Steven

Further Info

This story was made by young people were not in education or employment. Participants were from Lawrence Weston and Hartcliffe. The workshop was run by BBC Outreach and The Media Trust.

Transcript

My name is Steven and I’ve just turned 18 and I’m from Brislington.

I missed a lot of school because of certain private matters going on around my family and home life.

A few months after I started skipping school I found out I was autistic with a mental age of 7 at the time. They didn’t notice it earlier because none of the staff in my school was qualified to understand autism.

I’m used to not being understood, I’ve been not understood for half my life anyway! After I left school I went to a special needs college for a year and a half. I wasn’t coping there, but they did teach me how to deal with my autism.

Autism affects me on a daily basis. I worry about what people think about me and don’t’ like being in big crowds. I don’t like getting into, on the bus because I’m worried someone’s just going to end up taking my things so I always want someone with me or I just lock myself in my bedroom.

My plans for the future are at first for a few years until I’m like in my early thirties to do radio and for the future for the longterm I hope to become a game designer in Japan.

I use computer games to escape the harsh reality what I live in and in computer games there’s always a happy ending. I hope my life turns out like a very good game where it has a happy ending.

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