Where did you have the most trouble in school?
I'm all done with school. probably forever. well except that gunsmithing thing i have planned, but other than that i'm quit school. there's no point. But it wasn't all that bad...
(this is long, i'm not good at summarizing things)
elementary, i was bullied by some and teased by others. I was antisocial and unable to talk to other people beyond very basic, functional statements like "i need to go to the bathroom'. language was not one of my strengths. I barely had a grasp of language. I did very well in math and sciences. I sucked at everything else and I was alone all the time. The worst times were during break and lunch, where kids came around and messed with me and it's nothing ill-intended but i didn't know that or how to handle it in a social way, i'd get mad and it was almost everyday i was sent to the principal's office for fighting them. For a while they thought because my chinese cultural background i might me ESL and i was placed in the ESL class, i felt more comfortable there in a smaller class where everyone got to really know each other and my speaking improved a little, but i was still scared to talk to other students and preferred to be alone most of the time. I was really sad that i didn't have any friends, but too scared to seek them or talk to anyone other than teachers.
my asperger tantrums got me in alot of trouble. I'd freak out when things weren't done my way and i'd hit everyone, including the teachers. there was an incident in the 4th grade that because i really didn't understand social norms i was nearly expelled. my dad started to suspect i might be autistic the year before and tried to explain it to the school but no one knew what it was and they didn't make any accommodations for me.
I fished up 5th and 6th grade at another school where there were some accommodations and i felt better and people respected my space and they introduced themselves and i just felt more welcome... but i was still antisocial, i desperately wanted to speak up and make friends but i was too scared to do so, i was self conscious and extremely shy. It was probably around this time i started studying other people, how they interact and what they did, so i, one day, can be normal like them too. (little did i know this is something that took me until i was 24 to complete)
middle school was better in some aspects and worse in others. not having friends became really apparent to other kids and they reached out to me and sometimes i was social and other times I'd have very aspie days (that went on for weeks) and i'd push them away. then when i went back to being social i was scared they'd reject me so I couldn't make friends again.
I was diagnosed high functioning autistic and aspergers syndrome around october 2001. Based on my paperwork I conclude that I was extremely depressed but told no one, not even my parents because i couldn't express myself at all.
I found out in middle school that i enjoyed team sports and activities, it was a small group and i felt comfortable and welcomed, and my efforts were noticeable and appreciated by other people.
I found out i had anger management issues and violence problems and it was another self improvement project that i started working on, but at the same time due to depression and rejection by others- more like i was incapable of accepting others- i dreamt of very violent fantasies involving killing other students, bombing the school or shooting it up. I wasn't really aware of what was wrong with that at all, despite columbine happening about 2 years before. all i knew was that i must keep all my plans and fantasies to myself because other people wouldn't understand and will probably take it the wrong way.
In middle school my favorite subjects were science, engineering, and cooking. I was starting to get behind on math (despite my dad's best efforts) and my english/composition was just plain terrible. To this day i still don't know grammar or sentence structure, i just go with whatever seems right. Somehow I pulled thru just on gut feelings, since i failed 9th grade english but still got a diploma.
High school my parents decided to try something and give me academic freedom on my studies, but still instructed what classes to take. By them i already knew I was excellent hands-on and besides interest in chemistry (solely for pyrotechnics and bomb making) I sucked and had no confidence in all other academics. I was still no good with language but I evidently pushed myself for it anyway and took a year of French.
I wasn't ware back then but I'm aware now, that i'm a very aggressive person. In high school I aggressively pushed myself forward, ignoring my aspie days and the bullying, rejection by others and teasing i suffered every day. I ignored the things I was terrible at and refused to let them get me down.
In the general population I was a loner and I was still scared to talk to anyone i didn't know other than teachers, but in small groups like the anime club and circle of friends club i bloomed, i ws quite social and i made a few casual friends.
I also had a thing for rule breaking, mostly for the thrill of it. whatever my parents didn't get me (they are very conservative people and didn't see why i needed a cell phone or ipod to fit in with other kids, or more than $20/wk for lunch/pocket money) i pretty much stole. I didn't see any wrong with it either. other kids were rich, they probably didn't mind. I definitely have an antisocial streak in me. I vandalized and I headed a PC gamer's club for 2 years that i headed on my own and made up of other kids, and during lunch we'd get on computers all over campus and have massive LAN Counter-Strike battles. Obviously school computers are not supposed to play games. Me and a few others basically hacked about 65 computers. Hacking back then wasn't complicated, in fact calling it 'hacking' was a gross exaggeration. all i did was use a staff login and get to a system folder, delete some files and then i can install and run whatever i wanted. The PC gamer's club came to an abrupt end in my junior year when they upgraded all the systems and they started enforcing "hacking computers is a crime" rule. They must have discovered my illicit gaming network.
So at school i wasn't exactly that perfect kid that never got in trouble... actually i never did get in trouble for any of that. I dunno how i got away with it. I suppose my innocent exterior helped alot, i jsut don't look like someone who'd ever break a single rule, and in front of adults I behaved that way. I also exploited the adults belief that aspies don't lie.
I still didn't have any real friends that i hung out with after school or walked home with, and that really sucked.
My high school interests was all hands on courses. I did super well in practical chemistry that didn't involve math. My parent's had *racist* thoughts about me taking auto shop, metal working and carpentry and at best i only got them to let me take auto shop, i enjoyed that course tremendously. I wish that i took more hands on courses.
I also got into a habit of lying, because my grades were just awful in everything that wasn't hands on. maths i failed, english i failed, history i failed, social sciences, humanities, all D's and F's. My parents believe i was a B & C student. I got pretty good at forging my report cards.
I scraped a passing 2.0 GPA. (the lowest you can go) purely on the hands on electives like ceramics, model making, auto shop, computer arts, computer technology...
That was the first 2 years, the latter two years i started going down, I didn't have a club anymore, I didn't have friends, I cheered myself up with fantasies of shooting up the school and I went deeper into chemistry and pyrotechnics, my antisocial behaviors got stronger and I basically isolated myself from everyone (unintentionally). very ironically at my worst, the day i turned 18 to buy a gun because i desired go going on a rampage, after i went to the range I went back up and away from that kind of thing. Eh, never really stepped away from liking to blow stuff up or set them on fire though.
College was more of my academic fails.
I got back to square one socially, and I didn't fit in, no car, no friends, huge class sizes, depression, aspie days, no money, no laptop, no cell phone, I just dropped out about about 4 years of struggling. I again, lied and told my parents I sucked at school, which isn't that much of a lie, it's a half truth. the truth was that because i didn't fit in and i didn't feel welcome, i couldn't make it to class, i was scared of everyone, i had no self esteem or confidence, and i didn't know how to tell my parents or counselors that. They probably wouldn't understand anyways. I lost my aggressive push in college.
After College I had a year in something called Job Corps, which academically i did well but socially it was back & forth like experience where i was welcomed but i felt i didn't fit in, and some days I was social and others i was not, and i didn't have a clue what was going on with me. But that experience helped me build my self confidence and social skills, plus it was the first time i lived on my own for a year (well it was with other kids in a dorm-like environment)
Socially i didn't really 'bloom' until i was about 23, a year after making a close friend and i started going to meet up groups of random people and opening myself up and talking, etc. I initially focused on my aspie fixations which has become guns and airsoft but now expanded into camping and general hanging out. I think if i went back to my high school times I'd do way better both academically and socially and make more friend and be much happier, and basically 'fix my life'. College wouldn't be so messed up at lest if i had confidence and some friends to push me along.
Academics: It was definitely math........always had trouble with it, and it wasn't until my sophomore year in high school that a teacher became suspicious that I might have a learning problem. I do know that the school administration was looking into what could be done for me, but for whatever reason, nothing happened. So.......I ended up graduating high school without having passed Algebra I.
Social: I had severe excema on my hands, I often scratched, and let's just say that I was oblivious as to how this looked to other kids at school.....I got teased quite a bit about it.
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