Anger towards childhood caretakers and educators

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Does anyone who was diagnosed as an adult feel any animosity towards their parents or childhood teachers because they didn't see a problem? Ever since I was diagnosed with Asperger's as an adult, I've been thinking a lot about how I was when I was a child, and all the signs that I needed help in both school and at home. I never got any help at school, and instead was punished for behaviors that should have set off signs that something was wrong. I almost got held back every single year from first grade until sixth, didn't have any friends, and barely talked at all. Looking back it makes me angry that no one did anything or tried to get me help, but instead punished me for things that I could not help.

I was also both physically and emotionally abused by my mother for the things I did that were largely due to Asperger's. I have a brother who is seven years younger than me, and when he was six my mom pushed both his school and his doctors to diagnose him with bipolar. Now she spends much of her time and attention with getting him care and helping him with his disability, but still fails to see the problems that I went through as a child and still go through now as an adult.

I know that's it wrong of me to feel this sort of anger, especially towards my mother because Asperger's can sometimes be hard to see and often can be taken as a child simply misbehaving. I still can't help thinking how different I would be if I had the support that some young Aspies do now in their families and school.

I understand that they didn't know.
They honestly had no idea what to do with me.
I am resentful of my first grade teacher who was outwardly abusive towards me and set me up for the rest of my years in school. She singled me out and called me an idiot and jerked me around and ridiculed me in front of the class, but never did anything to help me or anything like that.
My second grade teacher defended me in front of the class when they all made fun of me at the same time, but she did not prevent me from regularly being bullied.

I guess I should be mad

my mother was extremely abusive, physically, mentally and emotionally. so i never expected much from her. i could have been diagnosed as a toddler. yes, it bothers me that i had some obvious problems that none of my teachers seemed to notice or care about. but then, they also didn't notice that i flinched when people came near me or more likely they didn't want to deal with it.

i was generally an excellent student and i think that made it easy to ignore anything weird that i did. this extended to letting me nearly fail math over and over and then passing me forward because they liked me without ever taking the time to address why i was so bad at math. their logic seemed to run to "everyone has something they're not good at" but they never considered that i had a disability.

so for all of my education my math grades lowered my gpa, which i could have dealt with. the anxiety i developed about doing even the simplest math problems could have been avoided. it was an incredible relief to find out about AS and dyscalculia but i'm angry too. angry that all those teachers i had, some of whom i really loved and felt connected to, never tried to help me when i really needed it.

I was diagnosed young and my school diagnosed me with dyspraxia, ADD, sensory issues, language processing disorder, cluttering, and they suspected OCD and they were aware of my poor social skills but they didn't care. They still wanted to punish me for behavior and for not understanding rules because other kids wouldn't follow them and it confuse me. They even punish me for when I defend myself and they let kids pick on me. They also wanted to put me in a class with kids with behavior disorders.


So even having a diagnoses at a young age doesn't mean you get better treatment. My parents always had to fight with my school for my education and rights.

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I am the opposite of a lot of you here. I am angry at my parents, particularly my mother, for making a big deal out of my ASD and not just letting me live. I am so glad that I did not get any treatment for autism or today I would be one depressed b***h with no self-esteem. I am so glad that even though they knew, all my teachers treated me normal except for the resource teacher and the vice principal, but other times he thought I was smarter than the others.

I am very upset with my parents for not finding out early, even when the signs really stood out at a young age. To this day, my mother still jokes about how I used to bang my head against the wall when I was 5. She would laugh and say, "Yeah, we thought you were autistic!". Between the ages of 4 and 8, my mother would constantly threaten "We're going to take you to a psychiatrist one of these days!" - I think that if she had actually followed through with her threat, my life and future would have been significantly brighter. Even with a professional diagnoses, it's kinda like at this point, it's too late for it to be of any use. The damage is done, albeit unintentionally, and I have a lot of resentment towards my mother. Those who are diagnosed under the age of 10 are very fortunate.

Ditto! My teachers knew I had AS but didn't give a damb either way. The other kids would bully me behind their backs and when I tried to retaliate I got punished and was seen as a bully and a terriost. No one would hear my side of the storty. Most of the time when someone approached me it was to be mean so I assumed that when anyone approached me they were going to say something mean or try to hurt me physicaly. I figured I better be the one to attack first. It just got into a vicious cycle. If I saw someone who had hurt me in the past, I would lash out at them because I had a good shot at them to get revenge. The teachers would even bully me. One belitted me all the time about my stims and trouble keeping orginized and encouraged the others to do the same. She wouldn't let me use my strong points and took my weak points and rubbed them in my face. Other teachers had heard about me and treated me like a criminal. There was one boy named Bruce and I had a slight crush on him and called him "Brucey". I soon realised it got a rise out of him and called him that whenever I saw him. I rode the special ed bus so my mom could get me away from the evil bus driver of the regualr bus and I was the only one that got off where I did. Bruce's mom met me there when I was by myself and threatned me. I was actualy jelous because my mom never came to the school and threatned the kids who were truely mean to me. I never called him Brucey again but she had no right to threaten me. In fourth grade, I discovered how great it felt to run to my classroom as fast as I could. It irked this one lady and she would chase me until I got away. This was like a game to me. Chasing me only encouraged me to run away. One day she had the nerve to grab me. A big no no speficaly written in my IEP. I steped on her foot as hard as I could to make her let go and she then stepped on mine PURPOSELY. I wish I would have bit her and I don't know what came over me not too. I usualy did bite HARD as a last resort. I don't know why I didn't tell my parents, I think because when I told them, nothing ever got done about it. My mom was always calling the school but nothing EVER got done and I would have been told it was my falt for stepping on her foot first. NOTHING was done about the bullying. My mom took me out the next year to homeschool me though. I am NOT sorry because I did not do a thing wrong, and I will NEVER forgive them. This was in 1998 too! It's almost impossible for me to expirence any sort of physical pain anymore because I desociate. I had my wisdom teeth removed with a local and bet I could have had them removed just like that without any thing to numb me. I sliced my thumb open by accident and they didn't really give it any time to get numb so I just sat there "endured" it. I have flashbacks all the time of being in school and being so powerless against evil teachers or kids. I can't even watch a simple TV show that takes place in a school without getting flashbacks. I had vivid nightmares for years but they stopped when I learned I coud lucid dream.

I have a bit of resentment to some certain people. I was pretty much selective mute starting in 5th grade. Instead of finding a problem with my lack of talking, lack of social interaction and inability to make friends, and all my other problems-- the teachers PRAISED me and used me as an EXAMPLE for all the kids that talked and socialized too much and disrupted the class.

I was put on big chairs, given notepads and a pencil and told to write down whoever talked. I was constantly used as an example in everyday speeches on no-talking in the hallway, no doing this and no doing that because of my strict rule following and enforcement of rules.

After elementary these qualities were viewed quite differently than how they were then, hence a diagnosis-- but only after I started failing and school refusal etc. I guess I can not complain though because I did not get a late diagnosis by WP's standards, it just makes me angry that I never got any help at around that age.

I sometimes got mad cause they would punish me sometimes for meltdowns/rages/tantrums and stuff and I didn't realize what I was doing wrong.

But the school back then tried. My grandma wouldn't allow meds, but I had an IEP, and they did stuff like put me in special ed part of the day (I hated that though, didn't help), made me sit in the front of the class or beside the teacher, once had a college student try to teach me interaction with other students, payed for outside counseling, etc...

I got hundreds of detentions at school; at times I would be in detention every day for several weeks. I didn't follow instructions, didn't do my work, and continually made tangential comments, etc. Still, I never felt resentment towards most of my teachers. AS or HFA had yet to be invented, there was no special ed or psychologists, and even the best intentioned teachers had no idea what to do with me. They repeatedly warned me and told me that if I didn't behave I would get a detention and although other kids got far, far fewer detentions, they got them for doing less than I did. Frankly, I accepted that I deserved the detentions, and wasn't bothered much by them either.

I also forgave my mother by the time I was 17. She was a good person and always looked after my needs. On the other hand, in any dispute with my NT siblings I was ALWAYS in the wrong, and she favored them in other ways. But I was a far, far, more difficult child than they were. I wouldn't allow her to hug or kiss me, and I remember fighting off hugs and her crying as a result. She was very uncomfortable with my being "different" - and she tried over and over again to explain to me that I "wasn't like other people" or that "other people weren't like me. In my early teens I resented her and made her life a living hell at times, but I then completely grew out of that feeling. I think I started thinking of myself as an adult, and recognized that I hadn't been easy for her, and that she probably did the best she could.

My mother was extremely abusive, physically and verbally, and also kept me out of school a lot of the time which she justified was for housekeeping purposes. No one could imagine a mother like the one I had. I wasn't able to verbalize well enough to tell anyone 'all that was happening to me' even when I was in school. She's still abusive toward me while favoring my other siblings and I have finally cut off contact with her entirely. I'm moving beyond anger now. It only hurt me that way while she doesn't care at all. It took a very long time but I feel free of it now. It isn't something I can even effectively write about. I hope you can find peace and relief from the feelings you're experiencing. I know it's hard and very painful.

I was not treated badly by my parents. I was given somewhat excessive lenience...
My mom, for all practical purposes is an aspie, and child rearing was really really hard on her. My parents knew about the trouble I had in school, but they didn't know what to do about it. They blamed the school system.
My grandfather was the only person who outwardly insisted that there was something "wrong" with me, and would regularly ply my parents with books and articles about children with developmental and learning problems...He was most likely on the spectrum...and his younger brother had pretty severe traits.
He might even have been the first/only person to suggest autism...when I was around 7 or so...that is when I first heard the term....but it might not have been pertaining to me....though my mom said "You're not autistic, you're artistic"....and if my memory serves me correctly, we were living in the house where we lived when I was 7.

My parents let me stay home from school and go home early a lot...since there was no option for home schooling and going to some sort of private school would have been too expensive (my parents were poor)