Personal Experience of The Struggles Associated with Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD

My name is Luis Lopez; I’m seventeen years old currently in my high school senior year. I’m Mexican-American and live in the state of Florida. At the age of 10, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD.

Life for a person with my disability is not easy. Despite this, I’ve learned to positively look at any obstacle that came in my way. To achieve it, I work hard every day with the condition that my disability doesn’t limit my personal life. On the other hand, I let the disability enrich my life and let it grow and improve every day.

With a kid having Asperger’s like me, that kid sees life in a very clear and optimistic way, not only is it owed to the fact that that I’ve put in TONS of effort. Personally, I think that it’s also thanks to the love, dedication, and unconditional support of my mother, father, and two siblings have given me.

Thanks to my family, I see my disability as one of life’s many challenges. This means that every day, I must learn new things that help me achieve that social integration needed in order for my life to be productive, tranquil and happy.

I’m also a very perseverant person; when I wish to learn or achieve new or interesting things, even though hard work is needed, nothing stops me. I understand that the only way to achieve the things we want in life, we must do it through hard work and discipline.

I remember that as a kid, my favorite past-time activity was to build airplanes and cars out of Legos. I never liked it when my parents bought me already-built toys. I always enjoyed designing and constructing things out of Legos. I always enjoyed it a lot when the ideas I came up with, which were in my mind at first, arrived at my hands. I truly enjoyed it a lot when I could actually play with my ideas.

Unfortunately, due to having lots of classes now, I have less time to dedicate to my favorite past-time activity. When I have the chance, I take advantage of that little bit of time available to build and design new things out of Legos.

Due to the interest and pleasure I have with math and science and my creativity to design and build things, I want to study engineering physics. I think studying engineering physics would make my dream come true. To put it in simpler terms, I want to dedicate my life in inventing and innovating things that improve the quality of life of mankind.