"Just deal with it."

Post Reply New Topic

i actually liked the special treatment even since i was little my parents are very overprotected but my teachers are not they are like just deal with it your just lazy thats why you fail i hate that!!

The problem is AS isn't well understood. It's stupid to put everyone in a single box and assume we're all disabled in the exact way. Getting accommodations you don't want or need is pointless and patronizing, probably even detrimental in the long run.

But then again you have to be careful what you wish for. AS related problems can sneak up on you, especially when you leave high school / college and have to navigate the real world. There might be times you really do need extra support. That's been my experience anyways.

Yes and no. It rather depends on if one is READY to fall. Falling can make one strong ... or it can make one give up. It was seeing my brilliant son shutting down and giving up that led me to asking for an IEP for him. It certainly is a continual balancing act; what does he really need, and what should he figure out for himself through trial and error.

I've met too many on forums like this one that shut down and gave up and have nothing but hate and anger for the world. That is the risk of letting someone fall who shouldn't have been left to fall.

But you can't leave the training wheels on the bike forever, either. If the child wants them off, you certainly take them off. There are worse things than a few low grades in high school, and it gets tough to know when you are holding your child back in the name of protecting him. You always have to think about whose dreams and goals you are pursuing: yours, or your child's?

Man, it's tough to be a parent.

I don't like the way people make assumptions about me. People call me ret*d, but have no idea why I get the support I do.
If they're going to make it obvious I have special needs, then I'd prefer they tell the whole year, as opposed to people coming up with their own ideas, because now people think they need to help me for things I don't need help and stuff.
I was really pissed off when I read my school record(teacher left it lying on desk, and surprise surprise, I got patronized a lot after she read it), it said, 'un-specified disability' or something like that. So teachers make up their own ideas when they read it. I'm so relieved my technology class had finished, because it was textiles, and all I got was patronized by the teacher. What was worse was that other students picked up on it, who aren't in the same class as me for everything, so all they saw was the 'can't-sew-anything-for-life' me. So now I have students speaking to me slowly, asking me if everything's okay, etc.
So I somewhat feel like I have to prove I'm not an idiot, so I've ended up doing really long essays on small things, which probably makes me look worse. You'd think though, the teachers wouldn't patronize after reading 9 pages or something of me explaining something in the most articulate way possible, but nope.
And then there's PE. I come last in a race, people say well done and that I did good. That really pisses me off, like, insanely.
Sometimes I've said, 'you know... I'm really not ret*d as you all think', but no one ever heard.
I don't have the confidence to just say it. Besides, they'd probably be in denial(when I've shouted at people, 'MY GOD! I NEVER KNEW THAT I HAD TO THROW THE BALL IN THE GOAL! THANK GOD! ALL THESE YEARS OF FRUSTRATION AND IT'S THAT GOD DAMN SIMPLE!', they've just been like, 'well... why don't you do it?' or, 'I wasn't even saying that'[presumably because they were so embarrassed]), or something.
I do find the support helpful sometimes, but I'd just like to go to my social skills group. I'd REALLY appreciate being taken out for Maths tests, but that's the only thing they don't offer to do -.-. The other two people my TA supports, she takes out, but not me :/. Maths tests are too frustrating, I just don't bother with them and get a crappy mark(I worked that out when I was 6...). When it's really important tests, I get really stressed out, but end up getting top of the class. It kind of proves how crappy they are at applying help.
And then there's the students who are plain awkward who are like, 'Why does she gets <something> help?', when everyone in the class knows it's because I have special needs, but they just want more details.
Yeah, sorry for being a whiny brat about this .
I know some people have struggled a lot due to not having any support.
EMZ=]

I see your point, but not every parent is willing to give their child academic support, while still "believing" in their child. For example, my ex-boyfriend has confirmed ADD and dyscalcula (and probable AS). His parents tried giving him all the therapy and supports possible, but it didn't seem to be working. Soon, they just gave up. They became complacent with Ds and Fs, because they honestly believed that he wasn't capable. He was just sent to summer school all the time, and they passed him along. By Grade 10, he still couldn't locate Saskatchewan on a map (the province directly next to ours). I asked him why, and he just shrugged it off.

So while he did show signs of failures early on, it's obvious to me that they didn't drill it into him enough that failure=bad. There were no reprecussions for failure, it was just seen as "Oh, don't worry about that. It's the best you can do, because you're disabled." Today, he still lives with his parents and receives welfare.

I'm not saying that it was entirely his fault for being academically slow, but if he were treated like all the other students and told that he would continue to be held back until he learned the material, he wouldn't have such huge gaps in his knowledge today and might actually have completed a college program and found a job by now.

It's good that you believe in your son's abilities, but most of the parents of disabled people that I've met have been the opposite.

I definitely don't think that everything should be handed to one without effort. That being said, I've gotten a lot of the "just deal with it" attitude from people, and I have two problems with it as I've observed it -

1) My usual question is "HOW?!" I'm not just complaining for complaining's sake 90% of the time. I honestly want to understand and learn, but I don't inherently have the same skills as everyone. Rather than just assuming that I was born with the same "toolkit" as everyone else, I wish people would teach me to adjust in terms I could understand. Once I have information put into a system I can understand, I can excel at it. All I need is a translator and/or a teacher, more or less, and that can't possibly be too much to ask for.

2) The same people are too often hypocrites, or they expect me to have some mad mind-reading skills to know exactly what they expect. I will sometimes "just deal with something" in my own way, not theirs, muddling through it and doing my best, but it's not good enough for the very people who didn't want to help me. If something is supposed to be done or handled in a specific way, then whoever wants it so should specify if they don't want me to screw it up.

I wish people would just make the choice, knowing that I am not like them, of whether to let me do as I will if they don't want to deal with me, or actually take the time to show me how to do things so that I do them how I'm supposed to. With a lot of people who take the "just deal with it" attitude, it seems to be a situation of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Seconded!

I think being on my own is when it really snuck up on me as I had trouble being interdependent and understanding what was being said to me by many different people....not sure how to express some of the very challenging experiences I went through. But I will say if it weren't for my dad who later helped me out, I'd probably be homeless.

When my sister tells me to 'just deal with it' I have a meltdown. She really doesn't understand how hard it is for me.

My mum is a bit protective. If I have a bad experience in the city she will ask me if I'm ok about going back. I have problems with crossing roads too, but have to because I don't drive. I get yelled at a lot by drivers for being slow or crossing if they plan to go forward. I'm not a mind reader.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Agrees whole heartedly.

The education system has changed.
There used to be much more solo work.

People learn in different ways, some work better alone and discovering things for themselves than others.

Why can't this be accounted for?

Why is lone working and discovery now pathologised?

Support is needed many times.

For example, I'll sit around and wither away if it's just me; I need to be prompted to do things. I can't even organize support for myself. I'd probably die of starvation if I woke up one day and my mother wasn't here; my desire to survive is overruled by my disorder.

I'm not lazy at all, as once I'm prompted, I'll do my best to help those around me. I'm pretty good if I have an autistic routine, but I still need someone to get me going via a command.

Whether you call it executive dysfunction or a lack of drive that's common to Autism, it doesn't matter, as it's there, and it has nothing to do with laziness.

Aspergers is not an excuse for laziness. Remember that support- real support, is a luxury item in today's world. Up here, all a special ed program is a segregated classroom and the right not to be humiliated, or verbally abused stripped away. All 'support' is is having an IPP just so it looks like something is being done, and the school system collects all the money they get to 'accommodate you' and you don't get a dime. And still, no-one actually 'supports' you, they just nit pick you for crap that you don't actually need help with.(And they leave the real problem to wither and die because THEY ARE to lazy to do anything.)

Don't you see how lucky you are?

I'm impossible - if somebody tells me to just deal with it, I deeply resent their attitude and see it as completely insensitive. But if anybody tries to spoon-feed me anything, I can't stand that either, I hate being nannied and getting an easy ride.

I think there is a middle road - I just want people to explain clearly what they want of me, and to make it plain that if I should find that I can't cope, they're willing to listen sympathetically and make a few constructive comments and offer the occasional solution - offer, that is, not impose. Just reassure that they accept me as I am, as an equal, without fussing about how hard done by they think I am or trying to throw me in at the deep end.

I was doing just fine in high school until my parents decided to start micromanaging my life by forcing me to study "their way" by taking away my Internet time. Yeah, I may have stayed up late, but I did fine and turned in my best grades ever. Then I stressed out and had a breakdown because I couldn't talk to my friends, and they just constantly harassed me because I couldn't keep up with work like that. It pushed me into depression that took meds to bring me out of. I was doing just fine until they decided to start screwing with my life. I wish they'd just let me "deal with it" and left me the hell alone.

Many of us can cope just fine, in our own ways, if we're left alone to find ways to do it. Sometimes we may need to be taught how to cope, but often once we know how, we'll be all right. Stuff like this detracts from our ability to deal with things on our own. We'll never learn if you don't let us.

I would have loved some support while growing up, instead of the "sink or swim" mentality which was around me. Trying to "suck it up" and live like an NT has done nothing but run me into the ground.

OP has the right friggin idea! This is why I've never told anyone IRL about my possible condition, I don't want to be treated differently than anybody else. I see it as a challenge, one that recently at least, I have done exceedingly well at.

But of course, 'Deal with it' doesn't work for everybody', and thats ok too.