Autistic Lived Experience: Unable to Be There for a Friend in Need

• By: Sam Farmer Neurodiversity Community Self-Advocate, Writer, Author, and Public Speaker
• January 10th, 2024
• actually autistic, advocacy, college, emotional struggles, empathy, mental health, neurodiversity, personal growth, self-discovery, social challenges, therapy, Winter 2024 Issue
• 1991    3

In hindsight, I view my sophomore year of college as being the most challenging year of my life. Up until then, I was living in the sweet bliss of unawareness. I had no concept of how compromised my self-esteem was or what self-esteem even meant, and I had a flawed sense of how my words and actions...