Chapter 7-- Forging My Own Path. I'm Taylor. I am 25 years old, and I was diagnosed as autistic when I was three. My mom is a retired speech therapist. And when she noticed that my language had stopped developing, she did a lot of research in addition to her previous knowledge from her former career. She and my dad ended up taking me to a doctor who diagnosed me as a nonspeaking autistic.

Elementary school was hard because even though my language did start to develop a couple years later thanks to speech therapy and several tutors, I was mostly mimicking what other people had said. I'm not going to sugarcoat it-- I got bullied a lot in my elementary school years. It was hard. It was really hard.

It was even harder because the teachers didn't know what to do. They would say that they would do something, and then they wouldn't do it. For example, if I got bullied, they would say that they would talk to the person bullying me. But they never would. Nothing changed. I transferred schools when I was going into fifth grade and things did get better. Then we moved when I was going into seventh grade. Talk about bad timing.

I was in a new school in a new city and I didn't know anyone. It was scary. But thankfully, luck was on my side and things did start to look up. The school I went to was one for students with learning disabilities. I've met some of my best friends at the school. We're still in touch.

Learning Chinese. College was hard, but not for the reason most people would think. Most people think college is hard because of lots of coursework and things like that. But for me, I struggled a lot with making friends and keeping them. For lack of better phrasing, I was a socially awkward wallflower kind of person. I didn't go to a ton of big events or parties. I don't even like parties. Sometimes people would talk behind my back about me too.

I chose to major in early childhood education and get my minor in Mandarin Chinese. I'm currently working towards a fluency certificate in Mandarin. Originally, when I went to college, I wanted to double major in education and international relations. I thought that learning Chinese would be good for business and politics, so the first semester of my freshman year, I took a Chinese class and loved it so much that I wanted to continue.

Some people told me, don't do this. Mandarin will be too hard for you. You'll want to give up. But I told myself that I was going to do it, and I proved them wrong. Being on the spectrum in regard to my studying Mandarin has given me a bit of an advantage because Mandarin is a tonal language. My ears are very sensitive, so I can pick up on the little subtleties that some people who are learning Mandarin might not pick up as easily.

There's a very delicate line between saying one thing and saying another thing based on a few incorrect tones in Mandarin. For example, the number "four" and the word "death" are almost the same. So if you haven't picked up on the subtlety in the tones, you might be meaning to say one thing but not realize that you are saying something else.

Having graduated from college, the career path has not always been easy, but I did realize I want to focus more on a career in using my Mandarin skills and helping people. I'm not sure exactly what that's going to look like. I know I either want to go into localization, either for gaming or government work. I have not decided which. My long-term goal is I would like to see relations between the US and China improve. I would also like to help bridge the language gap.

Advice for Others. I feel like I still haven't found my place in life, to be perfectly honest. I still sometimes feel like I'm a wallflower who is just observing. But one thing I've started to realize that I think is important for others to know is that just because something hasn't presented itself to you doesn't necessarily mean all is lost and that you'll never be able to do whatever it was you wanted.

You can always try things again. Sometimes it just means you have to go about it differently. I also want to say that the world can be a hard place sometimes. I know I struggle with this, but it's so important to reach out to those close to you.

I'm very close with my older cousin. They're like my big brothers and big sisters. It's so important to reach out because if you're down, they might be feeling down as well. Even if they're not, it is easy to forget that there are people in your corner who love you and care about you. So reach out to them if you think you need it.