Anders P.

Photography by Caroline MacLaren

If you're reading this, the most important thing people can know about you is you. 

I’ve always felt different but, in a "different" way. 

I've always been told the same things everyone has heard before: everyone has tough moments in college. It's a big adjustment period for everyone. Everyone has trouble making friends at first. 

But then as time went on, everyone around me started to form connections, relationships and groups that were cohesive and consistent. Time after time, I was never able to develop that sense of continuity that everyone else around me had. I had it for a semester, but those who I shared it with slowly began to isolate me from the group for reasons that I will never really know.

Frustratingly, even in conversations that I had been in where people talked about how they felt like they were not always 100% "in" socially and felt aware of Villanova's socially toxic traits, many of those people were people in high profile greek organizations who would go out or go to bars every single weekend in groups of up to ten, always with something to do and people to do it with, understanding that it would happen. People that, even though we were vocalizing some of the same things, had access to things I felt I could never obtain. Even the "weird" kids had a couple people they could always count on to stay in and watch a movie with on Saturday night. For long scenes under the spotlight, I didn't have any of that. 

I never liked it when I heard that people only put highlights and not lowlights on social media, or that people use it to fake it. Because in order to fake it, you have to have at least something to work with to pull it off. I didn't have the ability to fake it if I wanted to.

I felt like an outsider. Going into the fall semester of sophomore year, I was on a "wave and say hi" basis with nearly thirty kids but with nothing to show for it. I tried to rush twice - I felt like that was a reach to begin with given who I was - but that lasted for about five minutes. No matter who I was around, no matter what social subgroup I could somehow manage myself into, I always felt like the odd one out. I felt like my access to the Villanova experience was being cut off, ranging all the way from plans to go to the food trucks falling apart at the last minute all the way to the idea of Courts being something that might as well have not existed. I felt depressed, defeated, and hopeless. These were feelings I had moments of in high school, but was my constant reality at Villanova. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know who I was. 

But that changed. During fall break, I learned something about myself in a conversation with my mom about the struggles I was having. Something that would completely shift my perspective of the situation. Something that would change absolutely everything for the rest of my life.

I have Autism.

It is the most life affirming piece of news or information I have ever received. Everything that had happened to me in my life, and more importantly in my Villanova experience, had been put into context. I began to feel like I finally knew who I was and why all the things that happened to me up until that point, happened. It was something my mom wanted to tell me for years, and she finally felt it was the right time to do so when I told her about the struggles I was having. 

After the overwhelming rush of relief and freedom came curiosity and I decided to reflect on who I had become up until that point. I began to realize how much my disability affected who I was in ways that I never understood. 

Body language, eye contact, facial expressions, sensory integration, conversational perception, spatial awareness, auditory processing, executive functioning and hyperfixation. These were all things that I knew I struggled with, but never had a way to articulate it. Now, I could put everything in one entity and communicate it to people that was easy to understand, both for them and myself. 

It wasn’t all easy. In a lot of aspects, I could only describe the months following the news as an existential early-life identity crisis. My mood was still being affected, I felt less motivated from an academic standpoint, and had moments when my self-confidence plummeted. I had to face the fact that these “things” weren’t things that I could fix or work my way out of the way I had tried to for the past ten years, but rather things I would always battle with. I was still very much in a state of sorrow and defeat. But I am unbelievably relieved that I got to go through those challenges with an understanding of my autistic identity. 

For the first time in what felt like my entire life, I felt like I had a true understanding of who I really was on the inside. 

In many ways, I want to write this letter as a way for me to come out to the world as a person with Autism. I don’t want who I am to be a secret anymore, and I want the people who know me, work with me and spend time with me to know who I am. 

I’m Anders, I’m Autistic, and I’m not afraid to say it anymore. 

But I also want to write this letter so that maybe someone else who might be going through something similar finds it. 

And that may mean someone with Autism. There is a beautiful, brilliant, and astonishing Autistic and disabled community here at Villanova, much of which I have had the honor of meeting through the LEVEL program. In many ways, this letter is dedicated to them.

But if you’re someone who has felt like the Villanova experience is something that doesn’t come naturally to them, just know that it’s okay to not feel completely accepted all the time. It’s okay for your experiences to affect your mental health and to say it outloud. It’s okay to be transparent that not everything that is going on is okay. 

But being yourself is not just something that’s okay to do, or not even just something that you should do. It is one of the most essential and fundamental components of the human experience. The college experience. Your experience. 

If you feel like there is, as I like to say, “a little something extra there”, I would recommend a thousand times over to go and get a diagnostic evaluation. It can reveal things about yourself you would never think of and give you a completely transformational understanding of yourself. 

If what you're experiencing is affecting you mentally, physically, or spiritually, not only can knowing what it is be helpful, but learning about yourself in the process can do the equivalent or miracles. 

Ask questions. To yourself and to those around you. Tell people what’s going on. It’ll be the best thing you ever do. 

Tell people who you are. It could change your life. 

Anders P., Villanova University

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