How did you handle transitioning to high school?

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I was wondering how you guys handled transitioning to high school? If you had issues with it, what about it gave you problems?

Sometimes it baffles me that people are expected to handle it smoothly, as I didn't at all. Just figuring out where my classes were every semester and trying to navigate between classes was nerve wracking. I get disoriented very easily.

It was also hard dealing with it sensory wise, as it was constantly loud. There were always people talking in the overcrowded classes and sometimes people would pick on me during class, and anytime we were out of classes there'd be people yelling to each other and hurrying around.

Teachers weren't lenient at all about the 5 minute period to get to your next class, so it was really stressful trying to make it to classes and then getting yelled at and told to be more responsible because of getting disoriented.

Dealing with the teachers and school staff themselves was also hard because they expected me to overall function a lot better than I do and they'd get really angry with me over it, as they thought I was just lazy or disobedient. Most of my teachers didn't like me because I was too slow to pick up the topics we were being taught, so I was always behind, and I got stressed out too easily.

I didn't even eat lunch most of the time because navigating lunch lines and the lunchroom was too overwhelming for me. I just sat there by myself until it was time to go to our next class, I couldn't even handle trying to find my friends as it'd make me shutdown attempting to figure out where they were over all the noise and people moving in the lunchroom.

I had to eventually do online schooling because I couldn't handle going to a regular high school. I did a lot better doing that and genuinely would have not learned anything in regular high school due to how badly I handled it overall.

I simply went from one abusive environment to another. Since the first prepared me for the second, the transition was "easy."

It was 2001, and everyone was handed shiny new laptop computers. Everyone was too busy playing with their new toy to pay much attention to me. Everyone kind of mellowed out in high school and I was well-liked. I just didn't know how to connect well, I was 90% of my social problem in high school, but there was no one there for me to help me understand and overcome my social impairment.

I've handled it very poorly. took my mum's advice to be myself very literally. I made up a stupid dance. If my mum would have told me that I'm autistic before I started high school, I would have never made up that lame dance.

Like others are saying....same old crap.....

I had been "changing classes" since 7th grade in junior high.

We didn't have computers.....we had manual Olivetti typewriters in typing class. Computers filled up a whole room when I went to school.

I get what you're saying...I guess I was lucky enough to attend a small high school for "gifted underachievers."

My middle school and high school seemed close in size, not much changed between middle school and high school. However, both were terrible experiences for me. I’d shut down during passing periods. My parents took me to school for a while before classes started to learn my way to my classes, which was very helpful. I was allowed to go to the library during the sheer torture that is called “pep assemblies,” so I didn’t have to endure that. I’d come home and just shut myself in my room until dinner every day to recover. I also had severe depression, self-harmed, and was suicidal for a good part of those years, and also was close to mute.

Before starting high school my parents and the teachers thought I wouldn't cope with it because of how different high school is to primary school. But I actually didn't mind the change. In fact I quite enjoyed having different lessons in different classrooms rather than being in the same classroom every day. Plus most of the kids in my class I knew a long time anyway.

What I was afraid of about high school was how strict the teachers were going to be. I imagined high school was going to be like a prison camp where everyone's afraid to sneeze and all behaved in an extremely orderly manner.
But it wasn't like that at all. It took me about a year to figure out that the only strict rules were the social rules invented by the kids. If you broke one of those rules you were basically sentenced to a social death, which was far worse than receiving a detention for not doing your homework.

Well, in my case my parents thought that I would adapt eventually (With some help from teachers of course, I usually went to smaller classrooms for example) but high school was completely different, now that I was expected to be somewhat independent in some areas, I was confused with other teenagers, however, because my mental age (I think they mean emotional intelligence) was supposedly around 4 years less than my physical age (I’m 18 and I still feel in some ways like a teenager) and with really no social skills I was rejected from the beginning, then I was bullied almost every day until COVID hit. Because teachers (and I also did so at first) thought I could deal with bullies, they didn’t think that I would really need help, as I was a good student academically.

The teachers in high school also expected more from me, seeing as I was very smart (maybe gifted even) they probably assumed I would handle things other than learning with no problem, but I often forgot my homework, or I didn’t put effort into it because I was annoyed because of my bullies. I think I was lazy for this reason. When working in teams, I was just there to not be left behind, I would often just make smaller details. However, some treated me as if I had an intellectual disability, and helped me a lot if my work was poorly made, for some reason they said it was the best ever. Like they didn’t even want to bother with me. This may have led to me not really maturing during that period.

It's not high school I had real issues with.

I had no problems with changes of schools (cause I'm the one who insists so), intense academics (which I was looking forward to), policies (hahaha) and overall formal transitioning.

Sensory intensity I've been able to ignore and tolerate like usual.

Schedules don't matter to me -- got even better, because then my elementary days consists of 8+ hrs and 5 days a week of all subjects.
My HS had significantly less hours with few subjects per day. I like this change.

Teachers were not so different for me.
And been looking forward with the idea of no one fetching me from school to home.


It's puberty I had real issues with. And badly.

Teenage years and teenagers. The loss of simplicity that childhood living had.
It's the only relevant issue I had in school -- and it was going on before high school, but bad enough to end up spiralling after years.

It's the only part schools had to be at least mindful with -- socialization and basic interaction.
I don't need special schedules and equipments or something big, I just want not to be left alone or at least ignored by anyone.

Yet it was bad enough to make my mom cry.

The next high school I was into after a burnout was significantly better.
And the transition went really well.

Again, the only accomodation I ever sought was to leave me be. The rest I can handle myself.

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In junior high the same group of thirty classmates would go to different classrooms during the seven periods of the day.

So in HS it was east to do the final transition to going by yourself to different classes populated by different classmates during the day. I mighta gotten lost the first day or two. But you settle in and know your way around. And I was just as unpopular in both HS and JrHS. Same s**t different day.

I went to special school

I had a big row with my best friend prior to summer holidays and then she went out of town. I didn't hear from any of the other kids in our group so I assumed they all hated me. I was too shy to reach out and contact anyone, so I became more and more fearful as time went on. This was back when the only telephone was stuck to the wall and had a spiral cord on it. There was no privacy and no ability to text or communicate silently. I was very nervous about walking to school by myself on the first day, because I've always had scopophobia. I thought everyone would be staring at me.

I was fine with the actual classes. I liked being in a bigger school because I could blend into the crowd more, and not draw attention to myself. I hid in the library for all of the lunch periods because I was too anxious to eat by myself in the cafeteria. I remained hidden in the library until graduation, except for one day when I left school property with a classmate to get food. I was very lonely. In retrospect I'm sure everyone felt the same way, but most people made better choices and at least tried to connect with people.