How Do You Survive High School?

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My school is so nice. It honestly the best school I've ever seen and it is a public program.

I was recently diagnosed with aspergers. I'm high functioning except for in classrooms. We haven't informed the school of this diagnosis. It was never noticed because I was never put in a situation for it be noticed. To be honest, it overall is not a problem, except sometimes I have a hard time reading situations and what I'm doing socially. But I'm so used to being around people, have made and learned from so many mistakes, that I have overall overcome most symptoms.

My problem is that I do not learn through auditory stimulation (I know, totally opposite of aspie's norm) but through reading. If I can't read it, I have a hard time understanding it. I'm a very visual learner. In my classrooms, most of the time is spent just... doing nothing that is important.

I do not learn in all but three of my classes. Everything else is just boring and the students are extremely loud. In my one class, it is like a lunch room. The students just socialize while the teacher is behind a desk. Nothing gets done and I can't study. It is extremely loud. Most of the students cheat to get by.

Also, I don't want to ruin and social relationships I've managed to make by suddenly just crawling into a corner, putting on headphones, and studying.

I don't know what to do.

Talk to the counselor and advise them that you can't focus in that classroom. Ask if it'd be cool if you went to the library to read the day's plan. The deal with him is that you pass the tests with a B (or w/e) or better grade. I just can't think with all that noise!

No social bond-breaking (you're not even there) and you can probably jam out 2 classes worth of learning in about one period's studying.

If the friends ask, uh... hm. Oh, they transferred you to the misfits class because of how disruptive you were in that one. XD

Might be an extreme solution, but have you thought about virtual homeschooling? Generally those sorts of classes seem to work much better for aspies. Would your parents be able to do that (or trust you at home for a few hours at a time)?

When I was in high school i really struggled as well in a pretty similar manner. I remember wanting to tell the school or a teacher about my autism but then would chicken out. I'm glad I never did though, once you do everyone knows and people are in your business or at least that's how my school was.
What I have learned too is that the teachers that allow their classrooms to be loud and rambunctious really just don't care about the kids that aren't learning because of it (at least in my experience.) Listening to music in class made a world of difference for me. If I had one headphone in playing music for some reason I was able to ignore the students and listen to the teacher at the same time. I strongly recommend trying this to see if it helps any.
I know what you mean, I'm a visual learner and didn't always pick up the information in class. I learned to utilize the internet, reading it was much better for me and if you don't find what you need at one site you can easily go to another.
Yeah honestly in class I screwed around and spent time on the internet because we rarely did anything useful.
I used to feel like the time I spent socializing with my friends in class was essential to our relationships but I found later that it really isn't. In classes where I had to ignore my friends to study our friendships didn't suffer. If you still spend time with them at lunch, outside of school, or just occasionally talk in class things will be fine. Your friends won't suddenly write you off.
If it helps any, college is soooo much better. I hated high school with a passion and was exaggerated everyday after school but I love college. The lectures aren't loud like high school classes, most of the students are serious about their education, and the schedule of just a few hours a week in a classroom is much more aspie geared I think. It will get better.

Is there a library in your school?

There is no surviving high school, really. It sucks. It's always sucked for me. I feel nervous, eat and sleep at weird, non-conventional times. I have daily meltdowns, sometimes at school. But, the thing is, it sucks for everyone. I know a few kids who seem like aspires that have a very difficult time; mostly males who are falsely viewed as gay. However, I have many NT friends (or acquaintances?) that are having just as much of a hard time as I am. Some even have it worse. Just get it over with. Whatever comes next will be better. Just keep that in mind.

I just focus on my studies.

Simply put, my para-ed assistant Nel Krueger helped me through out the day. She was like my Jiminy Cricket; we're still pretty close to this day.

high school was not fun.

I did end up in some classes where all people did was make noise.
I had one teacher that would allow people to copy other peoples work.
If a person was late with an essay she would give them another persons essay and say "use this as an example". the student would copy it and get a higher grade then the person that did the original work.

I spent my breaks in the library.

As for suggestions
let someone know that the loud classroom makes it impossible for you to focus.
Keep socialising to lunchtime and outside of school.


After high school I did my tafe diploma (technical school) part time while working full time. I did night classes. Those were more enjoyable as people wanted to be there and didn't make life difficult for everyone around them.

Sounds a lot like my high school

I agree with a lot of what jourdan. College class tends to be a lot better. But be prepared, there is a lot of homework in college, at some point you need to learn how to do homework.

Also, if you not learning anything class, why not talk to your friends. I thought talking in class was always a lot easier and more fun. Conversations usually involved one, maybe two people. You can pause whenever you want to, and pretend you are paying attention to the teacher while you think of an appropriate response.