how did you fare in grade school?

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For me, I had a lot of trouble in school. I've never been formally assessed, but I almost certainly have/had a learning disability considering I was several years behind in math and was sent back to Kindergarten specifically because I was failing to grasp the most basic arithmetic.

When attending a private school, my teachers commented early on that I'd benefit from one-on-one learning. I guess they meant I needed extra attention?
By the time I got back to 1st grade, I was getting in trouble nearly every day, usually just because I couldn't stop talking out of turn. I also had what I think were meltdowns, though I have no memory of what brought them on. I've relayed my memory of these to other people and they said that most kids that age were more emotionally level by that time, so it's odd that no one ever stopped to think I may have had something going on.

3rd grade and upwards was homeschooled, which went fairly well for a few years. My problems with math were recurrent, and as the grade difficulty increased I began to spend so much time trying to complete schoolwork that I had zero time for anything else.
I do think homeschooling was actually the best option for my neurodivergent needs, but by 8th grade I was completely burnt out and failng all my subjects.

I later ended up taking a GED course and got my GED.

Socially: Not great at all. I was always teased for being spaced out or weird. I had a couple of friends who lived on my street but truth be told they were the younger sisters of my brother's friends. I got invited to their birthday parties which was a big deal to me but we never really got along at school or at home, and most of them didn't want to play with me because I was too stuck in my head.

Academically: I did quite well up until puberty age. Lots of A's. I loved library time. I loved doing research in the library by myself for my little class projects when I was around nine or ten. I loved all my teachers except one. My school was very "hippy" and we got to sit on the carpet with pillows, or hide in little reading nooks.

Strengths: We had an independent reading program where we could advance through a bunch of levels in Reading at our own speed, and grade our own work with an answer card. I loved that. I loved Spelling, Maths, Social Studies, and Art. It was all good actually. Even PE wasn't too bad because I was hyper and I liked running. We had an independent fitness program and that was pretty fun too.

Weaknesses: I had a hard time learning punctuation in first grade. I was always corrected for run-on sentences.

Other: I had to go to a 1:1 speech therapist twice a week for mutism and pronunciation. I was so ADHD that my second grade teacher implemented a yoga program and made me the leader. That meant every morning I had to lead the class in deep breathing and meditation. (lol - smart teacher - I had no idea why I was chosen at the time but it's obvious based on the comments on my report card.) I was quite needy emotionally, and clingy with teachers. I was in love with my second grade teacher and thought she could be my best friend. In fifth grade I was taught in the hallway in a small group because I was too distractible in class.

I was bullied mercilessly, even by my father. However, to quote the Garth Brooks song, I had friends in low places. One of them (and I haven’t seen him since we graduated in 1976), was nicknamed Klopper (the sound that was made when his fist hit your mouth.). Any thug that would threaten to take out me or my brothers, had to deal with Klopper, when he found out. All the others are either dead, in prison, or moved out of the area, even after earning my BA and my MSLS.

Age 11-12
I wasn't too socially excluded from the other girls, but I was so weak and pathetic and often got targeted by kids I didn't know in the hallways. I was too timid to stand up to any bullies so I just let myself be picked on and I probably looked so pathetic.
I was scared of getting detentions so I overworked myself to keep up on homework because the teachers were strict on handing in homework on time. Luckily my parents helped me stay organised.

Age 12-13
I started to get excluded from my peers but not entirely. I had an OK social life at school, but was kind of on and off (sometimes I found myself left on my own, other times I was included socially).
The classes were harder and I had trouble paying attention in lessons.

Age 13-14
Here's when things got interesting. My hormones were all over the place and I struggled with being a teenager. The other girls, even the nicer girls, excluded me without really realising and I felt horribly lonely and depressed. The social isolation made me turn to obsessions, which got me into trouble and isolated me socially even more. I started doing things that were out of character for me, what a socially unskilled classic autistic teen would do (I wasn't ever the socially unskilled classic autistic type usually). I felt my maturity had noticeably slipped behind my peers. I didn't like it.
I can't remember what I was like academically. I wasn't one to succeed in anything. All I did was obsess over stupid men.

Age 14-15
I'd made some new friends by this year (some other outcasts like myself), but I struggled more in class. The classes were boring, as we were basically just having useless information drummed into us that I knew already from before but wasn't interested in. It's better when learning (some) things for the first time, but when you have to learn them over again but in much more depth, it gets very tiring and monotonous.

Age 15-16
School had become the most boring time of my whole life. It was basically just revising for our exams and I found it so boring. In almost every class we had to get on this website called Bitesize Revision or something like that and test ourselves on questions that we were going to be asked in the upcoming exams.
Science was just all about biology and chemistry, which was tedious.
English was about Shakespeare and poetry which was uninteresting and pointless.
Math was OK, although I struggled with math and it wasn't my favourite subject it felt useful and ironically wasn't as boring as the other classes (even though I still failed).
Art was OK but they didn't let you be as creative as what art should be, and because of having a good imagination I wanted to express myself through art, I actually failed at art because of not focusing enough on existing artists. Yes, confusing, isn't it?

Age 16-17
I went to college during this year and I had more or less caught up with my peers maturity-wise but this was when I started suffering from Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (which I didn't know it was that at the time). I did make some friends and had more of a social life than what I did at school, and I gained more confidence and branched out.

Well I went sometimes. Had friends. Didn't do much work and then got kicked out.

School just wasn't something I could get enthusiastic about.

Socially

I had emotional issues. My friendship group was toxic. I had an emotionally manipulative bully. She always insisted to be included, otherwise there would be consequences. Which stuck me in a situation where I had to hang out with her and her group. As a result, I learnt how to pretend how to get on with someone.

Unfortunately, it also meant that whilst I could easily fake positive emotions, I didn't know how to communicate negative feelings in a healthy manner. So I often acted out. Violently. When I had to deal with conflict, I went straight to using my fists rather than my words. However, I realised that I could use written words to express my frustration and anger instead. The types of stories I wrote as a child were not the types of stories you would ever read to a child. I wrote morbid tales. Gradually I learnt how to communicate my emotions in a socially acceptable manner, but for a while I was killing fictional characters to vent my anger.

Academically

I struggled. A lot. Especially in maths. I had to do additional exercises at home and I had a teaching assistant offer extra support. Also, I couldn't for the life of me get the handwriting correct. My school was very particular when it came to handwriting. However, I couldn't memorise all the stupid rules. I couldn't take in any of the information because I was so focused on getting it perfect when I was writing my notes, so I fell behind. Which seems silly, but it you didn't get the style exactly right you were stuck in a room and had to read the rule booklet and copy the letters until you got it right. I hated it. That freaking room. So I obsessed over avoiding that as much as possible.

My teachers insisted on it though and would refuse to take my work into consideration unless it met their handwriting style standards. Thankfully my parents came in and talked to my teacher. It took several conversations, but eventually my teacher caved and agreed that I could write in my own style so long as it was legible. My speed rapidly increased.

I was generally labelled as lazy or an awkward kid by my teachers. However, I remember venting to a former therapist as a teenager about my experiences in grade / primary school. I was telling her about times where I had asked questions and I had been called stupid for doing so. She expressed surprise and told me that my actions were actually fairly advanced for a child and that she would've been impressed rather than disappointed. I'd always seen myself as a bit of a dunce, so it was surprising to hear that response.

The only area I really excelled in during primary was my reading and storytelling ability. I was still doing work that was aimed at much younger children in my final year though when it came to maths. However, I wasn't allowed extra time in my exams in primary. I scored too high on a test which was made to judge a child's general logic and reasoning skills. Apparently I scored above average so my teachers told me that I didn't need help. When I very clearly did. I was allowed extra time at secondary, but not in college because apparently I was suddenly fine when I was retested.

I was bullied in elementary school. I might as well have been wearing a neon "bully me" sign on my back considering how I seemed to always be the main victim of the bullies in my elementary school due to my social awkwardness (except for when I was the preschool/kindergarten bully, which was also related to my social awkwardness). I had a hard time discussing things with my peers that weren't related to my special interests.

When I was in high school I was often targeted, not bullied majorly but just targeted for cheap giggles by kids I didn't know. I guess I must have looked weak and pathetic. God I hate myself.

I remember when I was 11, I was sitting on a bench in the playground waiting for a friend, and these girls who were behind the bench whispered something to each other, and I knew exactly what they wanted to do; kick me in the coccyx, not hard, just to get my attention. Then another voice in my head told me that they won't do that, but lo and behold they did, and without thinking I turned around, and they just giggled at me and walked off again.

It's little things like that what random kids would do to me, even if I was with friends. When I was 13 I had these two random boys kept calling me Japanese. Every time they saw me in the hallways they'd say "hi, Japanese" - even though I don't even look remotely Japanese (my eyes aren't slanted at all and I had blonde hair). In fact I was hanging out with a girl who was half-Japanese, but the boys only picked on ME for some reason. It got on my nerves in the end, because even when I asked them to stop or why they were calling me that, all they'd say was "hi, Japanese".
It was such an odd thing to keep calling someone who doesn't look Japanese in the slightest, that I wasn't sure whether to take it as some sort of compliment or offense.
And no, it wasn't the clothes I wore, because we all wore school uniform where we all looked the same.

I was bullied a lot in school. I didn't do particularly well academically either. Math was especially difficult for me. Things at home were not especially good either. I got.alot.of you are smart how can you Not understand this from my alcoholic parent. Which for some reason screaming in my face did Not magically make me good at.math.

Not a.time in my life I would want to return to.

I didn't start.doing well.academically until I was homeschooled.

I went to U.S. public schools all the way through (K-12).

Elementary School
I spent a year in a Head Start pre-school before VPK was common. Elementary School decided to skip me me from Kindergarten to 1st after about a month. By high school I deeply regretted that this had happened because I thought it had hindered by social development (probably just the ASD) and I tended my high school and post high school friends were mostly a grade or three behind me.

I was in part time gifted class in 2nd grade; full time starting in 3rd grade. I was a good student, but I think I only got Straight A's twice. Recently I wanted to see what my behavioral comments were like, but my local school district discards student files after 3 years, except for high school transcripts.

I was kind of a teacher's pet. I did little side projects, like tracing maps, for my own amusement. When the teacher noticed she gave me extra credit. I read voraciously and above my reading level, but almost entirely nonfiction.

Gifted students were somewhat ostracized by the rest of the school, but I felt ostracized even by the other Gifted students. Many years later I asked one of them about how I was treated and was informed that "We didn't know how to deal with you."

I was persistently bullied starting in 2nd grade. Mostly verbally; very little physically. Glasses, smart, bookwork, well-behaved. Even the Safety Patrol bullied me. There was an outdoor basketball court where students sat lined up in the morning until it was time to go to class, divided by grade and gender. One day the Safety Patrol in charge of this made me sit in the girls line instead of the boys. (There wasn't anything about me that would have been considered effeminate, unless you count being passive and shy.)

Middle School
Gift classes throughout, though by this point math was clearly my weakest subject. Again, good grades but never Straight A's. By this time I actively disliked school and didn't want to go to college because it would just be more school. There were only a few people I considered friends, and I almost never saw them outside school.

I was sent to the Speech teacher for a possibly speech impediment. I explained my mouth had trouble keeping up with my brain. (In the last year, two other people with ADHD have used this same description of themselves.)

As best I recall, this was the period when forgetting homework and being distracted by noises became noticeable issues for me.

Bullying continued. More physical bullying by this time, though still mostly verbal - attempts to harass, belittle, or embarrass me. I was never beaten up, nor stuffed in a locker.

High School
Grades declined; I was massively underachieving because I didn't care. I think I almost failed a class due to not completing assignments, which did get a call home from the teacher (I think the only time that ever happened). Another class I got A's on every test (to the point where I made jokes about it), but simply never bothered to turn in the term paper so I got a C (no call home for that). I continued to struggle with math, but did better at geometry than most of my peers. I didn't participate in any extracurricular activities except four years in JROTC (which I came to dislike by the end).

I didn't have any enthusiasm about going to college, but as told I had to go to college because I was smart. I also had to major in something that would get me a well-paying job almost immediately after graduation. However, my family wasn't poor enough to qualify for any need-based scholarships, but also wasn't rich enough to send anywhere except the local community college then an in-state public university. Basically, I had a toxic relationship with college and with my mother about college.

Florida had a High School Competency Test as a graduation requirement. Some people actually failed it multiple times, despite it only testing at the 8th grade level. I got three questions wrong on the entire test. I took the ASVAB and scored an 89 of 100 (high school diploma and a score of 40 will get you into any military branch). I scored over 1300 (out of 1600 at the time) on the SAT my first try; my mother actually suggested I retake it because that was my first try! I pointed out there was no reason for me to do so because I wasn't going to apply for any competitive colleges.

I went through a particularly low period in 10th grade, including a crisis of faith. I would consider it a bout of depression. I discussed a few aspects of it, like faith, with classmates, but never sought help for the overall problem nor did anyone apparently notice it.

Bullying declined, though never really went away. At some point, probably as I was coming out of my bout of depression, I realized I was behind socially. I made a conscious decision to sort of throw myself into social opportunities, which resulted in me being part of a circle of friends who I eventually came to realize weren't really my friends; they just sort of tolerated me.

^ wow i can relate to your experience so much.

i didnt do very well in regular school. my teachers seemed to like me but the other students didnt so i would get bullied. eventually because of the bullying and my depression issues i was taken out of school and put into home school.

after that i started doing really well with my school work and my grades became good.

It all depended on the teacher. Ones who liked me and were willing to work with me and choose their battles, it was great. Others who were on a power trip and probably were not so good. I wasn't really interested in making friends but occasionally I did have a few. Usually they had to be facilitated by a teacher and only lasted for the two grades we were in the same class. But I was content to be alone. I'm that stereotypical antisocial loner autistic.

I went to a preschool that was for specifically for underprivileged or special needs children. Unfortunately I don't remember much about it. But then I don't remember much of anything from that part of my life. I went to kindergarten twice. My parents wanted to see if they could send me to school without having me "labeled". HUGE mistake.

The teacher had no patience for my hyperactivity, stims, or rigidity. I only lasted a week in that school and my parents tried again at the district school when I had a diagnosis of AD/HD and was on meds. Either that kindergarten teacher or my first grade one had an autistic relative and she was the one who suggested to my parents I might not be just AD/HD but autistic.

2nd grade was okay. There was a rumor the teacher I had would tie special needs children to their desks. I never saw anything but I heard from a friend of mine who went to the same school and is obviously undiagnosed autistic (his parents didn't believe in having him "labeled" and would rather him suffer than get the help he needed) friend of mine had a teacher who actually did. I had a therapist at the time who was aware of the rumor and told the teacher to her face that if she tried that with me he would sue her himself. 3rd grade I had a teacher who didn't really know how to teach and didn't understand the concept of scheduling and routine. One day we were going to do one thing than on that day she changed her mind. But all the NT kids said she was the "fun" teacher. Yeah, probably because she ENCOURAGED them to bully me for stimming and didn't punish bullies.

4th grade I was finally put in a special needs class. But it was just glorified baby sitting. I was in the 4th grade but my school work was at a first or second grade level. There was an incident of a teacher grabbing my arm and leaving a bruise. I asked her to let go but she wouldn't. I panicked and next thing I knew my teeth were on her arm. Oddly enough I didn't get in trouble. But she almost got fired. 2nd grade teacher DID get fired because times were finally changing and she tied the wrong child to their desk...or so I heard.

5th grade my parents homeschooled me until the 11th grade when I got sick from a mysterious illness. 11th-12th grade I went to an alternative school for adults who had aged out of the system before they could graduate or get their GED. I LOVED it there.

4-7: Did reasonably well academically. First school in Bangkok saw that I had some problems, and persuaded my parents to have me tested for what we now call cerebral palsy,at Gt Ormond street . That was c1962. The result was negative, and other possibilities weren't explored.

8-13: Started at prep school. Wet the bed almost every day for the 1st two years, but didn't wet the bed at all at home. Started OK academically,but my academic performance worsened around the age of 9.5. Thought I had a friend but found out much later I was wrong. Was clumsy,badly coordinated, and bad at sports. Was teased that I was the missing link between man and ape. I was blind to how unpopular I was. That was made abundantly clear at the last ever meal at prep school. A boy who'd managed to get a scholarship to public school, slipped tobacco into my cup of tea.I took a gulp of tea, and my mouth was full of the awful taste of tobacco. I felt more nauseous than I've ever felt before or since. He'd waited till there'd be no repercussion to make it clear how disliked I was.

13-18: At public school. Made the totally naive mistake of admitting I knew little about sex , while the other boys in the dorm were in full BS mode. That, and the fact I was physically awkward and socially gauche, soon had me categorised as a total ugly weirdo. Academically I was a mediocre student. Was disorganised and messy. It was only years later that I found out I had EF deficits when it came to organising and planning. Was subjected to a high level of verbal bullying. A standout memory having monkey chants directed at me by a classroom of other boys. Mental health wise went from social anxiety to increasing depression . Functioning went rapidly downhill after doing O levels, not helped by intense anxiety of wanting to please my parents by getting to uni, while being acutely aware I lacked the independent living skills to cope with the non academic side of being at university. First saw a pdoc just a few months before I was 17. Overdosed at the end of my penultimate term at public school. Against my better judgement went back for the A level term. Lasted a week before ending in the school sanatorium for a few days. I was then transferred to the nearest large psychiatric hospital.