The symptoms were always there: aggression, avoiding eye-contact, and weak social interaction. I had all these behavioral issues, but no specialist I saw said “autism.”

It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that it clicked. I looked up the indicators, Google doesn’t lie, websites talking about the Autistic Spectrum Disorder or ASD were lining up. It was all there, the first page was the official site of the Center of Disease Control. What I could potentially have was right there in front of me. I didn’t click on it.

I didn’t want to know. Great, another label. I couldn’t take more criticism, a change in the way people treat me, and most importantly, an additional mental illness.

People don’t like labels. In today’s society that’s all that seems to matter:

“Oh, you’re gay.”

“You’re a Muslim. Terrorist!”

“You’re a police officer, you must be evil.”

It does not stop. No one can be themselves and they hide behind what humanity sees as acceptable. I had to fit into the stereotype, yet I knew there was something off. There had always been something off.

I thought about it and decided to see what the CDC had to say about ASD.

“ASD begins before the age of 3 and lasts throughout a person’s life.” I read that again, age 3, it said however, here I am at 19 just now finding out. Why hadn’t my parents seen it before? Why haven’t they asked doctors, psychiatrists?

“Has trouble understanding other people’s feelings or talking about own feelings.” Explains everything. Acting out, instead of saying how I felt, the struggle it was to understand why someone would be sad or mad.

The entire CDC list of “Red Flags” put me on the autistic spectrum. I had to tell my parents. What I did not know is that they had thought about this already when I was still in high school. How could they not tell me? Then I learned that there was nothing I could do. That’s what my therapist said. I was too old and already too far in development. How could it be that there was nothing I could do?

Then I realized it didn’t matter.

I am still me. This was not something that just decided to come into my life at 19. It was something I had lived with for years, I just wasn’t given a name for it. It was just a label. I had learned for myself how to deal with it and make friends and keep them.

I am not autism; you are not the labels that doctors or others put on you. I am who I am and who I am is what I have learned through life experiences. I worked my way through difficulties to become the best that I can be. Others are who they are because of the life experiences that molded them.

Realizing that there is a new label in your life does not mean you have to act upon it and let it define you. It is the realization that you can be who you want without falling into labels.