I was bullied and the things people did and said to me stick with me even today. Sometimes I still have nightmares. Humans are social animals and rejection can hurt just as badly as any physical injury. When I left public school I had learned 3 things; that my opinion was worthless, my property was worthless and my body was worthless. My liberation from bulling came in the form of high school -it was an inner city school devoted to tech and art and so everyone was nuts. Even if I was crazy or inappropriate there was always the guy who walked around with underwear on his head (am not making this up) soooooo.....
I can't tell you how good it felt to be a person again -to be considered a human being and treated as someone with value. To be given something more than just walking or blindly surviving. Really living. I could feel myself coming back to life and I found my voice again.
The loneliness is a real killer.
Is there an autism social group at school or in your city? If not would you be object to starting one? My friends and I put one together where we live and it's just a bunch of us from therapy groups (we are older so we're a bit more independent) but we go to restaurants or go bowling and everyone there is on the spectrum so it's sort of a safe place to be as weird and wacky as we want. We split up the phoning and just let each other talk -there doesn't have to be a curriculum to it. Sometimes it's just nice to be together and autistic and not be scared about hiding it.
The important part, for me anyway, was getting up every time I got dehumanized. It was almost a way of flipping everyone else off -showing them that they hadn't beaten me down, couldn't keep me down no matter how hard they tried. It's the one thing I really love about us -we get kicked and abused and spat on...and yet we still find reasons to get out of bed in the morning. That takes real courage.
We seem to have this strange power -to attract the very best in people, and the very worst.
Tell your son to hang in there for me -that we're all pulling for him. Tell him it gets better and to never give up -that those who mind don't matter, and that those who matter don't mind.
03 Sep 2012, 2:39 am
