this has been on my mind a bit, especially as someone who’s faced discrimination their whole life for being autistic.
this, however, goes back to fourth grade. i was 9 & 10. my school social worker was named mrs. h, and she acted a lot like a high school “mean girl”.
my dad called her bipolar once due to the fact that she’d be aggressive and rude one day, and perfectly cheerful the next.
sadly, i never spoke to s again, but i was once placed in a group with her. nothing ever bad happened with her, except for when she said she didn’t like talking about my interests but mrs. h wanted me to listen to hers. i later found out s didn’t even care if she heard about my interests but mrs. h told her to say she didn’t like it.
i found out that s didn’t even like mrs h because she apparently threatened s to say things that were untrue and harmful, and made her (an 11 year old) cry for not wanting to.
afterwards, i was in a group with r, t, and z. i only currently know t because neither r nor z go here.
i always had these ideas for hangouts with the three so i could make friends during weekly lunch groups with mrs. h, but they’d always be like “nooo… i don’t really want to.” or what z said: “yeah but other people would be left out if only us 4 hung out” (despite the fact that z & t always hung out).
mrs. h would then be like “looks like they don’t wanna hang out with you,” and shrug
I don’t quite remember what r did, but she was constantly rude. then she’d smile at me and want to hang out.
there were several times mrs. h defending my being bullied, said being hit by bullies was “ok”. i also have a history of going on online chat rooms at age 7-8, and every day i was convinced being harassed by those predators was my fault. a crime. after all, it was just like mrs. H and everyone said: i did this to myself and therefore deserved my trauma.
she asked me once “does anyone in your family drink?”
i said: “my dad has a bottle of beer every so often with dinner.”
when i came home, my family was angry and told me “mrs. h called and said you told her your whole family was in rehab.”
i, of course, never said this.
in lunch groups, she would also get mad at me for stimming and wouldn’t let me speak to others, constantly interrupting me and punishing me for speaking when she’d let other kids speak.
she tells me people hate me but never tell me because i’m autistic.
oh someone doesn’t like me? it’s because i’m retarded.
someone’s nice to me? they’re faking it.
you’re leaving me for them? please stay with me.