Richard 

Richard is a 22 year old that lives in Tuscawras county in Ohio. His life was plenty normal. Married parents and two sisters. But it was also very different. 

Richard grew up unaware of something that made growing up a little harder. 

He found out he had autism at age 21 the same time his son was diagnosed before then he had been misdiagnosed bipolar. 

He said "it was a challenge growing up, it was hard to make 

friends and hard to communicate with others in general. I wasn't in the right classes I should have been in in school." Richard went to a school for bad or troubled students because he acted up because he wasn't in the proper environments. 

"My home situation wasn't much better, it wasn't the environment someone on the spectrum should be in." 

  

Often times he went to the Bolivar Dam to escape all the commotion and hardships he was facing and all the things he didn't understand. He found the sound of the rushing water to be calming.  

Growing up his family wasn't very close, his older sister had been going through a lot of things and him and his younger sister didn't get much attention and got away with more things then they should have. His family is now very close and talk to each other every day. He feels better and happier now that his family has grown together and became closer. 

Richard doesn't have much of an opinion on the community aspect of growing up. He said that he felt that he wasn't apart of his community. 

He said that people scared him and hid a lot. He had sensory issues that caused him to have panic attacks in public and would have to leave before he was suppose to. 

This video explains a lot of what it feels like for someone for with Autism and sensory processing disorder. It's not perfect but it is one of the most accurate ones. As someone who also has autism and sensory processing disorder I would have to agree. We found this video on YouTube on The National Autistic Awareness page. 

Richard now feels like he is more apart of the community and is doing much better being a member of society and is more comfortable being apart of it.