Aspies and autists, what was high school like for you?

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bad

I`m in High School at the moment, in the Netherlands you usually go to High school from your 12th untill your 17/18th.

I never had many friends and got bullied from my first high school. After that i went to the school my friends were at. Dropping some levels of education. At this school i did do fine but i had to do a year over! My mother got so pissed because i used to follow a much higher level of education and got fantastic grades but i managed to screw that year up so bad! Happily it had a good reason, i made a friend i was totally obsessed about! We had so much fun during lessons we didn`t concentrate on the books.

After a year we moved out of the city to a small town. This is where i go to school now. I`m the top student of my grade at the moment and i`m not even giving 100%.

All along i didn`t have many friends, just 2 but they where very close to me. At the moment i don`t have any friends at my school but i do hang out with a couple of guys which i like. It keeps me away from being rediculed.

All in all my school carreer started bad but got better after a while.

Hated it hated it HATED IT. That is all.

As for the questions...


Did you have any friends? Yup, I switched groups every few months/every year or so. At a few points I had none.

Did you sit alone at lunch? Most of the time, I went to the library alone. There were some times I had friends.

If you did have friends, are you still friends with those people? A few, but not close.

If not, then why? I was socially incompetent at dealing with high-school dramas and usually ended up being pushed out of friendship groups when a drama was going on due to saying the wrong thing.

Were you ever invited to places? Sometimes, but towards the end, not really.

Did you like your teachers? Two, yes. The rest... NO.

Did you get good grades? Heck no.

What was your graduation ceremony night like? Didn't go to it.

High school was the most horrible sagas in my life. I studied at a special school, but had been mainstreamed, and did not even know I was autistic until just recently. I was frequently bullied, and unarguably it was the worst bullying I have ever experienced. I have always experienced being taunted and beaten, and when I tell on them, no one believes me. I've had my first girlfriend, but only lasted a few months, since even she was being taunted because of me.

There was one time the entire class turned on me, throwing plenty of stuff at me (books, erasers, chalk crayons, even chairs) until I fell unconscious. And when I got up, no one helped me, and even one of my teachers blamed me for that. The only good thing I've had in high school was when I won the national quiz competition and made it to national level, but that didn't change my status in the school. Even during graduation, I was being taunted, and from that day forward, I virtually cut contact with most of my classmates and refuse to attend any homecoming parties.

I was very fortunate to get into a special arts highschool where the kids were too busy with their education to be bothered with bullying (a HUGE issue of mine throughout adolescence, that I'd rather not discuss). Be that as it may, I was still socially isolated and I may not have been bullied, but a lot of people weren't very accepting of me. I did have one, good friend, mainly because we shared playing guitar and music as a common interest that we could talk about for hours (I have that issue of being able to talk about something at length, which can be annoying, so I apologize in advance). He enlisted in the Army right out of highschool. I think about him every once in a while and hope that one day we could be friends again.

Actual classes were easy, yet hard at the same time. I did very well with school work and could pass tests, but I couldn't study. I'm very detail oriented, so I would read the question first and scan for the answers in any sort of test that required reading comprehension. I also have a crazy memory for some things (I memorized entire books just from my parents reading them to me as a child), so regurgitating information without knowing being able to explain that information is kind of my specialty. It got me through school, but I didn't take much away from it.

I'm still taking classes right now to train for a career in the IT field. Since I've just recently been diagnosed with Asperger's (I'm 25), I'm finally beginning to see how my brain functions and why I don't do so well in school. It's not that I can't focus, it's that my brain doesn't know what to focus on. When a teacher is lecturing, there are so many things going on. Talking, writing or drawing on the board, body language, the change in their tone of voice. My teacher also clears his throat, almost obsessively (something I did when I was in my teens, possibly due to Tourette Syndrom), so that's another thing I can't help but focus on. Plus there are people in class whispering, some breathe heavily, papers rustle, the sound of the keyboard and mouse clicking. It's all too much for my brain to handle, so it focuses on the wrong things. Thankfully, my teacher is great with visual aids and he's willing to stay after hours just to help someone on something.

Anyway, excuse my lengthy post. I'm really trying to work on not talking at great lengths about a subject. At least not in one post.

Last edited by Shadewraith on 23 Nov 2011, 9:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have people I talk to, but I wouldn't really call them "friends" in the same way an NT would. I usually only talk to them when I need to, and I only talk to them in school, about school or my interests, everything else I just observe and listen. I sit alone sometimes if I'm busy doing some schoolwork or reading; but mostly I sit with two friends. I'm still friends with the majority of people I've associated with; yet, I have more issues making friends than keeping them. I tend to stay away from people I know I won't get along with or they won't get along with me. I'm invited to quite a few places, mostly through events in my school's Honors Society. I absolutely love my teachers' personalities; although, sometimes they degrade the content to the point where I actually do worse because there isn't enough detail for me to understand: I'm an inductive reasoner not a deductive one in most situations. Also many don't understand that having a classroom environment where students can talk during tests is not good for somebody who tracks conversations easily, naturally and divides his or her focus among them. Other than that, all of my teachers have been nice and helpful. My grades are pretty good, they're not the best and I know I could have done better if I tried more(3.87UW or 96% GPA - 1980 SAT; hoping for 700+ in SAT Math II and Biology etc.) I still have my senior year to finish, but like the rest of things organized by my school I expect my graduation ceremony to be very unorganized. Overall I think my high school experience is the best it could have possibly been with my limitations. Unlike most other teenagers: NT or Aspie, I haven't succumbed to depression and have enjoyed the atmosphere of my high school as a learning environment - although it wasn't very challenging and I feel as if my potential wasn't met. I think the biggest factor compared to others is that I have never been subjected to significant bullying, just minor verbal teasing that I rarely take to mean anything: either because I don't understand it, or I know that it doesn't represent me well.

Hey Lightening, I had a very similar experience. You are not alone!

This sensation of wanting to go back to high school, after it was complete hell, is so bizarre. I was literally counting the days to graduation, going to college and leaving my town, hopefully for good. But at the same time it became an integral part of me--I defined myself based on my struggles there, and was also ironically the most artistically productive then, probably since art was my defense mechanism. I wonder if some of my issues stem from my inability to move on...
I'm almost finishing college and hate how self-assured so many of my friends/colleagues are. It'll be even worse once we graduate and are supposed to have a "next step" in life to go to.

I was disrespectful to the students and faculty/staff. I sat alone at the lunch table, I had no friends because of the disrespectfulness to the students. My report card in 12th grade said incomplete classes. I graduated with a Special Diploma.

Did you have any friends?
There was a group I hung out with. Talked very little. I remember a period all I would talk about was video games because I had no idea what else to talk about. I never did anything and didn't see the point in talking without a point, if that makes sense. I did notice I was extremely quiet around people. I was not shy though. I never felt timid around my guy friends. But I guess I was shy around meeting new people, or rather did not like getting out of my comfort zone. I was extremely shy (not nervous) just really avoided interaction with girls until my sophomore year. I hung out with a few groups in high school. I felt more at ease with fellow socially awkward people too.

Did you sit alone at lunch?
Not in high school as I had "friends" even though I would really never talk much. After high school in the work force I ate alone a lot at the cafeteria.

If you did have friends, are you still friends with those people? If not, then why?
It's extremely hard for me to keep in touch with people. I can't make small talk for the life of me. If I try it goes like, Hi how have you been? ok. I hate talking on the phone. Though I always long to talk with someone, or have someone talk to me. I can usually accomplish this if I have a girlfriend. As with a SO I spent the time to open myself up and be awkward around them that it puts me at ease. I don't even really care what she's talking to me about. I will give my general responses and have learned to show interest and emotion. But generally I forget the conversation within a few days.

Were you ever invited to places?
For a while no. I guess I learned to adapt and act social. But I still tend to avoid people and friends. I think it helps being a part of a group of friends so that you automatically get invited to wherever everyone is going. It took me the longest time, a few years after high school, to learn that to keep friends you have to be a good friend yourself. I had to learn to force myself to go out when people invited me. If I turned them down I would get no more invites. And I always avoided inviting other people to hang out. I generally did things by myself, not because I wanted to. I don't know..I go back and forth on this a lot. I would want friends to hang out with, but I always loved having the option to take off early to do my own thing, which just consisted of spending hours on the internet at home. There were many times I felt my peers were beneath me.


Did you like your teachers?
Generally no. A few good ones yes. I've always excelled in classes where the teacher showed great interest in their students doing well, even if they were a bad lecturer. Their motivation for students to learn motivated me to work harder and seek outside help.


Did you get good grades?
50/50. I'm halfway through college and am now noticing the exact same problems I had in high school. Extremely unfocused and easily distracted. I did extremely well the first year of college, but as the classes became more difficult it became much harder for me to focus. I would drop classes just so I would not feel as overwhelmed and swamped. But having now transferred to a top university, I really am not allowed to take a reduced courseload. They are pretty strict on graduating on time. And I feel overwhelmed and this feeling kind of forces me to avoid doing work, even though I know it's not really forcing me. It's just now extremely hard for me to sit down and study and stay focused.

What was your graduation ceremony night like?
Normal I guess.

The lunch schedules varied everyday, so sometimes I shared it with people I knew. I had some friends I made from middle school, and I'd sometimes sit with them, but one of them stopped wanting to talk to me that year because she thought I was weird, so even when I shared it with them, I'd sit at the end of the table alone. Then my junior year was pretty much alone, and to sometimes I'd stay at my locker instead of going to lunch if I was worried about not finding a seat. If it was a lunch I'd be alone at and could find a seat, then I would sit, but there were particular ones where they got taken up really fast.

That was a really bad time because it was so unpredictable, and I hated waiting around at my locker for a half hour if teachers walked by or students..like some students would see I was still there after 20 minutes.

Several times, I'd call my mom up to come dismiss me instead of going through with that.

When I was a senior, I usually had a stable set of people to sit with (the ones I knew from middle school + their friends) but never talked to them and just sat there. I also had some online classes, so I'd just stay in the library instead of going to lunch, but people weren't supposed to.

I had no after school friends to hang out with. I hardly talked to anyone in classes. My freshman year in one particular class was bad because the people thought it would be fun to have a daily game involving me where one would invade my space and just be like, "Hey baby," and they'd all laugh and tell him what to say..and just try to make a fool out of me. This went on for pretty much the whole year. It was really too much attention for me.

For some reason, I find myself prone to people who like to make a joke out of me and pretend to be interested to make another friend or friends entertained. I suppose it's more aspire-ish to fall for it? Maybe I was just so used to it that I interpreted every form of someone's interest in me as mocking or using.

I guess one way I dealt with it was knowing that I was objectively smarter than they were and had more talents like drawing.

I also refused to go to my graduation ceremony, which people pressured me to do and felt was necessary as some traditional memory thing, but I don't feel bad about it and saw no point.

I was homeschooled.

Only realized as an adult I had mild Asperger's. I didn't have one core group of friends at that school, but was on the speecha nd debate team. it may sound unusual but i did extemporaneous speaking and did well because it helped me become more confident. So did lunch.

See, I'm legally blind, and thought that was why I couldn't see body language or any of that other nonverbal stuff or recognize faces. Well, that was part of it, but not a lot.

So, I would sit by myself at times, but if I sawa seat empty I'd jsut sit anywhere and start talking to people. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I got a reputation as a really nice kid who tried to be above all thsoe so-called cliques because of that, so it was cool. They also liked my honesty - very eartly my sophomore year I sat across froma football player at lunch, and I said some very genuine and honest things that probably helped boost his ego, too, so he could appear the "big man on campus" as a star player while still talking to this down-to-earth nerd. Such as, "This is neat, i never thought about football players as students like me, I always think of you with all your pads on ina game on TV. (Our big rivalry was always televised." I don't know if those were my exact words, but I remember he laughed and we got off on the right track then.)

When i was done eating, if there was time and I wasn't talking to someone I would go around the cafeteria and pick up trash. I didn't know what else to do but it seemed like something nice, and i was applauded for it, so it worked out well. i wasn't doing it to pick up litter, though, so much as for somethign to do and because the floor looked cleaner. (I could see a napkin or kietchup packet right in front of me.)

I never dated, though, because I thought a good date was getting to know a girl's family by sitting around playing board games with them instead of going out and gazing at them. I thought relationships were supposed to form from friendships, not dates. i'd have been better off courting. There, I think you have help since a chaperone is with you and you can ask advice, I would think. (I'm 42 now)

Facts were something I obsessed over, always wanting the right info and wondering why anyone wouldn't want all the right info on soemthing. The speech team was good for this when i had to collect newspaper articles and read them, then pick one of 3 topics to prepare a speech on. I had 5-7 minutes, and though my speches at first were about 15 mintues long (seriously!) I whittled it down to the point where I managed to make the state tournament my senior year. it really helped me to be more dconfident and outgoing.

However, debate, I couldn't do. I remember one debate in Speech class where my opponent referred to Martin Luther as Ed Luther, the then-backup QB for the Chargers,a nd I didn't call him on it because I couldn't stand to; i was just in the mindset that being nice to everyone was how to get along.

When I would start to talk to peple, say at lunch, my questiosn would always center around a favorite class or something like that, and I'd glean info or stories on different subjects I could then use at other times. Conversing, to me, is like a game, especially if it's just social chit-chat. Listen to someone say something, search the brain to find a fact that connects to it, and bring up that fact. Sort of like a verbal game of catch. Sometimes it would be a person I'd already asked something of whom I would sit with, and here's where being visually impaired helped me - they figured I just didn't know them becuase of my sight. Well, that was true, but it was also true that I really wasn't totally sure what else to say to someone.

So, it was fun for me, in a big school of 1600 students. I made the National honor Society, newspaper staff, yearbook, and a couple other things.

I had a handful of close friends, but they were a grade below me, at different schools, or both, save for one who often sat with me if we had the same lunch but he was an exchange student for a year so I just wandered. Sometimes I'd sit witht he speech team kids and we'd discuss debates or speech topics, and I agreed with a few of them on a lot of things politically so we got along well. As I said, though, I didn't always see them so I just sat with anyone. I continued that in college in fact, although there the schedule was a bit mroe routine and I would usually sit with the 3-5 close friends I made there.

The thing about the close friends I made in college was that they enjoyed the randomness and humor that typified my thinking and actions. My high school friends, well,a couple grew to think i was too weird because they were supposedly "growing up" and some of their comments really hurt. I'm closer to my college and later my church friends than I am any high school friends save for one, though we're all so scattered even the ones who didn't make fun of me I'm not close to. But, maybe that's my expectations, too. I never thought about the fact high school friends did move away often, whereas with college ones, I expected that we wouldn't always see each other since we were from different places, so it's been easier to keep in touch via phone.

Sorry, that got so long-winded; you can see how I'd take every news article i had even remotely related to a topic and use it in a speecha t first, I imagine.

All I'll say is in high school, I sat at the lunch tables with people who would socialize with the school-appointed aide. Realized there's no meaning of life or the universe in chemistry class, world became the gray bleak sack of humanity on a rock it was, and yelled and confronted people who were becoming gossipy indifferent jerks. And got guilt-trips for years due to the aide overstepping her job by being mad and disparaging to me. But i still stay in touch with some of the classmates.

It sucked because I barely passed and only had like one real friend. Now that I'm struggling in college, I'm unsure if it's better or worse than high school. Read my post if you want to know more.

1. Yes, I had a few "friends" but they weren't really friends. We didn't hang out, we barely talked, and I spent most of my time alone. But they weren't mean to me and were even a little bit understanding, so I liked them.

2. Yes, I chose to sit alone at lunch. From 8th-12th grade I spent my lunch time in the library studying, doing homework, or reading. Eating in front of other people makes me very nervous, and I dislike the sounds of people eating, especially chewing, so I chose to avoid the cafeteria altogether.

3. I still sometimes talk to two of them, but that's all.

4. I was invited to a friends birthday party in 9th grade, but I think that was the last place I was invited. And I'm glad. As my friends and I got older I noticed that they matured and changed and I didn't, so I always felt left out because I didn't care about boys or clothes or anything like that. It was hard and boring listening to them talk about stuff I had no interest in, so I stopped hanging out with them.

5. I liked some of my teachers, felt a strong bond with some of them, and didn't care for others. Some of them were almost like extended family and I would regularly stay behind to talk with them.

6. My grades were alright, except in math. I routinely failed even basic math classes and highly suspect Dyscalculia. I also had a lot of health issues which were interfering with my work, and that was frustrating because nobody seemed to know what was causing the issues and nobody offered any help, so I had to struggle through and make things work on my own. I later found out I have ADD which didn't help at all.

7. My graduation ceremony went something like this: Put on my gown, walked down the aisle to get my diploma, went out to eat, went home, got some gifts, watched tv, and went to bed. The only reason we went out to eat is because my parents and my brothers wanted to. I personally dislike eating in public, so I just got a salad and didn't even eat much of that.

I didn't learn anything in High School that I couldn't have learned at the age of 13, and it was as stressful as hell. If I have kids I'm going to do a lot of their education myself and I'm going to put them in college as soon as they're done with Junior High, assuming that they have skills and interests similar to mine. And I'm going to make sure that they take some hard technical subject that college-party-assholes don't tend to take and drop out of if they do.