How did you or your aspie child survive high school

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first part sounds like me. i realize in retrospect i was massively indulged, & it barely registered at the time. i guess because my test scores were so high they didn't want to kick me out but i was pretty non-participatory from junior high on. i remember at the beginning of the semester i would read the book cover to cover & not open it again. i brought my own books to class a lot. when i was younger i constantly made elaborate drawings. later i started doing computer simulations of astronomical subjects, & worked a long time on a program to write grammatical English sentences. i had one friend, with whom i played chess at lunch, but we didn't really talk. i don't know if i was happy or unhappy. a lot of the time i was hidden from myself. afterwards, it felt like having crawled through a long, long underground tunnel, never sure of where it led; & i didn't understand why i was doing this or what else i could try.

I spent most of my free time in the library. There were a few people who bullied, but most people left me alone. I got along well with most teachers as well. There were a few I did not like, particularly in Freshman year and I hated my guidance counselor who decided that the social scene was an essential part of the high school experience. (Okay would you consider me more "socially acceptable" if I slept with all the guy on the football team or graffitied the bathroom?) I ignored her and my father firmly told her to leave me alone as long as I did well in school and behaved. My senior year was really bad though. After eleventh grade, I was *done* with high school and ready to move on to something else. I was not interested in participating in senior social activities and would have preferred to spend my senior year at community college and get a degree from my high school through dual enrollment. Unfortunately for me, the school had ended that a few years before I graduated so I had to stick it out. I did veery badly as I was sick of school and my OCD had increased. What I don't like is how Universities use extracurricular activities as part of the admissions process, and most of those counted as extracurricular activities are in high schools. I did not enjoy high school extracurriculars and would have preferred to do stuff outside school. They do not take other lifestyles into account.

Being deeply into music, most of the social aspects of high school simply breezed right around me. I did manage to get a bit social towards the end of it, but it was only because I was in the school choir. I spent most of my free time at school (in the mornings, study halls, lunch hour, etc.) practicing in the orchestra room by myself. I never really thought it was weird.

I think many people are quicker to forgive a musician for eccentricities than a non-musician.

Being an outsider helped me as I understood that I was at the bottom of the social ladder not because there was something wrong with me but because I wasn't like others, and I knew I was being bullied because other people needed to feel better about themselves, I was better than that. I had a few friends but knew they could be cruel, so at times when I felt the tides turning I would choose to take myself away from them. I got on with it, I knew it would get better.

I had a secret life too making money selling cigarettes, fake ID's and holding parties, it amused me the kids who bullied me were the ones funding my weekend shopping trips. What also helped was having a club to go to, things like clubs or hobbies helps, it's something to focus on, something that is his and not something he has to share with the people at school, it's another place to make friends and it means his whole world isn't all about school.

I had more important things to worry about too, during high school my dad and best friend died, I had a physically abusive mother and sexually abusive partner, and the last year of high school I started having minor strokes. I shut-down for a while, having some teachers who didn't give-up on me helped, they showed me that not everyone thought I was a lost cause. I think having a talk with teachers helps, just so long as your kid doesn't know that their mommy is there sticking up for them, it's gotta be the kids fight, make sure teachers know that your kid doesn't need special treatment but needs support.

Selective mutism. And not once in four years did I step into the school cafeteria. Not once.

I've also avoided the school cafeteria like the plague.

Got a growth spurt in my junior year making me bigger than my bullies. My first and second years of high school were a living hell because I was smaller than my bullies but my last two they left me alone because all their constant beatings and humilations turned me into a explosively violent person. Sort of like if you kicked a dog enough times he will either curl up and die or he will rip your throat out luckily I chose to go for the throat.

Now I am mistrusting towards everyone. I think all compliments and offers of help are only being offered so they could screw me over. What a life. Its the reason I never leave the house anymore.

Yes, this happened to me too. 6th - 8th grade was pretty tough with the bullying. Beginning of 9th grade I had a series of suspensions from "fighting" and eventually sent a kid to the hospital. The bullying stopped but I wish there could have been another way.

I tried to be invisible. Not literally, but as close to it as I could. Never went to any dances, games, etc. avoided contact with the other kids as much as I could. Didn't work too well. Probably 90% of my classmates had no idea if we shared any classes together, but my bullies never forgot who I was. Then, late in my 10th grade year, I discovered drugs. Alcohol, marijuana, hashish, valium, quaaludes, percodan, darvon, LSD, amphetamines, cocaine, PCP . . . talk about being off in my own little world! I can't say I learned much my last two years of (very high) school, but the other kids said about me were of very little concern to me. The bullying pretty much stopped, though - I guess that if the victim is too wasted to know he's being victimized, it's not much fun anymore.

Um, I'm not recommending this approach, by the way. While I did make it through HS, I was honestly, literally, surprised that I lived long enough to see my 18th birthday.

How I survived:

Moved to a small town
Went to a school that was less than 500 kids
Was in special ed and had an IEP
Got extra help with my school work
Had an aid in every class until my Junior year


I also spent some time in the library reading or sitting in my locker playing video games or listening to music or being on the computer. Then when it be the end of the school year, classes get boring so I started to leave the school ground and go to the public library or looking in stores. I mean all students did was hung around and talk because there be no school work and it was just catching up now so to me it was pointless to sit in my seat with a notebook or Game Boy or with a CD player or with a book. I also slept in class because I wasn't allowed to pace so I get tired and close my eyes. I couldn't put my head down or else teachers and kids be telling me to wake up so I started to keep my head up using my hands and I would close my eyes. It would look like I was just looking down.

I survived high school by being lucky and oblivious. I was in a class of fewer than 60, and I kept myself very busy outside of classes, because not many classes challenged me much; I found out later that I totally missed what was going on socially, go figure. I had very few friends, and about half of those were teachers.

In my school they put all the trouble makers at these two tables so they could keep an eye on them. I was not a trouble maker but was always present when trouble was started according to the lunch room monitors. I was pretty much put at that table because I caused trouble by being bullied . They forced me to sit with my bullies they could not touch me but they verbally abused me. Its where I learned how to verbally defend myself. Having a high verbal IQ made me a bully since my bullies were dull witted. My special education teachers were constantly trying to get me away from the table but the principle said I was better off at that table because the monitors could keep better eye on me to keep me from getting beaten up. I always said how will I get beaten up if my bullies are all exiled at the table but the principle could not understand simple logic. The only good news was I only spent two years then made to leave because I was starting fights and the monitors were sick of me threatening and insulting them. I bullied my way out of the trouble maker tables.

I think your principal must have been a clone of mine...



I like your style. I used to threaten to contact the press; and I had enough writing talent, and a strong enough interest in journalism, they could never be sure I wouldn't pull it off. Especially since, if they put me off, I'd just say "Okay. I'll be just outside the office. In the phone booth." A couple of times, they almost needed to have their chairs cleaned. Heck, three years after I graduated, they had this huge ceremony in my town for the release of an education stamp (Horace Mann was born here ) - and the principal walked down the stairs of the post office sideways right in front of the US Education Secretary just so he wouldn't have to look at me, standing there selling First Day "covers" I'd printed up. It was the proudest day of my life. I made a real difference, after all...

I hid from my Peers and fought tooth and nail with my teachers. I did not go to any class I thought Would make me talk infront of anyone.(No singing, No speaches and so on)

If I was unhappy in a class I would make the school put me in a new class. My counselor told me "You are the first of your kind to come in your first year of high school in the MOD classes and leave taking all AP Classes"

Do not let the principle say he will talk to the teachers about your kid needing odd little extras to help your kid. MAKE the principle sign a paper with things you know your kid will need like letting your kid walk out of class when it gets to much without being punished. letting your kid use a laptop on hand writen papers or listening to music during quiet time work. If the principle wont work with you then find a new school that will.

A lot of people say "high school is the best years of your life when you look back on it" I say "High school is only the best years of your life If you had the right help"

Or find a special education lawyers who will make him. Or at least make them pay out the butt for their stupidity.

It would be better to find a new school. Schools have no money for books because they hier the best Lawyers cash get and even if you win there are hundreds of loopholes to keep them safe.