"Just deal with it."

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Well, I wish I could see how people REALLY thought, and WHY! I sometimes just do my job, and people act like I have discovered the cure for the common cold. I might think that it was a vieled insult if not for the fact that I find that they have told others as well, etc... I HATE really ostentatious praise. It not only makes me feel like some insect under the microscope, but it sets the bar so high that, if I do just average, I fail miserably. Besides, it exceeds my praise threshold were I generally believe people are out to rip me off or something.

Of course, I also hate when others get high praise for simple work, or get credit for my work.

When in school, I had NO support. I wish I had simple support. Heck, I couldn't even expect my spanish teacher to give me help. She once lined up a student tutor, that was supposedly an expert, and knew this stuff, and he gave me GARBAGE information. I said ****NO*****, that is the present, and we are on the preterite. When I proved to him that I was right, by showing him the book, he said his class wasn't on it yet. Usually, though, no attempt was even made to help.

And some teachers, after saying so much that I knew, would mention homework in passing, etc.... In one class, I had a nasty teacher, but I really never even knew if there was homework, let alone what it was. I guess that was ADD, Of course, if I listened to everyone all the time, I would be insane, and have no time to even sleep.

So I guess it goes both ways. I have ALWAYS hated that:

1. Work is NOT standardized! What you learn in one school doesn't carry over properly to another! My example with that tutor, that happened to be in the SAME class, SAME teacher, SAME school, SAME book, SAME district, but a merely different period illustrates what I mean! Imagine what it is like in OTHER districts, and OTHER teachers with OTHER books!

2. Teachers supposedly HAVE to have a "lesson plan", but don't let the students see it. Why should we have to take notes to grow up and pay for the support of the teachers that toke those notes so we would pay them?

3. We are "taught" unproductive stuff just to kill time.

4. There is more, but I will leave it at that here.

Anyway, NOW I find that people with problems similar to mine get #2 taken care of and MAYBE #1! Heck, #1 wouldn't be so hard if #2 were better.

Ultimately, it boils down to this: they need to let us deal with it as much as we can so that we get better at coping and managing our lives. If they constantly handhold us, it's not going to do a damn bit of good because that's not the real world.

A new deal topic

When I was diagnosed in 2000, at the age of 46, I did not know there were supports. I had to figure things out, as most of the adults have done, here at WP.

Reading books, viewing films, etc have helped. I have lived on my own since age 17, so I guess I survived. I am slow to learn and things are finally coming together, and it took 37 years. If help can shorten this, then it is a good thing. Assistance should not be a crutch if one is not needed. Guidance is what is called for, and resources to make a fresh start.

I didn't get help in the way described in the OP growing up. Either way, I wouldn't have needed it for academics. I needed something like a class like Social 101, how to make friends, what people are really saying when they do this, etc. I was very shy around people at first, and once I found a comfort level, I was really stupid around them (uncontrollably stupid, annoying, and loud). Then, if one person responded negatively to me, I generalized it to the whole class. And many times, now in retrospect, I think I overreacted to things, and some things, I think I took negatively when I shouldn't have. I really think my difficulty in thinking nobody liked me was more perceived than real. But, if my parents had told me, this is how the world rolls, I wouldn't have believed them until I was 25. I needed to know I was Aspergers (which I didn't know at that age) and see it somewhere in writing all that entails and then have people approach me with some sort of social training. But no where does it say Aspergers will have a hard time with learning or academics. All Aspergers means is that we march to our own beat.

Now that I'm an old woman (I'm 30, but if we are as old as we feel, then I feel like I'm 70 going on 22), I will tell you this, and it is very important. Don't focus on what others are doing to help you. Focus on what you are doing to help yourself. It will be harder with you living at home to find independence, but it's also easier and safer as you have room for failure at this age. If you feel like you are different than other people, then the things they do to succeed are probably not going to work for you. You will have to find your own ways through life to tackle on life's journeys. Tarzan grew up around animals learning from animals and discovered that the ways the animals did things was too hard for him to do. Once he accepted he wasn't an animal and found creative ways to use his human strengths, he found different ways to do the same things the animals did. Once he learned to accept himself, and learned how to survive and help out the community his way using his strengths, then he was accepted by all the animals. If everyone is helping you, and their methods are working for you, then be excited because that's a luxury. But if you got a way to do it better for your success, then show them. Prove your way works by just doing it. Of course, don't do anything unsafe or try to tackle on life alone. You do need support, to an extent. Everyone your age does, not just Aspies.

Honestly, I think everyone trying to support you shows me you are surrounded by lots of love. That is a luxury.

But as far as them making it easier for you to excuse yourself in failure.... They don't do that. Only you have the power to choose to excuse your behaviors or to improve them. I totally suggest, even if it's for a younger audience than yourself, to go watch "Meet the Robinsons." I love the way the characters approach failure, and I hope to be a little more like that (maybe not to the extreme) with my kids.

And, I've seen a post about the education system, and it is true. It's not as standardized as the population would love to pretend it to be. You are not in school to learn as much as it's a stepping stone to independence. Learning just makes it more fun, and yes I'm a nerd, but I make nerd look cool.

When I say stepping stone...you need to decide what your plans are after graduation. Your life plan for high school will be determined by your plans for beyond that. You have so many options too. But, if you are wanting to go to an ivy league school or planning to find scholarships, then your high school agenda will be very different than if you plan to join the military or an apprenticeship program. The military doesn't care what your GPA is in high school. They just want you to graduate. But, scholarships and entry into college will look at your GPA in high school as far back as your 9th grade. But let's say you just plan to go to your community college or state university with student loans (which the majority of America does), then your best bet is to get started as soon as possible as your goal is simply to take the classes in college you need to in order to get the piece of paper that says you took those classes. But keep in mind many employers do ask your college GPA. Anyway, if you find a way to start taking some college classes while in high school (i.e. classes HS offers for college credit, summer school with the local college, or you talk your school into letting you replace study hall with college English Comp 101 online) , I would do it. Most colleges will waive that necessity to have the diploma if you are still in high school (you write a letter explaining you are still in high school). Of course, mom and dad would probably have to pay for that, so their support would be awsome in that case right?

One thing I will tell you, it doesn't matter what you do for a living. You can be an artist, a teacher, a doctor, lawyer, what have you. What does matter is what you are doing now. Everything you do today shapes the person you will be tomorrow, and it shapes the obstacles you will have tomorrow. Most people who don't finish high school quit not because they couldn't get that A in math, but because they couldn't get to school because they were too busy doing other things whether it be sleep, drugs, whatever. I promise you this, learning to make wise decisions will help you out better than any A in class. More than half of America is sitting right now in debt because they chose to borrow money rather than save money. You could make a million dollars, but if you owe two million, then you are still a million in debt. I can go on with millions of examples to prove my point, but I noticed one theme in all those examples. People who fail choose to fail with their daily life decisions. There's a reason Einstein was still able to succeed with a bunch of D's on his report card, and there's a reason why the guy in my high school who was a genius with straight As served me my dinner at a restaurant. I'm willing to bet Einstein made better decisions about how he lived his life. The guy in my school had a drug problem because he hung out with people who had a drug problem, and he continued to hang out with people like that beyond high school, so that's why he had a job that was similar to what they might be doing. He accepted a life that he was too good for. Einstein, on the other hand, challenged himself to live the life he was born to live.

You will have the hardest time learning how to make wise decisions without the support of your family. Look around. People in poverty and people who fail are generally people whose parents had alcohol problems, drug problems, or any problem where they weren't there for them. These people learn the hard way, and many times, in that process, they shut too many doors of opportunities. I know a guy who is a two time felon. He has learned from many of his mistakes, and he isn't trying to go back to jail. But, not too many people will hire a two time felon. What's worse than that? It's very hard to explain, but after you play in the dirt for so long, you feel like that's your new home because you are too dirty for the house. Like some people think, well now that I'm a criminal, I will always be a criminal. Like there's no going back. People like yourself who are surrounded with loving people trying to help you through life tend to be more successful in life because of that support. Your parents might fill your head with lots of lectures and wisdom to give you the knowledge you need to avoid having any experience that will act negatively on your life. That's a good thing. If their response was always, "Just deal with it," you would be forced into learning things the hard way. Sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes, it's irreversible.