I first wanted to play piano when I was four years old. I used to watch my eldest sister playing her keyboard and I was desperate to know how it worked, how she could read those little dots and lines and turn them into music. At some point I started to imitate her playing. I copied the notes I heard and the keys I saw her press. So, by the time I started piano lessons at the age of eight, I could already play a few simple pieces, as well as pick out tunes from songs I liked. My teacher was kind and encouraging, which helped me through each lesson, as such a closely interactive setting made me very anxious. Back then I didn’t know I had autism, and nobody even suspected it when I used to play my piano pieces over and over obsessively every day. I even worked ahead in my book and I’d arrive at my lessons with the next page or two already learned. Playing piano made me feel happy and fulfilled and proud.

When I was eleven my piano teacher moved to America, and that was the end of my piano lessons. It would be another three years until I would get lessons again, and with no guidance at such a young age I began to play less and less. Three years without my special interest was not good for me. In that time, my already low self-esteem dropped to the lowest point it has ever reached. Between the ages of eleven and fourteen was when I fully realised how different I felt from everyone around me. I couldn’t fit in. I was terrified of making eye-contact. I couldn’t make friends easily. The few friends I had managed to make turned against me for a solid year, bullying me every day at school.

I went on to secondary school and I soon felt lost and lonely, as everybody else around me spent their lunch breaks in deep conversation with their new groups of friends. I hopped from one group of people to another, uncertain who to hang out with. I became depressed and started to withdraw. It was then I began to mess around on the two old, battered pianos that stood in the ground floor hallway of the school. People heard the music and started crowding around and asking me to play some more. I was intimidated by the attention, still extremely shy at the time, but the company was also heartwarming, and so my new hangout became the old pianos in the hallway. My older sister noticed me playing more music and introduced me to a classmate of hers, who was very good at music and taught piano. My mother agreed to take me to lessons, and from then on my life changed.

My new teacher was full of enthusiasm and ideas, and was just a few years older than I was; a perfect match for me at the time. She taught me all kinds of pieces from different genres. I practiced obsessively every day, just like old times, and my playing ability improved rapidly. I had my special interest back at last, and I began to recover from my depression. That spring I got a cello and taught myself to play it. After six months my teacher could no longer teach me anything new. I had to go to a music school in town to find a more advanced teacher. I continued to practice obsessively, and my playing continued to improve rapidly. Two years later, I gave my first solo concert to an audience of eighty people, at the age of seventeen.

The following year I graduated from secondary school and started studying a degree in music. I was looking forward to finally being immersed completely in my obsession with music. I took up organ lessons in addition to the degree itself. However, things didn’t work out as I thought. I quickly found myself struggling to manage a very irregular timetable, a variety of different types of assignments, keeping up with note-taking and paying attention in class along with doing all of my own housework and grocery shopping. I fell apart. I began to panic at how little practice I was getting done compared with how much I used to have time for before. I was constantly exhausted by my efforts to keep up with all of my responsibilities. My confidence plummeted all over again and I fell back into depression. By the end of my first year, I was losing marks for handing in my work too late, I was falling asleep every time I sat down, and my health was deteriorating. The following year I went to counseling and eventually saw a psychologist, who diagnosed me with Asperger’s Syndrome and ADD. I decided to take a year out of college to focus on treatment and rehabilitation.

I am now reaching the end of my gap year from college. I have a fantastic Occupational Therapist who is teaching me how to manage my daily life, and an excellent counselor who has helped me to learn how to take care of myself emotionally. I have begun to relax and thoroughly enjoy playing music once again. I understand myself and my lifelong difficulties in a way I never did before. My confidence is higher than it’s ever been, while my anxiety is barely there any more. I am very hopeful about my future and am truly looking forward to returning to college in September.

Piano has been an amazing and essential part of my life. It gave me a special interest to absorb myself in and let off steam. Later, it gave me self-esteem that I urgently needed, and now, it tempts me with a dream. I dream of being a concert pianist. I long to share music I love to play with an audience that loves to listen. And there is no way that I would have performed my first concert already without my autism.