many different ways of staying in school, looking for a career path that made sense for me. Alongside that I dabbled in a few different work pathways, always leading to the same dead end. I never knew how i could properly find a place in life, find myself doing things I enjoy, having a successful career and being as independent as I can be as an autistic adult. Everybody expected me to sustain the same image as any other person who did not struggle with autism, the same milestones that I was never reaching, the same desires and needs.
Years later, trying to accept that at the end of the day I was not going to make these people happy and the best I could do was try to make myself happy. I started looking at non-conventional ways to look for what I wanted, I started accepting my creativity, accepting I was looking for different things than other people but most importantly, accepting the challenges I face as someone with autism.
When I came across studying online, I could not see how that would work out, as someone with autism and ADHD, I figured perhaps I lack the discipline, and "what if this", "what if that". Well, I don't know, there's no real message here.
Despite all of these things, I figured, f*ck it, what is there to lose. Let's give it a shot. So far it's going great, I can keep my strict routine, if I'm exhausted I can do it another time, no loud people in my ears and so many other things that made school so difficult for me. I mean, yes of course there's times where I am procrastinating when I shouldn't and so on so forth but I think I'm doing pretty well so far.