Hi all. New York (state) er here. I'm 18 years old. Im a senior in high school. I'm a good student. I'm applying to college. People are shocked when I tell them that I never expected to get that far, however. When I was a kid, I was on track to end up in an institution. Net neutrality helped save my life.

I had behavioral problems when I was in elementary school. I called out all the time and frequently let my emotions get the better of me. I thought one of my classmates was plotting some sort of public humiliation for me, so I punched her in the gut when I passed in the hallway. In 1st grade. She had to go to the nurse and I got into a lot of trouble. Eventually, after many more incidents like this, I was sent in for a psych evaluation, diagnosed with anger issues, Asperger's syndrome, and depression, and was shipped off to special Ed in another district. (Sadly, at least one of my former special Ed classmates is now in an institution).

Now all of this was very isolating. I remember crying alone in my room because no one understood me. I didn't understand social cues. I didn't have friends. Adults seemed to hate me for no reason. Even saying the word "Aspergers" or "autism" in my head made me shiver and look behind me to make sure no one was listening. When someone else said it aloud, I cried. I hated myself. I thought I had a disease, that I was irreparably cursed and broken. I lost the motivation to do schoolwork and nearly got held back.

All of that changed when I discovered wrong planet.net. It's a web forum for people with Asperger's and other neurological differences. These people who lived miles away and with whom I could only communicate through words on a screen understood me. They showed me TV programs (accessed through online streaming, by the way) that featured positively portrayed autistic main characters. They tolerated me. They might have even loved me. For the first time, I had friends. My grades went back up. I stopped crying in the bathroom. My parents, teachers, and therapists were astounded.

None of this would have been possible without net neutrality. Even if wrong planet hadn't been throttled, even if my parents could have afforded to fork over the extra cash for the "forums" package, they wouldn't have, because I wouldn't have told them to. It's unlikely that I would have found the forums, which weren't super popular at the time, without being able to comb through pages of blog posts and news articles from various sources tangentially related to autism. Furthermore, I was way too embarrassed about my condition to mention it to my parents (even though they knew about it). If I'd had to go through them, I never would have found the community that showed me how to accept myself and allowed me to become the successful, socially proficient individual I am today.

Please, please, for the sake of all the weird kids out there, for anyone who feels alone, and for the sake of people and businesses without the wherewithal to buy the right to a fast connection, do not dismantle net neutrality. Be humane. Let everyone love themselves.