Aspies For Freedom

Middle School: Horrible.  I got stuff thrown at me even during class presentations...the teachers did little to help me and I had few friends...by the time I reached high school i couldn't be touched or spoken to without me getting scared.  I got into a lot of arguments with my classmates...and some kid stole my French homework because he wanted to cheat and copy it.  

High School: Difficult at first because I had no social skills and was afraid of everyone...I worked with one of the nuns for my first year and things went well my sophomore and junior years...senior year my friends didn't like me anymore because I was too weird and I went to a school that was very big on socialization and outward appearance.  I was one of the "odd" students and we stuck together.

[quote=outsideL00kinN]

Between MS and HS (9th and 10th grades), I worked construction. First week in HS, we did assessments in PE, and of course three of my tormenters were 1) jocks, and 2) in my PE class..................................................... I proceeded to do 20 without breaking a sweat or slowing down. I spontaneously decided that was enough, and just stopped, though it felt like I could do another 20. No one bothered me after that; it proved to be a marvelous deterrent .


Saw THAT coming - GREAT STORY! my husband ( I'm surprised that this was true) said he was not strong in highschool - worked construction after high school - and no kidding - is THE strongest man I've EVER come across.  He has a 46 chest - built like a lumberjack- He says it is amazing what hard work - and good genetics-does for a guy!

Hey AP, are you sure you are in a gifted school? They let you sit on a desk? Doesn't that bother the other students - I have found that "gifted" students like to conform and get upset when others don't... How'd you manage the great school placement?

Korrigan , funny coincidence!  Hey, luckily my hubby (NT?) wasn't picked on at all - catholic school - same friends from 1st grade thru 12th - but he grew up to be 6 feet 1 and 250 lbs also! (are you tall like me, I am almost 6 feet tall, ukrainian stock)

Middle school: Good.
High school: Crap.

Ah, dang, I already did this thread.  I was gonna say, I suppose there were other human beings in my middle school but I didn't take much notice of them (and I think it was mutual.)  Can't remember a single name 'cept a few nice teachers and one who paid no attention to anything ever.

In middle school I started to become aware of just how unpopular I was.  One of my friends came up to me and told me that one of my other friends was spreading tasty rumors behind my back.  I didn't know who to believe...so I kept both friends.  granted, the one that told me about the rumors was a friend for longer, and a better friend.  As little as a few months ago we'd still text on occasion, I kind of feel bad about losing contact with her.  I never went to any dances or anything like that, rarely went out with friends other than an occasional sleepover (they were usually fairly stressful, because I was always saying "No, you're not supposed to do that" or "No, we'll get in trouble" and then they'd all do it and drag me along anyway).  I did track and field for 2 years in middle school ,and sucked horribly, but since they were desperate for team members, I was never cut.  I did shotput and relays. I remember braking someone's finger with the shot and falling over myself in one of the relays.  And freezing my butt off in the early spring meets. But I loved to run for whatever reason, so I stuck with it, despite being no good at running. I was also approached a few times in middle school by boys wanting to "go out" and given my appearance and low self-confidence combined with the communication problems inherent with Asperger's, I never knew if they were joking or not. Now I regret not saying yes even one time, just to see what it was like. Then in high school, on my very first day, some random guy asked me out, and of course I was still confused and never knew if anyone was joking, teasing, or serious, so I said no. To this day, I'm almost 21 and have never been on a date with a guy. My mom found the senior pictures I got from people in high school, and a few weeks ago she was looking through them and said "How come you never did anything with this guy?  You would have been a good couple, and he obviously wanted to b more than just friends, he wrote so on the back of his picture. And he took your senior pictures, too, just so he could be sure he got a picture."  Well, it said "I enjoyed being your friend but I wish we could have been closer" and I took it to mean he wished we could have been better friends, not boyfriend and girlfriend.  I don't know what he actually meant, but damn, if he really did want to get serious and I missed it, it's a shame, as I really liked him. And in retrospect, he could have very well been an Aspie, too...then again we were in the International Baccalaureate program, and let's face it, 90% of us were at least a little nerdy anyway  Some of us just much, much more so than others. Overall in high school, I was slightly more socially active, though only slightly.  The only school functions I went to were the IB Synthesis my junior year, which is basically a huge sleepover for the entire IB junior and senior classes, and I went to prom my senior year, with much coaxing from my small group of friends (we went as a group, no pairing up required, much less pressure).  Out of all the friends (aka people I knew) in high school, I've only kept in contact with one of them.  We rarely see each other, but we do e-mail on occasion.  We go to the same university, so it makes it a little easier, but it'd be better if we had classes together once in a while ,but since she's doing chemistry and I'm doing biology, we don't really have classes together.  I mostly ate lunch alone in both middle school and high school.  In middle school I ate with friends more often than in high school.  In high school I was almost always alone to eat, except for when i happened to stumble upon one f my two good friends in my search of ran empty table.  If I couldn't be with someone I knew, I wanted to be at a table all by myself because I couldn't stand eating around strangers...plus they'd try to talk to me and I couldn't talk back because, well, I was busy eating. Then in high school, my junior year I think it was, I was standing in line and this girl just starts chattering away, and I'm just standing there thinking "Who the hell are you and why are you talking to me about all this?" Hehe, I still remember the first conversation (we ended up talking at lunch, mostly, and someone I didn't mind that).  She opened with "Do I really look like I weigh XXX pounds? I mean, I think I do, but everyone else says no. Did you know there are subliminal messages in The Little Mermaid?  Watch the priest carefully at the end when they get married, he's a little too happy in the pants. And  in Aladdin, too, the monkey says 'Oh shit!' and the tiger says 'Take off your clothes.'" Turns out she was a year older than me and also in the IB program, and we actually had a lot of things in common.  Fate played a part in that one, how else would two people who didn't know each other at all just happen to meet one day and really get to be friends?  Seriously, she was one of my best friends that year, up until she graduated, and even then, every time I saw her come back to visit we'd talk. She also was taking psychology at the same time I was (though not in the same class, but from the same teacher...that's where the talk about subliminal messages came from) and was taking IB music, which prepared me for the lack of instruction in that class.  Really, she was a saving grace as far as the music class was concerned.     In middle school I had a 4.0 GPA the entire time. Then in high school it started slipping, I got a few Bs here and there, but only in English and Theory of Knowledge (aka philosophy...seems as if the teacher didn't agree with my idea that language doesn't have to be word-based, and can instead use pictures or images, since thoughts are mostly images anyway...I guess that was before I realized some people don't think visually).  I've always taken pride in my good grades, but I don't know what's happening, last year (my second semester of college) I got a C in a creative writing class, of all things (i apparently wasn't creative enough, either that or she just plain didn't like my writing style.  Though I did love to write).  And this past semester I got an F in organic chem.  Now here's what used to be a straight-A student, and now I got an F.  I don't know what's happened to me.

Wow... Can you say HUGE wall of text?  Sorry 'bout that...really thought I did break it up into paragraphs, but I guess not.

I switched schools after one year of middle school.   I have no idea why my parents did that.

Middle school was 6th, 7th, and 8th grade and all the kids from the 3 different grammar schools (in the US, then, - elementary schools went up till 5th grade), from the three different sections of our rural yet very populated town of 15,000 people ended up mixed together.  

I remember a handful of things from 6th grade.  A girl, very smart and athletic, trying to give me advice that I should carry a pocket book (purse) and not a comb in my back pocket.  My section of town was where the horse farms were, so I was (and am) not into fashion.  I think she wanted me in her group (looking back) (I was considered very brainy - in the gifted and talented program) but I did not get the hint.  The next week she stomped on my foot (on second base) on purpose while playing kick ball.  I never had trouble sticking up for myself so I easily made it clear she should not touch me ever again.

I made one friend in 6th grade and then went to Catholic school in 7th- (where the girls were animals when playing field hockey but otherwise bgetting good grades and having nuns around meant no bullying.  That and having boobs!)
I kept one friend from public school and she is still my firnd today.

As my mom said, in the grand scheme of things, you are lucky if you find one true friend every dozen years. I don't even remember any other people from the middle school years.