How to stop people seeing me as "ret*d".

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I have Asperger's and a mood disorder. In 8th grade, I had to have an aide with me, who treated me as she would a kindergartener. I had sensory and frustration meltdowns regularly, stimmed obnoxiously, couldn't do much work, and got sent to alternative education for about two years. Coming back, I had a new aide, who was extremely condescending towards me, clearly thought that I was a few inches short of a foot, and that I needed academic assistance when I officially didn't.

I got rid of her. I stim very minimally now, am shy, and say some odd things, but I look much more normal. Yet, I was passing by a boy who said "she's ret*d" to his friend!

How do I get these kids to realize that I'm smart?

You don't. You can't control what someone else thinks or feels. What you can do is focus on loving yourself more for your own awesome self. This isn't easy, but it IS the truth. You ARE smart in ways they just don't see, yet.


When they see that you don't care so much about their opinions of you, because you care about your own opinion of you more, they just might come around. But you can't prove it to them. It's gotta be real.

Do something that requires more intelligence than they possess - earn straight 'A's, for example.

Even if you convinced everyone you're very smart (which you really are), it wouldn't solve the deeper problem. From the sound of it, it sounds like you might doubt yourself a little bit. That self-doubt is the source of your desire to "prove" your capabilities to other people. But... in order to get rid of that self-doubt, you do need to prove it... to yourself.

If those kids think that you're doing something to try and impress them, what message does that send them? What does it say about how much you value their opinion of you? And if someone tried to show off their intelligence to you, would you still respect them? Thing to think about before making a plan.

You are not missing out on anything if you ignore people who's idea of 'friendship' is little more than a 'clique' dedicated to putting other people down - that's an awful kind of club to belong to.

If those people weren't so mean, they might have been able to count you as a friend one day - hold your head high, and remind yourself that it is them that have lost out, not you.

How old are you? if you're at all close to graduating I'd maybe try not to worry so much about it...I know it sucks but once your out of school you wont have to regularly see any of those people again. You probably wont like this but it seems once your peers get it in their heads you're the 'ret*d' then you will be seen as 'the ret*d' henceforth regardless of anything you do or accomplish. I had the same experience numerous times, if anything the harder you attempt to show you aren't ret*d the more they say it at least in my experience.

But yeah I never had to have an aide, but always was obviously different and I struggled a lot in math.

It's the worst, because of my organizational difficulties and attention deficit, I often miss out on the whole class. I have to ask others for help.

My counselor doesn't want me to even go to college!

I'm new on WP so I don't know if there's a filter, so excuse my f*****g french: f**k whoever said that. Anyone who calls someone the r word, or talks to you like you are the r word is a f*****g idiot who should be ignored. Great people with a smile, look em in the eye, and just try to be a little less akward, and people might not immediately think "he has asperger's. This might be impossibly hard, and if it is, keep on working at it, and in the meantime, try and make a friend or two. If not, or you don't want to, just ignore idiots.

The morons who say you're a ret*d, give them the death stare, it scares NT's for some reason.