If only they knew...

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This is something that happened to me a few years ago (it isn't hard to figure out exactly when, as it happened at a huge, national/semi-international event). I'm not sure if this is the best board to put this in, but I put here as autism is an important part.

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My family is Mormon, and even though my parents are politically liberal they are strong supporters of BSA (Boy Scouts of America) we were preparing to send me and my older brother to the Nation Scout Jamboree to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting to hold up the family line (my grandfather went to the 50th anniversary one and my father the 75th, and when we went to the first prep meeting I discovered we the only ones there to have had such a history of attending there). At the time we had to sign up we had no idea where we going to be in a year, so instead of signing up our troop we signed up with grandparents troop and therefor we knew no one there. As it happened we ended up moving to northern Virginia, near DC, and the Jamboree took place at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, so it was really annoying how we had to drive to the middle of no where, Ohio, and back for every meeting. Anyway eventually the day finally came where we to finally go, so we went back to Ohio for the final time, visited a few friends who I hadn't seen in nearly a year in the part of the state where I used to live (and I now haven't seen since then, the town that had been my home looked so alien after being gone for a year, and there was so much nostalgia), and then we went to a different part of the state where my Grandparents live, then we joined the council and started the long bus ride to DC.

I was placed in the same troop, but a different patrol than my brother, and in my brother's patrol there was boy named Mark who my brother spoke with for awhile. He had CD from this one girl band, and he spoke of having to rescue them and force field generators and stuff, I never actually talked to him, so at the time I found nothing unusual with him, except to me he seemed a bit nerdy. We stopped at a Pizza place for lunch, and then we were back on the road. Eventually we made it the place we were staying for this leg of the trip, I'm not exactly sure what it was, it was sort of like hotel, only it wasn't a hotel at all and I think it was more of a lodge or something for a summer camp or something. Each room had two bunk beds, so four people from the same patrol shared each room. Anyway once we got there the power was out as a storm had knocked out all the power of the area in most of DC and the surrounding areas, but there was generators here, only the power was restricted to the lights in the hallways. This wouldn't have been much of a problem as we would have just gone to sleep, but there was one little problem: I'm extremely prudent and private (I won't use a stall if it doesn't have a lock and I never use urinals), and I needed light for the bathroom as in side it was completely black. I looked inside my backpack for a flash light, but for some reason there was no flash lights there even though flashlights are one of the most important modern survival tools, but I didn't worry as I was resourceful and thought of other options. I took out my watch, and as it turned out my my watch decided that it had to freakin' die sometime between it being packed and me taking it out, which would have only been a few days. I now turned to begging my room mates for a light source, but none of them had flashlights available, and when I asked one of them for his cellphone so I could use its light they wouldn't give it to me as he said he was almost out of batteries and than he stated that I could just leave the door open. I couldn't do that, but I couldn't explain to him why, and I just held it for a while, until eventually I resolved the issue, I don't remember if I eventually got a hold of someones phone, or if I just felt my way through the dark and somehow made sure everything went well.

We went to bed, and everyone talked while I remained quite. Eventually one of them went quite, and eventually the topic of conversation changed to a topic which greatly disturbed me. The began to talk about Mark, and how they hated him, and it was here I learned that he had Autism. and then the began to speak of other people they knew with Autism and how they disliked them. One of them spoke of this boy at their highschool who grabbed girl's breasts and he got away with it because of it, and how even though he hated him he felt sorry for him because he was Autistic. As I have Asperger's syndrome I could not stand this conversation, but there was nothing I could do. Even though I was silent I listened through everything and I was the last person to fall asleep.

The next day we toured DC as a patrol, which I found to be a waste of time as I had already toured DC a million times, but I had to bear with it and I could tolerate it as I knew most if not all of the people in my patrol had never been here before. We were told told to explore DC as a patrol and at sometime (I remembered what it was at the time, but I've since forgotten) we were to meet back up at the Lincoln Memorial. Eventually we went to the Smithsonian Castle, which happens to be the most boring building in the Smithsonian. While we were passing through I noticed a book on mathematics for sale, and I took a second to flip through it and read about imaginary cookies with imaginary costs. Once I put the book back I noticed that my patrol was gone, and mentally I was freaking out and thinking about all the worst case scenarios like I do every time I get separated from my family at stores and stuff because I get easily distracted and fixated on something for a few seconds/minutes and my parents forget about me and just keep walking, while on the outside I was keeping my cool. After I got myself together I figured there is a chance they might still be near and realize that they left me here and then come back, and if they didn't I come back within a certain amount of time than I would head to the Lincoln Memorial. I forgot exactly how long I waited there, but I think it was around an hour. While I waited a noticed a girl with Downs Syndrome whose mother or guardian was having trouble controlling her, and as I observed her I thought about mentally disabled people and where they fit in society. Once I concluded that they weren't coming back for me I looked at the map of DC, located the Lincoln Memorial, and headed off. I got there in reasonable time, and after I waited there for awhile other people in our council showed up and I was safe. Once I was reunited with my patrol I think some one in my patrol called me and idiot and actually slapped me for getting lost, but then acknowledged that I did the exactly want I was supposed to do in the situation and I was smart enough to solve the problem. As it turned out I wasn't even the only person to have gotten lost in our troop, and unlike me they didn't find there way back on their own and we had to find them. The event was never brought back up, and we headed off to Fort A.P. Hill. Oh how I hated that little DC trip.

Once we made it to our site we began to set everything up, and it didn't take too long for me get in a dispute with this kid in my brother's patrol named Kevin that ended with me getting kicked in the nuts. After every got set up I overheard someones conversation and learned some things about the troops social dynamics: Kevin was a jerk, but he could be a tolerable and fun guy if you get to know him and learn to tolerate him, while Mark seemed to be universally hated, more so than Kevin, and everyone found him crazy, stupid, and/or annoying, and they gossiped about his crazy idea about how he believed in needing to save the girls, and force field generators, and his ancestor's spirit who spoke to him. I wanted to hear from Mark himself about this stuff, but I was afraid to talk to him.

I had a great a time at the Jamboree, but I did not get along with my patrol well, and I hung out with my brother and whoever he was with. My patrol had the reputation of being the "ret*d patrol", not that the people in it where ret*d, but it seemed that almost everyone in it either had a mental disorder or two or was an idiot, and together our patrol did not function well. There was one kid who had Tourettes and something else, I'm pretty sure it was ADHD, and overall he was the person in my patrol who I liked the best, he could be a bit annoying at times, but he was a nice guy and I got along with him well. During the course of the Jamboree I had several Aspie moments, such as the time when I was the assistant cook and we were debating on how much concentrate to add to our water container, and I argued we should add the entire thing as even that wouldn't be enough to properly flavor all the water, and its better for the drink to be too strong than too watered down, and in the mean time our patrol leader was talking with some else about politics (apparently he had the reputation of being very smart, and I can say that without a doubt he was the only person in my patrol and probably the entire troop who had a chance of being smarter than me (except for maybe my brother if you look at the entire troop, there is quite a bit of disputes between us over that issue, which usually involve him calling me a ret*d, computer, or savant as I'm the only one to have been diagnosed with AS in my family, even though in some ways he is more autistic than I am, and feels the need to make excuses for me being a grade ahead of him in math even though I'm a year younger than him)) and after he said "Better Liberal than Conservative" or something along those lines, and with that I said "Yeah, dump the entire thing in already" or something like that, and then he responded that he was talking about politics (it also turned out that the concentrate wasn't meant to be added to the main water container we had, it was supposed to be added to just a pitcher of water for meals). Later when I was on the duty where I had to fetch the food and stuff I didn't realize I also had to return to box we got the food in, and are food had no container for it, so I had to hurry and bring the container back, but after I returned the container it started to rain and I tried to get back to shelter before it started thundering, but I slipped on the wet ground while running back and completely tore up both knees (as it happened I had just recovered from another knee injury) and after I sprung right back up I hobbled back to my tent, attempted to fix to fix myself up, but I was too shocked by the trauma and delirious to do anything more than poorly wrap it in gauze once I found mine, and than I just lie on my cot in a delirious daze until after I while Kevin was playing a song and after I realized I wasn't just being delirious and it actually was about vaginae I managed to get myself up and found someone to give me proper first aid. I also remember being too weak to carry the gray-water to the grinder so I was smart enough to figure find a way to transport it using a wagon or wheelbarrow something, but I still remember goofing up somehow with the grey-water, I just don't remember what happened. I was also too prudent to shower at the Jamboree until the very last day where I gave into peer pressure and took a swimsuit shower, and I say that I made a wise decision in avoiding the showers after being in there just long enough to attempt to clean myself. One day while me and the kid with Tourettes where discussing the dysfunctional nature of our patrol he asked me what I had, and after witnessing how Mark had been treated I figured revealing that I had a mild form of Autism was the last thing I wanted to do, so I denied having anything, and then he said "Yes, its obvious you do. Come on, I told you all about my disorders, so why can't you me about yours? There is no reason to try to hide it." or something like that, but I still refused to say anything about it. I wonder what would have happened if I told him.

Being autistic wasn't the only thing about me that I lacked the courage to defend. Obama didn't show up to the event and instead sent a prerecorded message that he created specifically for the event, and when it was played at the opening(?) ceremony there was much booing as people didn't like how he just sent a recording instead of appearing in person, but the booing also brought up political tensions and its very awkward having liberal views when almost everyone around you is dissing the democratic president and his politics. The larger problem came out on one of the final days, when the patrol leader leader, who as I stated earlier is also liberal, somehow got onto the subject of Utah then declared that it was messed up politically because of all the Mormons, and then they started ridiculing Mormons while I sat in silence and at my food, feeling very uneasy. When my brother and I went to the other side of the base for the LDS services we could discovered that we were the only Mormons in the entire council (at the service we meant some international scouts for Austria who happened to be Mormons, and it was awesome because they sounded just like Arnold Schwarzenegger). I wish I could have just had the courage to have defended my people, but don't have the strength to stand up for what I believe and what I am. I want to be a stronger man, make the world a better place, stand up to persecution, but I'm too weak, too small, too shy, and too afraid.

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And I guess that's it. I could tell so much more about what happened there, but this is all really all that I could think of that relates to the point I was making. Any opinions on this?

I wouldn't have a problem with people like that if it was me. I tend to agree with them in a way. I don't like people with obvious symptoms. Like me, probably.

You don't need to defend yourself. It's not worth the trouble and you wouldn't gain anything from it. You wouldn't make a difference so why bother?