I'm going to try and tell this by the mentality I had at these times so bare with me. I realize that it sounds strange now but this is how I saw the world and sometimes still do.
I'm not really certain how to put this down into words but I'm going to try my best please understand that I don't often make dairies. I've spent my whole life dealing with the difficulties that come with being an autistic person. I was diagnosed with Aspergers at roughly 10 years old but I didn't personally accept it then because I felt perfectly normal and happy. When my mother said I was autistic and would have to take some special class from now on and ride the short bus I cried and said no! I walked the two blocks home by foot rather than ride a bus that everyone I had ever known used has a joke to call people stupid and ugly. If you haven't guessed it was the short bus and to ride that bus would be a public admission that I was wrong somehow and mentally deficit.
Ok so taking a few years backwards I was a little kid in kindergarten class and I always played by myself. It didn't occur to me at the time that anything was wrong with this, no one wanted to play with me so I played alone, simple right? Skip ahead a year or so, I'm learning math and man I love it! I can make sense of adding and subtracting so fast that everyone thinks I'm a genius but when I'm done I won't sit still and be quiet. Everyone thinks I'm being bad and won't do as I'm told so they paddle me and send me home early or suspend me for a week just to get rid of me thinking it's a punishment to be home alone as opposed to being at school alone.
Eventually they kick me out of that school in second or third grade so my mother has to find me a new school. I go to another public school in the next town nearby they accept me and we actually move their too. So now I'm in class again and learning multiplication tables and man are they boring! I miss adding and subtracting atleast I got to do something and not just copy 1x1=1 1x2=3 etc etc... I copy it all down so they want me to copy it down again another twenty times! Clearly I'm being punished for doing my work! Think about it everyone else takes hours doing this and I can do it so fast but my only reward is more work? Well of course I won't do it and yes please do send me to the principal to call my mother and go home! And well it devolves into a large tantrum that follows me most of my life because I always felt mistreated by this it was like being too smart has penalties and when I've been good and finished my work I have to sit quietly until school lets out.
Now I've finally made honor roll I've never made that before! I'm so proud all A's and one B! I run out into the hallway by the cafeteria to see the public list of principals list and honor roll students. Everyone will be so happy for me and talk to me for once I was so excited! Buy my name wasn't up there, why isn't my name up there? When I get home I cry and show my mom my report card and say how I'm still didn't make it on the honor roll list... Well my mom calls the school and asks why I wasn't put on the list and she doesn't tell me why or that she called until years later. Turns out the principal felt I was a bad student and because I got into so much trouble with her and the teachers I didn't deserve the recognition that other students get it would set a bad example. My mom says she just didn't like me and wanted to be mean to me.
Now I got kicked out of school for stabbing a student with a pencil in his head! Well yes that is the story on the report but I remember even today what I did and why. I was trying to be good and pay attention but this rude boy in the desk in front of mine is picking on me! He keeps putting his head on my desk where my pencil goes so I have no where to keep it and that is where it is supposed to go! I raise my hand and tell the teacher to make him stop and she looks right at me and then looks away and keeps talking to the class. I keep my hand up and wait patiently but after several minutes I realize she doesn't care! Fine I decide to do something about it myself, I sharpen my pencil in my little required hand sharpener and place it eraser down on my desk. I warn him not to do it again and then I wait. A few seconds after my warning down comes his head and out comes the screaming and now I'm a bad kid again... Time for reports, teacher meetings, and groundings all the while I knew I was right because I had to put my pencil there right? No one would help me so I did it myself!
Private school was expensive my mom said so I had to buy fancy clothes and a clip on tie to wear every Tuesday. She bought my fancy shirts and jacket with khaki pants that have to be ironed or they won't let me in because of dress codes. I love it there it is old and has dirty things on the wall with lots of rusty metal and tubes near the wall! The building all have stairs and it is so much fun to run up and down them to classes! Oh I love it I even have a friend here he's so nice and his friends play with me too! I met a teacher in my special class and she's so pretty and fun I like it here alot. I fall in love with my teacher, I'm all of eight years old. Everything is going so well I can even bring a dollar to buy from a drink machine whenever I want!
Well of course it didn't last. One day I have a whole five dollars so I need change because the machine won't take it. I go look for my nice teacher and she is in the gym playing with an older student. They're playing volleyball, I go up to her to ask her for change and she says not now come back later. How could she!? I love her and she's ignoring me for some other man? I start crying and run away. I hide in a little fenced in area where no one can see me crying. After awhile the adults find me and can't reach me because they are too big. They get my favorite teacher I love so much to ask I yell at her and say no! After awhile they get desperate and convince me to help tear down the wooden fence so I'll be close enough to grab and make a hole to be grabbed from. I later get kicked out and my mom has to pay to repair the old rickety fence, I never forgave them especially since they never asked me why I was even upset.
Back at the first school that kicked me out they forgot how awesome I was in kindergarten. I'm only there as a temporary stay until summertime and then I stay in summer school because for some reason I'm failing every test now. They believe I'm mentally retarded, they tell my mother I will probably never be able to function in society and will need a nursing home. I'm 9 years old.
Ten and eleven I'm back at the second school now and they want to put me on the short bus. So I walk home everyday now. My only friend at this school is there he lives next door he's really cool and has a water bed! We smoke sometimes when we steal a cigarette from our parents, we don't know how to inhale so we just puff on them and act cool. I see a brown bag and open it thinking it's and old dirty lunch and open it. Inside are lots of syringes all used too, I know what they are and I even know they are from some drug addict. I throw them in a gutter down the road so no one gets hurt. My friend moves away, my only one too I'm really sad. The new kid that moves in across the street is nice though so it's okay. I still get in trouble at school but I don't care anymore they don't even bother trying to teach me. They give me crayons and let me play on the computer, if I'm really bad I go to ISS or go stand in the corner. Most often I stand in the corner in ISS.
I got suspended again and they kick me out... I have no one who will take me so my mom is forced to put me in a special school for special children. I costs alot too but I don't have to wear special clothes anymore. They don't try to teach me anything other than self control and keep me from hurting myself or others. I'm twelve years old on medications and over weight plus now I smell bad. Girls aren't so ugly but my school doesn't have any except those in residential and we can't talk to them since were day school and go home at night. They live there for six months at a time minimum since they are so bad. The teachers are nice the don't make me work and leave me alone. Plus no one is allowed to pick on me here so no more fights anymore! It's great except I know cool kids don't come here, only weird ones.
I do something bad so my teacher calls my mother, I cry and beg her to stop but she won't listen! So I hit her in the shoulder. She's a hippie pushing 60 and I love her she gives me soy milk it's good. I'm a 13 or 14 yearold almost 200 pounds and at least double her weight, she has to get three shots for the pain. I get sent for evaluation for two weeks in a mental hospital. If I act up here I go to residential and never see my mom again. I sit in a chair and cry until bedtime. I get to go home but get sent back for evaluation two more times for different reasons. And the second time I spend three months in residential. It's nice, there is a cute girl but we can't talk to the girls though. I get to climb ropes and play all day but don't get to go home so I'm lonely and miss my mom.
I'm 15 and they say I've been good for a whole year without any trouble! I'm hoping if I keep it up they'll let me out because they promise they will! A new girl shows up at day school, it's weird because she is the second one to ever be in day schools side. She gets a teacher fired when he had to restrain her like he does us, said it was sexual. I don't trust her she isn't nice and she's ugly and dresses with too little clothes and too much makeup. My friend loves her though, he is about to be let out too same as me. They like us so much they have us do office work for three hours and buy us lunch! We staple and sort lots of papers just like they ask so they give us burgers and fries! A few weeks later my friend is in residential, the others say it was that girl. Said she was a trick to get us in trouble and now she's gone. Turns out they make money on how many of us they have, I don't trust anyone but the students now.
I'm FREE! Oh thank god, I finally got out! They let me spend the morning at public school on a temporary basis for the first semester but then they let me go and I'm fully a public school student. I still have a special class but it's like a small study hall, it focuses on teaching us special ways to study but it's still a secret from other students. I have no friends now and won't until sophomore year. I hate school here no one talks me and it's so crowded. I skip alot and go home early from really bad stomach aches that I can feel even though it's all made up, "it hurts so bad mom let me come home!" It's sophomore year and this cool guy who dresses all in black sits next to me in Spanish class. Last year he made fun of me but I know we'll be friends he's so cool! I talk to him a little in class!
Great news! That cool guy is in the special class too and we talk more and more. I'm failing Spanish but I don't care I have my first friend in a whole year! I dress in all black now and smoke for real all the time. I don't do drugs because weed makes me dizzy and beer tastes like vomit! But my friends do heroin and cocaine and mushroom and so much else! One said his friend did crack and I should never do it! He said he killed someone for money because it messed him up so badly. I laughed because I don't have anything but anger in me now. I hate everyone but my friends at school even though I turn them down all the time to hang out. I hate myself and want to die but I hate the world so much. I tell myself why should I die? They are the bad guys and I'm always the good guy! I decide to live in spite of this world even though it hates me too.
I'm 16 I lost all that weight and got off the medicine. I'm apparently "hot" girls that used to pick on me walk up to me in the halls and put their arms in mine! Too bad I never forgive injustice, I still hate the ones that were mean to me but I pretend to like them as best I can. One is a self proclaimed feminist but I think she just hates men. I'm the most liberal guy I know in the south and honestly love feminists so I thought we'd get along. But as I got to know her I realized she just likes telling me what to do and doesn't like my opinions on anything so I don't like her anymore. Junior year and there is a dance my friends are all going. They don't ask me about it, I guess they know I can't get a date even though I look good I have no skill with romance. I stay home and pretend not to care while saying I don't like dances when really I just can't talk to a girl without blushing so red I glow sometimes.
My friends try to help me with my crushes but I can't talk so they give up.
Senior year. My special class friends all split up and go to different classes, I'm all alone in special class now and we don't share any others. I make a point to join the classes they do and we have lots of fun! But we talk less and less and argue more and more. Before I realize it they don't talk to me at all anymore. I don't even notice though because I have newer friends so it doesn't matter. I still try to talk to the cool guy though he was my best friend, I said something mean but didn't realize it. I find that I say lots of mean things and don't realize it, that explains why I have so few friends but I can't stop myself! I try to lie and be nice but I can't stand lying and I've trained myself to be angry so I say mean things to people! I'm so sad to realize this, it's graduation and no one cheers when I go to accept my diploma. I have no friends now.
Well that is my life in a nutshell up until college which I've been in for a few years and still have at least 2 more until I get to be a Vet. Tech. and work in labs and with animals. I've been realizing little by little that up until the end of high school I never accepted my Aspergers and have always assumed people were just being mean to me. I've recently realized how mean I was to them and wish I could take it all back. But I can't, so I thought maybe this would be therapeutic and I hope anyone who reads it can make use of it in their own lives or that of their children.