What was the worst part of growing up and going to school with AS? This could be a feeling or an activity or whatever...
For me, it was that I always always *always* felt like everyone was watching me, which made me even more reclusive, and when I made a mistake and other people saw, I felt even worse.
This was especially hard during gym class, what with me being lousy at sports. People always ended up yelling at me either because I didn't try or because I sucked when I did try. How about that...
blah.
Recess - I was SO happy when we didn't have it in Jr. High anymore. Except then it was the horror of trying to figure out who to share a locker with.
The first year I got stuck with someone who didn't have anyone else and disliked me. What a nightmare.
Gym I could handle, as it was directed by an adult and I know what to do even if I wasn't great at it. It's the not knowing what to do that always made recess miserable.
Then it was trying to figure out where to sit at lunch...
Bullying by the other kids and the teachers. That time is best forgotten. I think school failed me and fails other like me still.
From the 4th year ( year 10 ) my games teacher used to let me do cross-country running to avoid team games. They knew I had know interest so gave up on me which was good. My 5th year was OK. I got into the right groups with some nice people. That year was good as I wasn't bullied. As the yongest child my parents understood the stress school was causing me and used to let me have the odd day off. They have also never pressured me in adult life which is nice.
It didn't matter that I had AS much. I was the ideal target in my class. In grade school I always played alone, and always got bullied. I had been in one tramatic situation where the whole class laughed directly at me for being physicaly weak. Very unpleasant experiance, that I didn't remember till I was in my mid twenties. I was in kindergarden when the whole group laughed at me for being slow in motion.
They were laughing loudly "Looser" "whimp" ect., and only one girl and the teacher wasn't laughing. After a few painful minutes it only felt like the laughing was some hurtful noise, and the walls even to seem to vanish from my mind. The teacher should have just stopped it soon after it started! I was bullied constantly throughout public school, and four times had a fight or flight reaction. Now I hate the public school system, and very much support homeschoolers.
The kids in homeschooling system were so much friendlier, happier and actualy treated me like a person of equal value.
I put this down to poor teaching. A proper teacher i.e one in control of the class, shouldn't let this happen.
Fortunately, I never had to deal with physical bullying, but there was teasing now and then. Some of the creatures purporting to be my classmates seemed to sense how tense and afraid I was all the time.
Ugh, PE. I got by by allowing the sport nuts to jump in front of me whenever a ball came my way, since the ball was so apparently important. One guy in high school really made my life hell for a while, because he couldn't stand to lose. Finally I lost it, screamed at him that it wasn't the &%$*ing Olympics and a few more unprintable things, and sat down on the bleachers. I refused to get up until my teacher promised I would never be on a team with him again.
Yet another way my classmates baffled me...why was it important to win these games? Sometimes I would play badly on purpose, to try to show them the world wouldn't end if we lost.
<rolling eyes>
Athie
Bullying
Teachers who do not understand
Going to school
PE (Getting dressed in front of everyone and having coordination problems)
Having to go out at break time when I hated doing so.
Being attacked
And all this was before I was diagnosed.
In early primary school, I also hated being too shy to ask to go to the toilet because in the break all the big girls hogged the toilets. (at the time, grade 1-7 girls had to share 2 toilets and there were about 100 or so girls).
As I have said in another thread I also hated going to the toilet at Infant school as it was the very first time that I had used a toilet that wasn't at home. At least twice I wet myself because I needed to go but wasn't confident on using the toilet. Cue teacher with wet clothes in a carrier bag and some new clothes from Lost Property for me to wear. However I managed to overcome this fear by the time that I had left the school. Now I have no problem using public toilets.
One day, I wet my pants at school and the teacher roused on me and say "why didn't you ask to go to the toilet?" I couldn't very well say it was because I'd just heard her yell at some boys who asked to go that they weren't allowed to.
Anyway, she gave me these funny old pants to wear and asked me in front of the whole class for the following week when I was going to bring back the pants she'd lent me.
I think that cured me of having accidents at school but it was soooo embarrassing.
I also got into trouble for sucking on my windcheater and chewing rubbers. It was probably some kind of stimming as I can remember often feeling very bored and sometimes miserable.
School bathrooms...eek. I don't have a problem with public bathrooms, but I had a big problem with the school ones; there were always kids just hanging out in there, and that really irked me for some reason. Enough so that I actually trained myself to not need to use the bathroom between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. I went in a school bathroom once in seventh grade, and never again afterward.
<hugs>
Athie
The problem with toilets in primary school was that they could be unlocked with a coin.
O.o Ok a coin involved in having to go is insane. Some crazed lunatic must have thought of the idea.
I agree. In 1996, my family and I went to San Francisco on vacation. At one of the restaurants on Fishermans's Wharf, we had to get a token to enter the restroom.
Tim
I hated getting pushed out of the line if I wanted to get some food at the tuckshop. This mostly happened in 8th grade.