Through the Eye's of a Spectrum Living With Autism

Chapter 13: New Goals and Standing up for Myself

With junior year approaching me and fast, this was that moment in my life I called "think about my future" phase. I call it this, because this was the point in my life that I looked towards what I was going to do in my life.

As I was getting into my junior, I looked back on my dream of becoming a movie and T.V actor, and realized that having that kind of career is not all that it's cut out to be. I mean, I'm not saying no one should be an actor, but it's real complicated to be an actor. You have to worry about doing something that makes you look bad, and sometimes you can star in a bad movie that brings down your career, and suddenly you don't appear in anymore shows or movies. I decided that I didn't need that kind of stress on me.

And to be honest, I wanted to be on T.V and movies not just because I wanted to do what I love, but because I wanted to be kind of an icon for autism. I wanted to show everyone back then who told me I couldn't make it that I did make it. I just wanted to be someone people could look up to, where they could say "If that guy could get through what I'm going through then I can too."

But instead I opted to find a new career but the question was, what career would I aim for this time?

Heading back into school, I was unprepared for what was approaching, this year bought a rollercoaster of times for me, both good and bad. One of the classes they bought in finally was U.S history which I find rather interesting and would later become my second favorite class.

As a matter of fact as I continued to take this class, I became fascinated with the subject all by itself. Something about how the world was back then, how people acted and lived I found incredible. It was later in the year, that my step-mom Jenny would suggest that I pursue a career in teaching U.S history and history in general.

I was impressed with how much information I could take in with history, as a matter of fact, next to my acting skills and researching more about autism, I would always look up more historical happening of the past that could make me a great teacher. As far as I knew I had a knack for learning and teaching history. 

This was one of the goods that came out of that year, oh but that was just one of the good things that came out of it. Later in my junior year I would meet someone who could see as I would like to call "The perfect friend I could call" next to Brittany.

To keep her name private we will call Amelia, and I didn't really talk with her junior year, not until at least senior year. I know they say "don't judge a book by its cover"  well, I could say certainly say this, I could tell she was good person.

Brittany and her were obviously good friends, and by seeing how she was I can only describe as funny, sweet, and a little shy here and there, I could be wrong on the last one though, I don't really know. She seemed like a lot a fun too, she would always do stuff that made you laugh and I knew she was someone I could defiantly be friends with.

But like I said I didn't really talk to her much until senior year, but aside from all that, i knew she was a good person.

Of course with every good thing in life, there is always something bad that's gonna happen sooner or later. We'll start with what I think was the smallest problem for me was my theatre class. Before you get all shocked, wondering why my favorite class suddenly became a big problem for me, let me just explain, because there wasn't enough room supposedly in the junior classes, I was put into a class with freshmen and it was a that point I saw why people found freshmen annoying at times.

I tried to play it cool and play nice, but obviously these freshmen had humongous egos. They constantly kept patronizing me annoying.

But like I said, that was just a small problem, the big problem was the new people who I met in two of my classes and in the hall that would make some of my days a living hell. One of them, who's name I will not reveal, but will just call The Showoff. I call him a showoff because he constantly kept acting like he was a tough guy.

He would constantly talk smack to me and it was at this point in my life that I realized I had to stand up for myself. Every time he would talk trash I would tell him to back it up but no, all he did was run away, that right, a guy thought he look tough talking trash and running away. It was pathetic.

And the worst part about him, was that he had friends who helped him out, and didn't just have him for one class, I had him for two classes. U.S History one of my favorite classes and Physics. There was just no avoiding him.

But if there's one thing i could say I'm proud about myself was one time when I finally stood up for myself for real.

The story starts with my transition from U.S history class to Spanish class, as I was walking, the three guys pushed one of their friends into me, and of course not wanting to jump to conclusions I assumed it was just them messing around and it was just an accident. But of course when it comes to making assumptions, I am always wrong.

They repeated the same thing with pushing their friend into me over, and over, and over, and over again for a span of two weeks. At one point I wanted  to test something to see if it was on purpose and this was about the third time they did it. I bought a friend who took the same hall as me for his next class and asked him to stand to the side of me blocking them.

As we were walking these guys actually waited for an opening and once I had to get past someone, they took that opportunity and did it again. I knew right there, they were just picking on me for the heck of it, and I told myself enough is enough, if they did it again I would fight back.

As I walked down the hall again, that's when I saw, only could tell they were waiting for me, you wanna know why, cause they were standing in the middle of the hall staring down where I was coming from and the second I walked down the hall they began to walk towards my way.

I kept praying over and over "Please don't them bother me." and they did. They pushed the same friend of theirs into me and right there and then I retaliated. I grabbed the guy by his backpack strap and punched him in the back three times, and then shoved him to the ground. And then turned my attention to the other two and made my way towards them ready to pummel them.

They ran off laughing looking like complete idiots, and I then continued my way to Spanish class. It felt so good to let out frustration that way, because afterwards, those three guys never even looked my way after what I did.

So with a few minor problems here and there, three good things came out of my junior year, I learned to stand up for myself, I found my true interest in history, and I made a new friend. And with senior year approaching, things were looking up for me.