Autism & School - My Experience As An Undiagnosed Autistic Girl
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2024
- Join me for a trip down memory lane, where I discuss my experience of school in the 70's and 80's as a then-undiagnosed autistic girl.
Spoiler alert - it was awful!
Let me know your experiences in comments. As mentioned, I won't be doing a 'reading through comments' follow-up video on this one as, frankly, I don't think anyone would want to watch it!
Mentioned in this video:
Short documentary on a specialist school for autistic girls: • Autism Documentary: In...
Katy Wix article: www.theguardia...
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#latediagnosedautistic #autistic #autisticadult
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I liked school, the learning, getting to understand things. I only dreaded the fact that there were other children...
Yep!
School was a special kind of hell that I did everything possible to avoid as much as possible. My best memory of school was the day I said "nope I'm done, I'd rather work" and walking out, head held high.
That's so powerful. Good for you! 💪 🧡
Thanks for sharing this. I hated school too for very similar reasons, still have back in school nightmares occasionally in my 40s!
I’m so sorry to hear this, Kris. It really does cause long-term trauma for so many of us 🧡
I felt a lot of exclusion. Not so much outright bullying, but always picked last for teams, not being invited to things, feeling like people were annoyed at me for unknown reasons. “Mean girls” is an expression I would use to describe my classmates. I still don’t get what elicited such responses. The most hurtful was in college when I was in a group project. The other girls I was working with emailed the teacher to say they didn’t want to work with me. But they actually emailed our whole class. I was humiliated and never shared that with anyone until now. I still don’t get why as we hadn’t even started working together. At that age, in that academic environment where I felt I was doing well, it came as such a shock. Now that I know I’m autistic, I’m starting to understand that not everyone has good intentions and that I need to stay away from those people. I hope I can get faster at spotting unkind people going forward rather than getting a harsh lesson too late. People can be such a******s.
Thank you for sharing, Christine. I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences and what a nasty thing those girls did. THEY should feel shame over this incident, not you. 🧡
Thank you! It felt good to write that out and get it off my chest. Thank you for listening. I’m sorry you had bad experiences too.
@@Christine83507 🧡
I often feel like a misfit in these discussions because my experience was not typical. I was very headstrong and uninhibited as a child, quite outspoken, definitely not quiet. I think my presentation in general was very boyish, and I was active and pretty good at sports. What never occurred to me was that this showed me up in a negative way against other girls.
In my primary school (UK, 70s) it was the teachers that picked on me the worst, and there was physical punishment for the boys, and I got those punishments sometimes. But I was lucky in that I instantly got befriended by 2 other girls, which then expanded to more because I was in the 'top set'. These girls all followed me right through into secondary school. I also was happy to involve myself with and be friends with and stand up for the kids who were ostracised for various reasons like disability, poverty etc.
I got myself into an all girls grammar school, although, like you, my father did not see the point of educating girls. However, this fact went straight over my head and it's something I've only realised in recent years. Grammar school was so much better than primary and junior (interestingly, we called the exam the 11 plus, not 12). So I started there in 1980, and it was encouraged in society then to be individual. I think that changed in the 90s, so thankfully I missed all that 'having to fit in' nonsense.
In grammar school, there was a higher level of sensibility, from both the pupils and the teachers, so there was a lot less stupid behaviour. Spending break time in the library, or studying, or practising sports was encouraged.
I did not escape bullying at either school, but it came more in the form of being goaded into doing something that would get me into trouble, teased and gaslit. But I was so naive I never realised what was happening so I only came to suffer for it upon realising it many years later. It's my time in primary school that gives me nightmares because the teachers were actual sadists who enjoyed making kids feel humiliated and punishing them. I was also frequently accused of things I had not done and knew nothing about, and blamed for things another kid had done. This led to me never really being able to trust anyone, and heightened my already vehement sense of justice and fairness.
Thank you for sharing and I'm sorry to hear about your experiences 🧡
Lizzie, how kind, brave, and generous of you to share so transparently about your academic experiences. Your willingness to talk about your suffering, and I am so sorry that you endured so much cruelty when you are such a pearl, provided an aperture for us all to connect with you and one another. I wish you had the loving kindness you should have had growing up and I hope that now you are only met with appreciation, acceptance, and joy. I am so grateful that you are now using your suffering to open up the door for us to share with one another. I am so validated and strengthened by you and your videos, and grateful, too, for others in this community who also share... I did pretty good in elementary school here in the US, but once junior high hit, I just couldn't figure out the "lay of the land." And folks were cruel. The book, "Lord of the Flies" captures well the brutality I saw and felt around me. Thank you, as always, Lizzie.
Aww, your comments are always received with much joy and appreciation, Lisa. Thank you. And I'm so sorry to hear of the pain you endured, too. I'm glad we survived 🧡
@@CreativeAutistic 🧡
Your experiences are sadly very relatable. I found school to be a lonely and confusing place. I found it difficult to relate to the other children and also the teachers and frequently was bullied by both factions. Playtime and lunch breaks were an absolute nightmare, and I would generally try and find somewhere to hide. The best time of my high school life was being made a librarian. This meant I could legitimately spend every lunchtime in there AND take out 6 books at a time. Bullying was largely ignored in the schools I attended, it was assumed that if you were bullied you pretty much must have done something to deserve it, or that overcoming bullying was character building and you'd be stronger for having endured it. If a teacher did end up intervening, then there was usually some awful retribution for having blabbed/told tales.
I'm so sorry you had to endure all of this. Thank you for sharing 🧡
@stephaniealexandra5142 I'm sorry that you too were bullied and left feeling petrified just like me. Suzanne
At High school I remember on breaks I remember hanging out in the library more than being with other students. This was a long time ago, also before my diagnosis. Didn't like school.
Thank you for sharing and I'm sorry you had a tough time too 🧡
The bullying that I endured is painful and embrassing to think about. The earliest was at a summer day camp, before 3rd grade. I especially remember being bullied in 6th, 8th, and 9th grade by other kids, but there were times when teachers seemed angry with me, especially in 5th grade. At age 14, I went on a Boy Scout backpacking trip with a group of strangers, and a clan of three friends turned on me at the beginning. My last three years of high school were actually pretty good, because I had a couple of friends, and no bullies. Afterwards, there were a couple of bullying co-workers, but the thing that gave me PTSD were a pair of bullying, scapegoating employers. Somehow, I endured over 40 years of working as an architect, a field where one encounters many narcissists.
I'm so sorry to hear this, Jeffery. Thank you for sharing. I've endured bullying in the workplace a fair few times too, but over 40 years of it sounds like absolute hell. Sending solidarity. 🧡
@@CreativeAutistic Halfway through my architecture career, I found myself unemployed and tried to turned my photographic and computer graphic skills into a self-employed career, but it didn't work out.
Those three friends they turnt on you coz they're fake they're not real
They're not your friends they're your enemies
same here with the bullying. I got punched in the stomach and face and hit in the head with ice balls (not snow balls). verbal abuse was a daily occurrence. Glad we both survived. thank you for sharing your experiences.
I'm just so sorry to hear this, Traci. It's just awful. I'm glad we both survived too 🧡
Thank you for this honest recollection. It closely reflects my own school years. I am now very sad for the miserable child I was at school.
I'm so sorry to hear this, Antonio. It really does cause long-term trauma 🧡
I identify so much with your story. Undiagnosed, trauma at home, endemic bullying all throughout school. Loved the library.
I never understood or understand the mean girl, bullying boys. I too went to a very dark place as a result of bullying, and it changed my view of people irreparably.
Thank you for sharing and I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences 🧡
Sorry you got bullied, me too. I think hurt people hurt others, and while this is no excuse for bullying, it's a reason why people engage in this deeply unpleasant behaviour.
@@kr1221E ❤️
@@Oshiiiiiiiiiiii Thank you.
Hi Lizzie. I clicked on this one very quickly because school was so horribly traumatizing for me. I had no friends, I was the target of many bullies and I only wanted to participate in art classes. I wound up getting left back in 7th grade 3 times because I just refused to go and quit when I was able. Because I wanted to go to art school, I was able to get my GED (General Education Degree) after testing and move on to college (another traumatizing experience...). Imagine if there were schools tailored to those of us on the spectrum...it could be amazing! Thanks for posting - have a lovely weekend!!
Art class was my sanctuary. The year I couldn't have an art class, I had a series of meltdowns (I'm not diagnosed, but I'm sure that's what they were), refused to get out of bed because I didn't want to go to school, dropped out, and got that GED at 16. Ohh, for want of a world where being odd is celebrated, not demonized.
I'm so sorry you had to ensure that, Linda. It's just horrendous what we had to go through. Sending you much solidarity. And yes, can you imagine how much we would have flourished in specialist schools?? I guess we can only hope things improve for autistic children both now and in the future. Wishing you a great weekend too, lovely 🧡
@@CreativeAutistic Thanks for the empathy, Lizzie. I didn't include this in my initial reply, but skipping school to read books at the library is also part of my experience. In my case it was a bit different: we lived in a very rural area with no public library - so I found an abandoned house to retreat to, where I read my books when I should have been at school. So happy that we can all relate to one another a bit here!!
@@AtD-Plays-GamesI very much relate to your experience!! 💜
Yep. Liked learning, hated being around other children. Gym class, cafeteria, and playground were the worst. I wandered perimeters at recess, avoided lunch a lot or ate alone with the guise of needing to "get off to myself to study", and hid out in the locker room or begged to sit out as much as I could in gym. When I got to high school, drama helped some because I could melt into different roles. I also developed an unhealthy attachment that resulted in a very unhealthy first marriage a year out of graduation. That would last 8 years and gave me three lovely children though not much else before being abandoned. Blessedly, happily remarried for over a decade now to a neurodiverse man. It is lovely to be got. Thanks for this.
Thank you for sharing and I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences, Marisa. It's a blessing to have a ND partner/spouse for sure! 🧡
I became pretty expert about blending into the background at school, so I was able to avoid bullying for the most part. The trauma of being ignored for hours each day was awful, though. It added a lot to my struggle with people pleasing and masking. I’m 40 and school still brings up trauma, although it’s helped a ton to blog about it since self-diagnosing. Thank you for sharing!!
Oh, and my grades definitely suffered greatly from my undiagnosed AuDHD.
I'm sorry to hear of your experiences. It really does cause long-lasting trauma 🧡
@@CreativeAutistic it really does cause trauma; I’m so glad I understand where those emotions are coming from and can validate and work through them!
My childhood was just like yours and my mother died why I was 13. You would think that everyone would feel sorry for, but the bullying continued all through my childhood and teenage years. There were a group of teen boys who would bully me badly everyday. Why would they want to bully a quiet little girl who never bothered anyone. After a few years my sister dated one of them and everything changed. My sister married him. Then all the bullies stopped their bullying and started to be nice to me because I was the sister in law of their leader.
I'm so sorry you had to endure this, Linda. I'm sure they felt like big tough boys picking on a little girl, eh. What absolute twats. I'm glad we were both able to survive all of this 💩
@@CreativeAutistic when my autistic son was ten , the bullies in his charter school class asked him if he had a gun. He said yes and they asked him to bring it to school. He brought his see through plastic water gun to school and they told the principal he brought a gun to school and the policy is no guns allowed not even toys. I didn’t know about this and the principal called me and said we have to expel your son. I told them we dont even own a gun but they had to go by the policy. The bullies were laughing and my son had to go to another school. Children can be so mean.
@@lindaversil1121 I don't even have any words for this. Your poor son 🧡
@@CreativeAutistic this happened eight years ago. He graduated high school in June
Girl same, in my earliest memories there was a teacher's aid and I would opt to stay behind and hang out in the classroom while my peers went out to recess. In my earliest memories I would make excuses to eat my lunch in the nurse's office instead of the cafeteria. Of course the situations changed, but the trend of avoiding these things persisted throughout my schooling, which would lead me to smoking and drinking in high school in order to numb the pain of never being able to fit in or have real connections with my peers.
Great video, thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing, Heather. I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences 🧡
School was hard from day 1! I was extremely quiet/shy. When I was in grade one, I was put in a special reading class & worked with a tutor. This only added to the stress I had going to school. Not only was I already struggling with the social part and not fitting in with the other kids, but then I was singled out during class because of my inability to read & write. I wasn't told at the time, but I'm dyslexic. I continued in special ed reading for four years and had to repeat a grade. It was always such a relief when I could stay home when school became too much to deal with.
Thank you for sharing 🧡
Thank you for sharing this with us. I had a similar experience with the transition from primary to secondary school, plus this transition coincided with moving from the UK to Ireland when the troubles were still very active and sentiment wasn't great.
Coming towards the end of my final weeks in school I remember feeling like someone caught in a time lapse film where everything was moving around me but i was static and lifeless. It was such a horrible feeling to feel ignored and disregarded. That was the moment i said I've had enough and never went back to school. I did have supportive parents, but they just didn't understand what was going on for me, and I don't think I was able to express myself properly, and maybe society wasn't in a position in the 1990s to understand either. As you said, you either fitted in or you didn't.
It was a life changing moment which set me on a particular path. There were times when i regretted my decision as things might have been differently, but now I think I was incredibly brave, and I would say the same for anyone else who decided they couldn't do it anymore.
Be kind to yourself, and thank you again Lizzie
Well, I think it was an incredibly brave decision too, Simon. 👍
Hi lizzie in infant school one of my parents used to have to see the teacher at the end of every week to see if i'd behaved. Junior school was ok but yet again my dad had to go in and see if i'd behaved and was learning properly, as my mother had passed away by that time and my dad was a mess he had 3 young kids to bring up alone. But after a couple of years there was a rotation of different women until he settled on my disordered stepmother. If i had'nt behaved then i wasn't allowed to go to the football with my grandad which at that time meant everything. Secondary school was just awful crowded and noisey i couldnt stand most of the people there including the teachers, bloody awful it was. I could feel the anxiety and stress coursing through my body every single day. I was pulling my own hair out of my scalp as a stress relief , towards the end me and my friend had a chart where we would scratch the days of until the day we were able to leave the hell hole, i'ts like i was trying to blend in to the walls and make myself invisible to everyone but they can sense that and hunt you down like a pack of hungry wolves. One of the popular girls at school did ask me out but i turned her down. I was a complete shell of a person. Sorry to hear of your difficulties at school and home life with your father, but you have achieved great things with your talents in life and found a great supportive partner. Sorry to hear of everyone else's suffering in the comments 🙋♂️🙌
Thank you for sharing and I'm so sorry to hear about your experiences, James. I'm glad you survived it all (and can relate with the disordered stepmother - my dad's girlfriend was a bloody nightmare!) 🧡
I was contacted by one of my bullies with an invite to attend a 50-year leavers reunion.
I responded by email to the organisers, along the lines of: "I will not be attending the reunion as I do not have happy memories of school. Please do not contact me again about anything to do with school."
it still genuinely surprises me that I survived school. I should have been expelled for truancy.
Just glad time is linear as the idea of being a child again is horrifying
Me too! 👍
Thanks!
I am so grateful for you Lizzie!
Oh, Lisa! I’m so grateful for you too. Thank you so much, this has really made my day! 🧡🧡 🧡
I’m sorry you experienced such pain growing up. I’m in my early fifties and was just diagnosed at 49. I also have problems with my long term memory, and a lot of it is hazy impressions, but I tend to remember the horrible things. There was a lot of physical bullying since I was really little. I remember being shoved into lockers and put in trash cans and pushed down stairs. Gym class was horrible. I am spectacularly clumsy and uncoordinated and kids would fight over who had to have me on their teams because no one wanted me. At one point, the teacher just told me to sit on the sidelines because he was sick of the trouble I caused. I loved learning and academically did well, although with all the internal chaos, I have no idea how I did it. Thank you for sharing your struggles with us. I know how painful the memories can be.
Thank you so much for sharing, Lily. I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences too. 🧡
I really appreciate this video it stops me feeling so alone and is very validating, but sorry you went through it.
Thank you for this video. I'm 55 and don't have a diagnosis, but I'm pretty sure I'm autistic. My school life was hell. I was academic so the work was fine but I was bullied from the day I started school at 4 and a half until I left at 16. I still have trauma from then, and it affected all my relationships. But your video helped me feel validated.
Thank you for sharing, Sheila. It really does cause life-long trauma for many of us 🧡
School for me was he'll and full of bullies. From age of 5 to finishing altogether was physical and mental. I had no friends and no where to run. Truancy was not an option. I struggled learning and remembering lessons. This is half way why I am who I am. Parents did nothing either.
I'm so sorry to hear this, Suzanne 🧡
So many similarities for my time at school as I remember it.
Perfectly delivered with your thoughtful last note of how to rebalance ❤
I'm sorry to hear you had a tough time too - and thank you! 🧡
Amazingly our lives are extremely similar Lizzie. I'm 50 on Tuesday and only realised I was autistic in June/July this year.
I also took the 11+ and my parents decided Comprehensive was better, and I agree wholeheartedly that the alternate universe in which we went to the grammar school wouldn't have been better in terms of outcomes.
Karen made this point a few weeks ago and it's very true: even if we'd been diagnosed at that time (1985/6), _that also_ might not have led to better outcomes, because in the 'special needs schools' of the time, our intellectual development would have simply stopped.
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I'm very sorry to hear that you had those ridiculous experiences. It's perfectly understandable that you tried to copy their social style to fit in, and being uniquely blamed for it must have been horrendous. It's hard to believe a peer group encountering a sweet person like you and responding with dislike, but I believe it entirely. The thing is, whilst we shouldn't give in to assuming the worst all the time, it's still better to _know_ that there's something unsafe in human nature. I wouldn't want to have had that hidden from me.
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Did you have your school report slips from the time to show the assessors? I still have scans of mine and some are sad&angering, while others are just hilarious. "Gregory can no longer be trusted with _any_ equipment" lol
"I can't pretend to understand him", and even teachers outright using language like 'eccentric'.
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I wonder whether your creativity is partly shaped by a justified rebellion against the imposed conformity that hasn't worked for you.
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GCSE AABCCDEEG
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Edit: "with hindsight I think it was widely known" - definitely. Bullying isn't only a one-on-one phenomenon. A large part of the misery is that everyone else buys into the bully's assessment of your worth, and that the teachers are fully aware what's going on and couldn't give a damn. In fact I suspect for a lot of them they thought it was The Natural Order.
Edit: I agree with your conclusion. I doubt very much that it's changed one iota, and the correct figure is of course one hundred percent.
Thank you for sharing, and congrats on finding your truth 🧡
I have one set of reports which basically all say I was deathly quiet and needed to participate in things more. Ugh, as if! 😆
I enjoyed Primary school, there was a girl who started bullying me there but my brother soon put her in her place. It was secondary school that was awful for me too. It was an all girls school and I felt like a freak the whole way through. I did well in my exams considering how hard my time there was.It was filled with bullying, name calling. threats and actual physical violence when 3 girls beat me up on the way home from school. My 2 "friends!" who were with me just ran off and left me to be beaten up. I had to get the bus home after and cried all the way. It still hurts today, even though as an adult, one of those friends apologised for running off. I have spent so much time going through these memories and replaying them but with me hitting the perpetrators or standing up for myself. I did have one of the bullies friend request me on Facebook about 20 years later. I blocked her and removed her request, why the hell would she even think I want to talk to her!!! I am so sorry for all your trauma Lizzie and appreciate you sharing so much, it's not easy.
I'm so sorry to hear of your experience, Sarah. And the cheek of that bully with her friend request..?? I'm glad you blocked her, it's the very least she deserved 🧡
I was often beaten at home, sometimes out of the blue,, and I was yelled at constantly. I seemed to enrage my father without even saying anything. So school was a relief. I wasn't afraid of the other kids, and there wasn't a lot of bullying anyway. I was often lonely, but at least I felt physically safe. I did succeed in making a few friends, which helped a lot.
I'm so sorry to hear this. There is absolutely no justification for a child to be treated like this, ever.
Thank you for sharing your experience, you've articulated the awfulness of it all so well.
You're very welcome 🧡
You should write a book Lizzie, you are an amazing story teller and on your life ❤️🤓👍🏼
Aww, that's really kind Sally. I often wonder if I'm making any kind of sense when I'm taking about things that have happened to me, so that's lovely to hear. Thank you! (and I guess you never know!) 😆 🧡
Hi Lizzie, so sorry that your school years were so dominated by bullying like that.
My haphazardly found solution to the social issues was not to try and fit in with the mainstream normal types at all. I didn’t like what they were like, or feel any desire to be like them or fit in with them. I was lucky enough that there was a small handful of outsiders like me that I could gravitate together with. We had similar nerdy interests in computers and electronics (long before it was fashionable) and hated sports. The normies called us “The Boffs”, which was meant as a pejorative (because boffins weren’t cool), but their taunt didn’t hurt as intended. I secretly liked the idea of being thought of as a boffin, because I wasn’t actually a high achiever in most subjects. Being in a little group as we were also had a disarming effect on the bullies because they prefer to pick on isolated individuals. Having that solidarity with even a small group of kindred spirits I guess makes a huge difference.
My main difficulties later at school were mostly to do with ADHD type learning issues, working memory, distraction, and putting things off until the last minute. For earlier years, nursery and infant school, problems I recall would fit more with autistic traits. (Yes, I have vivid memories of being at nursery, over 50 years ago!)
I wrote a lot more recollections of those difficulties in practice, and limited wins, but it became unwieldy for a post, so I could share the rest of it in a reply below if it might be of interest. One particular anecdote of a major fail I recalled, now quite amuses me because it seems so absurd, so I’ll share that here:
For the transition into the final year at junior school we were tasked with a homework project for the summer holiday. It was to research Georgian building style, find an example building in the town (there’s plenty to choose from here), do a drawing of it and write about it. (It's 1977, so no internet, we were supposed to go to the library to do research.) Leaving it until the very last day of the holiday, I had no time to research or go out looking for a building, so I flicked through a book that we had on the shelf, and copied a picture and the writing from there. Only problem... It was the Taj Mahal. 😳 That's definitely not in our town, and apparently is not an example of Georgian English architecture! The teacher was furious with me.
Thanks for sharing, Russ. Oh man, the stresses of stupid projects like these! I had a similar thing where I was tasked with drawing an elephant (with no reference image) and I gave it pink toenails. My teacher was weirdly **really** angry about it and made me start over. 🤷♀️
@@CreativeAutistic It's bizarre, I would have thought that was acceptable creative license (unlike my Taj Mahal effort, which was really not what was asked for), but some teachers being irrationally outraged when their instruction wasn't followed exactly to the letter did seem to be a thing. I used to wonder why they became teachers if it made them so angry. Others were so kind and forgiving.
I had this knowing that I was different and made it my cool thing at school. It tricked the bullies into leaving me alone. But i was kind of a happy loner for the most part. But I feel lucky that my head was mostly in the clouds. Hated sport though, there was a lot of anxious stuff there when it came to teams and getting changed etc
I was embarrassingly bad at maths. So much so I was dropped from second bottom maths group to bottom bottom maths group. I was upset being in that one because it was full of people not trying and I was trying my hardest!!
I'm sorry to hear that. Maths was absolutely my worst subject too.
I still love learning but I always hated the tedium of industrial education - sitting a large group of bored kids in a room for hours at a time isn't education but rather incarceration - so it's no wonder I wasn't often bullied: I was so angry at being constantly abandoned by all the neglectful, complacent people and systems that couldn't be bothered to feed my intellectual hunger.
Most kids couldn't relate to that or to my circumstances (left home at 16; and, in fact, I attended a different school for every grade from seven on,) so I wasn't particularly interested in fitting in anyway and generally kept to myself.
A classmate (in Art, of all subjects!) at an inner city school attempted bullying me one year but, typically, resentful and angry me wasn't easily intimidated and already planning to transfer (again!) the next semester, so that went nowhere. (Wherever you are, whatever your name was, sorry I prevented you from achieving your full bully potential! 🤷♂️)
In art..?!? Blimey! Art was the one and only subject where I felt 'kind of' in control of my environment, mainly because I was able to hyperfocus and zone out of the nonsense. 🎨
I literally can't remember anything about my school experience it's been blocked out quite thoroughly. I have gauge memories of being bullied, where I'd sit in the classroom and that's it😂
Unfortunately I was bullied right off the bat in grade 1, mostly due to having an English accent as my parents had immigrated to Canada, and also I had a lisping speech defect. But for the most part my experience was being invisible, which had its own unique pain, as I also felt invisible at home. I was also the last kid picked for team sports. I wasn't bullied by any teachers but whenever I was having trouble learning a concept, such as in math, I was very afraid of being singled out. Throughout school I seldom had friends and when I did it would tend to be either a mother hen situation with an extroverted girl or rebel girls who were on the fringe.
For the most part, instead of trying to fit in, I became a loner. I went places by myself and would take long walks exploring. I was raised in an alcoholic narcissistic family so there was that to contend with as well. My parents used to shame me when I didn't have any friends. My mother thought of herself as being an amazing extrovert, and I was an inferior person because I am in introvert and had trouble making friends.
The worst instance of bullying was in grade 7. I went out on a date with a boy at school and then a rumour started that I had 'gone all the way'. Everyone who went by me called me a slut. This happened towards the end of the school year so I had the summer holidays to be away from it. I went through a bad depression where I contemplated suicide and started cutting myself. I was expecting for it all to continue the following year but strangely it was like the bullying event never happened. Everyone just forgot all about it. Imagine that.
During middle school and high school I discovered recreational drugs. I was taking the business matric program so I wasn't part of the more academic classes. Although I did well enough in school, I wasn't encouraged to go the academic route, probably because my parents had no intention of helping with my education. From there I was an office clerk for many years.
Thank you for sharing, Leslie. I can relate to a lot here. 🧡
I totally relate! In Australia, primary is kindergarten to year 6 (6yo to 12yo), high school- year 7 to 12 (12/13yo-18yo). I think it's changed a bit now. High school was hell! Mainly psychological and emotional bullying. If not for that, I would of done well in school.
Thank you for sharing and I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences 🧡
I didn't get bullied in school. Or, more likely, I just didn't realize it. I was very estudious and focused on the orchestra program. My school was big enough to have a handful of weirdos for me to hang out with, and the other kids mostly ignored me. Unfortunately, they were not so kind to my friends.
Thank you for sharing 🧡
I’m in the North of England and our school system is primary school age 5 to 10 and then secondary/comprehensive school 11 to 16/18. Ours was called a comprehensive school but there was no exam required to go there, it was where all the primary schools fed into in our area.
Ah, that's interesting. Thanks for letting me know. It seems similar to the Scottish school system.
School was hell for me, too -- especially grades 7 thru 12 (age 11 thru 17 in the USA). I was bullied, ostracized, & called 'queer' when it was one of the worst insults. I had one friend, and he was from Tunisia, and we were outcasts together (which is probably why we were called queer). Academically I did pretty well, but socially it was miserable. To make matters worse I was a year younger than all my schoolmates, which meant I entered puberty later. I remember one popular, tough guy say to me, "You wouldn't know what to do with a girl if you had one". This stuck with me, and I was a virgin until age 24. I finally met someone who was just as screwed up as I was, and we got married. It lasted 3 years and it was mostly spent drinking and doing drugs.
Thank you for sharing and I'm sorry to hear of your experiences.
My country don't allow homeschooling. My daughter don't like school... and I am teacher... in pandemy we had out best school time ever at home... but now she is forced to go to school... she doesn't get bullying (I am always on high alert) but she dreads the amount of people at school since baby. She always got sensory issues with crowded places.
I would love to teach my daughter and more 3 or 4 kids at home... I am agnostic, very open minded and it would be not to block her from knowllege... sorry for my broken english... I am brazilian.
We are autistic (me, my daughter, my son and my mom).
Thank you for sharing, Amanda. You sound like an amazing mum and teacher 🧡
I literally lost my ability to breath when you talked about the stats still being true
12 years doesn't seem like a whole lot of time in terms of any meaningful societal shift, so sadly I suspect the numbers would be pretty similar these days. I hope I'm wrong. 🧡
Just dont worry and enjoy your life
When parents regard their kids as situations, not as people.
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Gen X here, and i can relate to soooo much of this (including my dad saying i'll just get married and have a lot of kids) I feel my upbringing and not knowing I am autistic, really stopped me from blooming and becoming who i could have been. I know there's still time to some degree but i am old enough that i can't really 'begin' only take what's left and do the best i can and find JOY! I am, since my diagnosis, finding much more joy and being able to be myself. (though i also went through a year of heavy grief, confusion whilst also everything making so much sense and my life making so much more sense) But having parents, as a gen X, i was pretty much on my own, not supported emotionally at ALL. It's too bad, but I have to pick up the pieces and enjoy my life from here on out, best i can. I was made fun of and i never think of it as being bullied, but i suppose it's the same thing... i felt insight from this video and an important commaradarie or feeling like i'm not alone.
Thank you for sharing 🧡
Welp this hits close to home
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I wonder if those girls that bullied had children and had children that were on the Autistic Spectrum and if that changed the way or made them embarrassed about their behaviour toward you. I am an Autistic male who had a very similar experiences at school. I tended to gravitate to outcasts who had similar interests to me.
Im sure if I met you ill just act like you're any other human being and then treat you that way like give you the same level of respect that id give to everyone else so the way i act around everyone else ill do the same if i met you