gradma says i shoulnt say im like lennie from of miceandmen

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You make a really good point about that my grandmother thinking of it as a different way then me. I think this is what she did and I think that she has a fight with herself too she doesn't want to see me as disabled autistic or whatever but then when she sees how much she constantly how much he has to take care of me and how much she needs to remind me of stuff etc. that I really am disabled but then she fights and I guess because she thinks of it as a negative thing.
Sometimes she's really supportive and understanding but other times it be really rude and inconsiderate and save it's all my fault and that I did it deliberately and then I just want to make her miserable. 

Another time she's just really pities for me. Saying she sorry about my situation (not just my disability), that she wishes there is a place for me like special school or home or something ( not in a bad way but somtimes she does say it in a bad way) and how she wishes things could be better for me and that she was younger that she had someone to take care of me or that I was more able and be able to remember things. And how she wishes that I could go to school in Germany because she says the schools are really good.And then she'll like to hug me and cuddle with me and stuff. 


If she yells at me calls me names threatens me or something like that and she scares me or makes me feel really upset or I cry. She usually she doesn't really apologize at first but then she gets really sympathetic and she comforts me.

She complains a lot about not having any help my uncle or mom or my dad and how my dad never gives me money and how she says my mom never helps what is one thing and then she's accomplished the world and she is she's worried about money and how she's going to afford to pay for me and send me to college and how my uncle never pays her when he's supposed to. 


I don't blame her I mean she's I believe 85 years old.I asked her if I could help but she said you can't sweetie and I said I wish I could help or that you could have more help and she said that I wish so too .

At first when she would do this I would get really upset or mad and then almost go though that love/hate relationship thing isn't I've always loved her if you know what I mean. I guess I was kind of frustrated myself.

For example today I was going to my regnts and I was supposed to get there at 8:30.
It was about five minutes before or a few minutes before and I realized I had left my keys at home for the fifth time in a few months and that I tried knocking the door and again she wouldn't hear me. Luckily this time I had my phone with me so I called her. 
And then she ended up yelling at me because I was late and she didn't even care that she couldn't hear me and that I was locked out and this wasn't the first time. well in her defense I didn't really tell her the only time I did mention it did two times including now that I could get my door open.

The rest of times I was too embarrassed to tell her. 
But after while when I got home she didn't seem to be angry anymore. 
And when I saw George and Lennie intracting I had a deeper understanding of why she did it, what she was going through,and how it wasn't so easy for her especially when she's around other adults and especially other kids my age.


For me I know that I'm smart but I also know that I'm delayed and I have a slow processing speed and then I had muscle tone weakness and that I'm physically delayed and autistic and you know.

And I don't want to make a big deal out of it or see it as a bad thing and part of me knows it's not bad but it seems like everyone around me in my family and others wants to either think of it as a tragedy or think that I don't have it etc. and I'm stuck between my new knowledge and their old knowledge/ assumptions part of me knows I'm not like other people and that I'm disabled and the other part just doesn't want to admit it or thinks it's a bad thing or still kind of kind repeating what I am heard before like I used to about the assumptions and stuff even though I don't want to.

And then I started thinking the back of my mind maybe it is a bad thing it's the same thing with Lenny.

I don't want to consider Lenny as bad or whatever and I don't even believe he would kill Curlys wife which I still don't believe. And I still think he's cute and still of the scenes or George and Lennie talk about the rabbits but I don't want to think it's a bad thing to be like him but a lot of people do think it.
Now I realize why because he's supposed to represent 
how people thought of disability back then that's basically supposed to be like a parody or political cartoon.

That's why I think the ending should've been different. Most people aren't even educated enough to understand that. I mean these are the same people who think that every person is autistic is Rainman. And thinks someone like Rainman would not be able to have any feelings and I'm sure there is some people out there who use of mice and men as a justification for people who have developmental disabilities not to be able to live in society.
And knowing that now it kind of also disturbs me I don't know what my life would've been like if I lived in the 1930s but honestly I don't think I would've been in school with regular kids especially with my physical delay but then again I don't know.
 
I wish there could be program with someone like me and my grandmother on TV as long as it was done right. Maybe it could get people an inside scoop on what's its actually like to be disabled and how it's not the end of the world.

I think South Park has done it well with Timmy and Jimmy. Not to mention the boy with Down's who actually uses the perception that he's "dumb" to his own advantage (in other words, he manipulates others based on their own biases).

I was thinking the same thing.

I was thinking about how angry I was at you and goldfish (my new buddy! ) for coming to an Autism website and repeating the low functioning is inferior mantra. But I honestly think you did Jen a favor, she saw something in those threads that stuck in her craw and now it's sending her down some path. Maybe it will be a path that becomes a huge part of her life or maybe it will just be short, but a learning experience. But she's clearly going somewhere with this. I think we will all enjoy seeing where she goes with it.

I think she was asking the question you quoted above and we all misinterpreted it, so she asked us again.

I think she's trying to help all of us dumb dolt adults cut through the haze of cliches. Like we all want to reinforce for her that she's bright and beautiful, but she wants us to understand that she knows there is some dark inside of her too (as in she breaks things and has to be told what to do sometimes) and if we don't take the good and the bad, we're aren't really taking all of her (including the Lenny in her!), then we just have some fuzzy feel good image of her, not the real her. But it's ok to love all of her (the good and the bad) and to love ALL of EVERYONE, because that's what people are and we are beautiful! Dark and light and all!

Ok Jen did I come close? You can yell at me if I got your message all wrong!

I think you spoke well, but sometimes we get caught in a trap of thinking things like oh nonononono, Our Jen is not like Lenny, and we are too mired to hear what you are really saying! If I'm right and that's what you are saying, it's a good thing to be reminded of sometimes. It's a nice message.

Wow you pretty much took the words right out of my mouth.
Although I don't think I would call you dumb. Honestly at first I thought you two were mad at me for keep repeating the same question. And I felt like I was doing something wrong something that maybe I didn't understand yet. 

What I mean is that I like you said I have some dark things about me but I'm still me if you took away the dark stuff I wouldn't really be me as it is quirky personalities and people who are develpmentally disabled are wonderfully unique and adorable .

Although I wish I could have some therapy to help my low muscle strength and to possibly be a little less heavyset ect.


There are things we find bad about ourselves and somethings we can't change. I would love to be a student at Harvard doing work a mile a minute but I know I can't that doesn't mean I shouldn't try anything and give up.
A lot of times I just want to hang out with the kids that I have in my special program and be secure and not have to worry about discrimination, conflict or anybody downing me or even overestimating me.

But now that I woken up and know that I'm autistic I know more about myself that's not very healthy . 

I don't like this standard of cheat go big and either be on top or get out . 
Or either your high and big and popular or you're so long that people feel sorry for you think that you're better off dead or been aborted. 
If I am successful people will think I am a fake if I have an aid or caregiver to help me that will do everything for me And I am her puppet or that I'm just lazy and messing up the system .
If I'm not successful and liminal home on my life people would think I'm mooching off the government or they will feel sorry for me and think that I am worthless.
I don't want to feel afraid to succeed or to fail. 


They're beautiful articulate disabled people out there who if you give them time can come up with a wonderful ideas and be able to change the world or just showing that someone with a disability can do well without needing to be a legend or completely having someone's hand in their brain if they just open up and give them a chance and the help and encouragement they need .


But I don't want to hurt people who are just blindly going with whatever they heard and then seeing it is true again I done this myself I still do it sometimes 
Like autism speaks I don't think you're evil I just think they're highly misinformed and confused they're trying to do the best for their children without realizing the implications if they are completely "cured" or "recovered" .

Actually this came up after reading your post but also after I had read the giver for the second time you weather the first time but didn't remember so I wanted to read it again but then after I but it gave me a bad feeling and I had no idea why.

But now I realize the giver is less of a dystopian society and more like our society everyone seems to be afraid of genetic variation when is the one thing that helped that helped us survive. 

I would also recommend checking out out of my mind after I post I will edit it and give you the link so you could read the descriptions.
There's more to me then what I describe like when I was in gym constantly running into things and hurting myself and destroying other objects .
I didn't want to get into it because I didn't want to droning it and part of me frankly wanted to pretend it didn't exist and forget about it. 

And sometimes I'm in denial about it myself because part of me doesn't want to be developmentally disabled just things that I'm not again I don't know if I really am deluding myself or what but to me it doesn't matter although I do wish I could have a very accurate 100% guaranteed test but I don't know that wouldn't even be possible .
I know I'm slow I know I was and still am physically delayed.
I know I'm develpmentally disabled however my grandmother's has been so much in and out of denial never really getting fully into any of the categories either except maybe in denial which confuses me since again when I was little I just repeated her information without thinking about it my mind still wants to do it.

Sometimes I think I don't have a disability I'm exploiting everything 
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know what I'm doing here or that the people here are so much smarter or able then me .
I mean I usually don't think about it that much but when it does, I'll trade between these feelings of feeling like a fake and feeling like I'm over estimating my ability to be good at things. To be able to do things right or go Into society and be able to be able to do something .
Or that I'm just too heavyset and that's when having problems with that I mentally ill lazy or possibly manipulative .

But for me must come it doesn't matter I just want to be a group where I could be accepted and err are people to be like me and understand my problems and I did find out have the similar issues relating to nts as I do and understand that when I'm not questioning myself I know that I'm disabled and not just lazy and stuff like that.
But I must warn you this is one of the most stupid and embarrassing thing that ever happened to me even with my disability slow processing and temporary lack of judgment I still think this was utterly stupid of me.

One day in seventh grade I was in field day and I stupidly tied a rope around my waist because I couldn't stand the ropes texture and I thought I would be able to get a better grip out of it which was true. I saw someone else doing about it would be a good idea .
Anyway what I remember is that I was playing tug-of-war with the class 
Now this part especially is very vague but it's hard to describe it as best as I can.
after we were finished these kids are challenging me and laughing at me I don't know if it was because I was different I was heavy I was a girl two of the three or all three. 
I got mad and wanted to prove that I was strong the second on the bro I believe and tried to pull them off of it where was pulling them and they were holding it and sitting down and I don't remember.


I was playing with this other kid and I was winning another kid came in and I was still winning it could've been one or two kids everything happened so fast I had no idea what was going on until it was too late and even if I had known earlier what was I going to do about it? 
All of a sudden all these kids started to come on the other side the rope and pulled so fast that it knocked me down then they started dragging me arround with the rope still around my waist laughing at me and taunting me in front of the whole class and the other seventh grade. 
I tried untying the room but it was useless so I kept yelling for help and telling them I couldn't breathe. 

I was scared to death and sure I was going to pass out. But either they couldn't hear me or they had no mercy. 

Finally these two girls I knew from class got them off of me and helped me untie the rope but later that they're they were worried because I was turning purple Honestly I don't know what was going to their mind or they actually cared.

Luckily all I suffered was a broken ankle in a minor head injury. 
But the kids to did this with the same of kids who were picking on me for years. But that's not even the worst part my grandmother was there (not anywhere near where we were obviously)and I had to lie to her as well as light in the printable somewhat so he wouldn't get my grandmother involved.

And basically people to the gentlest way possible to say that it was my thought I was so stupid for letting myself for tieing the rope against my waist and I admit I walked into that one.
But these kids did this kind of stuff on purpose and as well as torturing me take advantage of my vulnerability and then use it to their advantage. Which is probably why I couldn't take the algebra regents test in 8th grade.



I don't even know if they got in trouble or if anybody even gave a care. Some people emailed me on Facebook enumerating get them or whatever and never did anything and I think they were just going behind my back or something. 
And these kids still torched me me even after they broke my leg and would call me a fake because I wasn't using my cruches properly actually I'm so I'm coordinated and somewhat week I probably never fully completely healed in that ankle.
I haven't fallen on that ankle in a long while but ever since every time I had fun on it I would get the pain similar to what had happened only not as intense it's probably pretty much healed beyond help now.


I also ran into one of those big school fans when I was playing kickball and broke my glasses and half and have my glasses made a scar on my face. Due to meltdowns there are at least small holes in most of the apartment doors although I would never hurt anyone trust me if I didn't hurt those kids I can't Hurt a fly.


And I'm sure there more than my brain is completely blocked them out. And because I was pretty much fully in my own one of American girl dolls I had no idea about the world around me except the kids were picking on me and my grandmother and pretty much anything bad that happened. Besides that it was all Annie American Girl dolls Winnie the Pooh the outsiders anything I like going to my world and ever since I was pretty muck kick and thrown/snapped out of my world I can't go back into it anymore well I can't get cock deep in thought about this stuff but it's rare and I'm unable to visualize anything anymore but these section of my dreams which I forget what it looked like a little while after finishing it .

But that's okay because I feel like if I would've ever woken up out of my world and finally understand but also the ones that just getting something in one ear and repeating it out my mouth just to get by and just doing what anybody else told me 
sometimes I still find myself fighting to not do this especially when people but ask me to do things like Asking for a dollar, to give them food, dance for them or say something. Mostly all this was phased out after last year.


because I didn't know any better and because I was in my own world and basicly more severely autistic with the exception that I could talk ok for the most part 
And that when I was younger I would ask stuff on Yahoo answers posing as my grandmother my mom just because they're the ones to it said that and what are overheard talking and I was literally repeatedly asking the exact same questions over and over again but the exact same descriptions just because I I guess I liked to hear the answer because visiting my grandmother said it and I was always attached to her.

To be completely honest I never really now if this is accurate or not because as I mentioned I can't really remember anything and everything is pretty much a big blank even just for a few years ago.

I only remember very specific things like going to see the play Annie when I was little for the first time in the high school theater, waking up early in the morning to watch Lilo and stitch and Winnie the Pooh, or how the fire happened and how I found out about it. But it's only bad or things that are relevant in my life now that I opened up to and realized. 
The only other thing I can remember well is me taking my progress sheep out of the trash because I thought the teachers being unfair and screeming/ crying and kicking over the garbage can.

I feel like if kids are growing up from a very early age like shortly after birth and taught to be respectful and not to dwell on someone's differences it or good or bad traits or disabilities and not to make fun of them for but just understand it and try to help them the best they can i'm not making them feel left out or unloved.

I know this is probably just a dream and an unrealistic fantasy but the reason I keep thinking about this is that I feel like if society would like this these kids would have never tormented me my grandma wouldn't be in and out of denial. And I would have to worry that all this stuff. And and I probably wouldn't have been so much in my world.

The giver

Out of my mind

^
^
That is a REALLY good post. Very insightful.

No Jeni. I see this as trying to fit his story into your own story. to squeeze it into your paradigm. Yes, it is creative thinking of a sort, but I believe there are other ways of thinking that can be just as creative but are more reality based which will lead to you much greater happiness, power and fulfillment. In no way was Lennie intended by Steinbeck to represent how people thought of disability back then. He was interested in social inequity as perpetrated by economic conditions; the woman he was married to at that time was a Marxist, and he visited Russia with her in that same year Mice and Men was published,1937. Imo, he was making a complex analogy in some respect, as we all have both mice and men within us, but Lennie was almost surely meant to represent the Untied States (and capitalism which was supposed to give an opportunity for all, but obviously not doing that)--young, innocent, sincere, with good intent, but guileless, so without realizing it, in its great exuberance and physical power, crushing helpless trusting vulnerable people (little mice and puppies) and even manipulative ones, as represented by the woman he killed, to death (which would ultimately, according to the idealist view of Marxism, at least, result in its own demise)..

In response to your very interesting writings, I am going to gradually be presenting some ideas which may be quite different from the other responses you have been and probably will be getting here, though all of which, including my own, are obviously given with care and concern for you and your well being, so given from an altruistic motivation.

Thank you for sharing. The message you have written is rich with information, and in information there is a great possibility. The way we make interpretations lays a foundation for our future. It can open doors, but it can also close entrances and keep us shut into boxes. I wish for you and all of us to be functioning with joy and happiness in a great big world of mental clarity.

Another subject, but I will stick it in here....You have mentioned quite a few times about not remembering things and losing your earlier ability to visualize, etc. and I am wondering if you are taking any psychotropic drugs, meaning anti-psychotic, antidepressant. ADHD, anti-anxiety or mood stabilizers, as these can affect memory loss and cause cognitive dysfunction.

Holy Smolly Jen! That was quite a post. I feel like you let your guard down and really let us see a naked part of you. Oh it was kind of like a Vulcan mind meld! Like we have communicated on a whole other new level.

I really think that you should think about being a writer - or at least pursuing a career in which writing plays a part - that is too wonderful of a gift to waste. But your insight into Lenny also indicates that you would be a great writer because great writers are usually great readers too.

As for what littlebee said about you projecting him on to your paradigm (I think that's what she said - and by the way I'm not picking on her, but I'm a writer myself so this is to me incredibly important)! !! - I love the way you saw Lenny as a whole person, you made me see him through different eyes. Sure he’s a character in a novel, but he represents something to us that goes way beyond any representation that Steinbeck did or didn't intend. One of the great joys and purposes of reading is how we can see ourselves through characters and superimpose ourselves and sometimes work out problems through them. When writers write novels, that is often one of the main goals they strive for by the way, to create an experience where the reader sees himself and learns something about himself.

So you were presented with a cliche, but you worked it out in your brain as if he was a real guy and it helped you express something that is obviously crucially important to you, something that was pushing on you and wanting to come out - this idea of darkness and what is truly dark within you vs what might be wrongly perceived to be true by others (for instance feeling that someone might think you are a fake if you need a helper). But also that darkness lives entwined with light (that's my favorite part).

What you came up with there was pretty spiritual and important and it was not unhealthy!! ! I think that all this talk that has been going on about "inferior," plus the timing of you watching that movie with your grandma (aka George , was what helped you let those walls down just now. I am really glad I am here to share that with you! And don't tell littlebee this, but I think I'm not the only one reading these threads who thinks you are awesome and captivating (I just happen to be the one who talks to you the most).

As for your story about the rope - that was rough to read. I think many of us here have had experiences like that. I once had my clothes torn off me in gym class by a pack of wild girls. I was hiding from them in the bathroom stall because they always tormented me, but one climbed over the stall wall and another crawled under the door and they trapped me and pinned me against the wall and tore my clothes. Fun days!

The worst though was when some boys were in my driveway singing the Woodchuck song (the same boys who sang it on the bus every day) - because I had a deformed jaw. Well my mom came home and started yelling at them, then their father came and started yelling at my mom and he screamed that he was going to kill our dog, Baby. The next morning I found Baby dead in the garage (poisoned with strychnine wrapped in hamburger meat the vet said after an autopsy).

It's very easy for you to feel like the rope thing was your fault - and I don't know how aware you were of what those kids might have been up to, but it doesn't sound like you were thinking about that. It's tough because we want to be responsible for own actions, but sometimes people's cruelty can just be too much for us. I felt responsible for Baby too, but now I know that was not my fault. It's like our presence is intolerable to the universe, so the universe rages - but how can we be responsible for that? Which is not to say you should look for ways to let yourself off the hook when you really do do something wrong. But standing up against a bunch of bullies isn't wrong. Sometimes it takes more strength to fight a battle then to win it, ya know? Especially when it's one girl against a large pack of kids.

I'm not saying that you don't have darkness (holes in walls, not good)! I remember one time I was in the hospital really sick and the doctors actually thought I had AIDS so I was scared to death. This was after watching my brother die from it. It was back when it took about a week to get an AIDS test back, and I had a high fever that whole time. Well I was crying on the fifth day and my sister got angry with me and called me a ninny and then spent the entire day in the room with me, BUT NOT SPEAKING TO ME. Stress on top of stress. Later that night my dad came and brought some flowers, but when they left I threw the vase on the floor breaking it into shards. What I didn't consider was who was going to have to pick it up. A nurse had to come and clean it because my platelets were messed up and they wouldn't let me touch broken glass. But she CUT HER HAND. I'll never forget that. That woman on her hand and knees, bleeding and cleaning up after my tantrum. And she just kept telling me it was ok. I felt like dirt. So yes, we do have darkness, don't we?

These kinds of shared histories make us brothers and sisters. I kid you not, some of us here are related in ways stronger than we are related to our families. When you talk about the rope incident to us, we can say to you that we understand your pain and we really understand your pain! When you say you had to hide the truth about it from everyone, we understand that too! And I feel the same way as you about trying not to talk about these things too much, I try to make my time here a learning experience mostly - but whether we talk about it or not, the shared histories and the empathy exists and bonds us. I think Alex should go to heaven for that - for helping us all come to know that we aren't alone! And I'm not even religious.

But this bond that we share - it can be a problem too, right? Because now it's obvious that you are thinking about how all of your brothers and sisters in Autism are going to get along in world that might consider them inferior, and you feel like maybe you are called to do something about it. And so by asking the question over and over you are trying to figure out your place in this whole mess. I think that's what the journey is that I was referring to in an earlier post. It's interesting to see where you are going with this and how you are working it out.

I really have more I want to say (because your post was so interesting and thought provoking), but I don't want to go on too long.

I did want to say though, regarding your fear of not being disabled, but thinking you are instead exploiting something. I don’t think we can ever precisely walk the line between exploitation and ability. And that doesn’t go for just matters of disability, it goes for practically every aspect of our lives – everything is a balance between what we need emotionally and what we need to do to be responsible people. Even non-disabled people sometimes take advantage of situations – but it’s not always evil. Sometimes you just need to breathe, so you may not work as hard one day, but the next you work extra hard. As long as you have a conscience and a passion, you will be able to work this out (I’m pretty sure)!

Oh and the thing about not remembering - littlebee has a good idea - it could be drugs if you are on them - but it could also be trauma and stress which is known to do that. I have some vague fuzzies myself.

I love that!

i miss my grandmother, passed away in april last year :,(

Okay I was writing my reply on my notepad in my phone and then I accidentally deleted everything that I wrote by pressing paste instead of copy and unfortunately there's no undue for me .And I wrote this whole thing and now I'm kind of annoyed so I'm going to make it this response short go to bed and then possibly add to it and try to remember what I was saying.

Anyway so this post when I first read it it made me so happy to know that there are people who know what it's like in people who understand what I'm going through and know it and don't judge me for it.

As for writing I had written a short story and ninth-grade form a contest in school and I also wrote to fan fiction and fiction press but the fiction press is like only one paragraph and then I forgot about it I guess.I also have written a lot of normal little kids stories where you write any where from from one page to five or ten pages and then you never write on it agin :p I actually have considered posting my short story on wrong planet just for fun and to see what people think of it. I probably will soon.

As for medication I have taken a lot of medication throughout my life. Started when I was first diagnosed with seizures at age two and I took Trileptal. Then when I first off I therapist they gave me Abilify Zoloft and I believe other stuff too but I don't remember.The ones from my new doctor that I can name off the top of my head that I had taken is clonidine, Adderall this other medication that starts with a z that I don't remember the name of. Currently I am just taking Daytrana it's sopposed to help get to school on time and possibly make me less tired but all it really does is have me get there 10 to 20 minutes earlier. Although it is a lot better than before. But I'm still late every day.

I would also love to thank you for sharing your experiences with me and I'm sorry about what happened. Now school is awkward because some of the kids and drama I knew in elementary school and saw me getting bullied didn't do anything about it for as far as I can remember and now I don't even know if they like me or not. People don't really bully me anymore well at least not as explicitly although again there still people out there who tell me that this person wants to date me or do you think I'm hot and stuff like that. people ask me for money or for food but then again they do that too a lot of the kids . Kids in school mostly just ignore me or do that awkward " Oh hi" talk when I try to talk to them.

My friend the one who was from my drama club who I mentioned before is very nice to me and says hi and always sounds happy when I say hi to him in the hallway. But he's also popular ( he is now a cheerleader and before tried out for foot ball) and sometimes I wonder what is he doing associating with me and sometimes walking home with me when when we go home to our building from school and talking to me even standing up for me a few times when we were in our group of people.and in ninth-grade when we had more time together when we were in drama club hanging out with me ( now that he is cheerleading and people had not come back to drama club including him and someone had moved you don't hang out as much but I still seem in the hallway a lot and a few times will walk home together.)

when there's many other people to hang out with. And with the people that I've talked to who hang out around him I don't know what they think of me.I mean it's not that I drawn on it or think of myself as low or anything it's just a question that dawns in my mind every once in a while.

Also I wonder how could he be so confident and popular money is so different and so outwardly gay. I love it and just makes me feel so inspired seeing him talking to everyone and him being mentioned all the time positively The other people in school I have overheard talking about him .After watching glee I think it's so wonderful. And I wish it would happen more often after I hear the tagic news about so many lgbt people killing themselves because of constant bullying . When we hang out (esspeciallly alone from the others he would hang out with )it would always be awkward because I had never had someone treat me like this before and basically I would get into some deep conversation but I would always anyway how you stay so confident and strong and basically saying how I looked up to him. I honestly don't think I would've stayed and had a role at all in the play if it wasn't for him especially since he was the only one I really trusted. Now it's a little harder now I'm in drama and he's not here and we're trying to play guitar and I don't know if I can and it's confusing and hard to learn.


There is hope in one other person I've met in my school who seems really nice and seems to like me. She also said something about me being special and in special ed that made me smile.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I'm glad that you are enjoying our talks as much as I am.

I have to respond to you more fully tomorrow as I have to go to bed now. But I have The Giver on my iPad (I'm a writer, we buy books faster than we can read them! , so I'm going to start reading it tomorrow. I've heard it was a good book, which was why I bought when amazon had it on sale.

I always do this dumb thing when I'm copying something from one page to another. I copy the text, then go to where I want to paste it and press copy again (which just empties the buffer) - so then I have to go back and copy it again. I do that all the time, I drive myself nuts!

That's a lot of medication...maybe littlebee is right. If it concerns you, you could mention it to your doctor.

Well, kids are just really dumb, but some of them grow out of it. Then it can be too late! I remember one time I was talking to my sister about Baby getting killed and how those boys that chanted the Woodchuck song kept chanting it on the bus even after their father killed him. The next day she went to work and told her coworkers the story and one of them told her, Please tell your sister that I was one of those kids that taunted other other kids and treated them cruelly, but it was all because I was in an abusive home and I was taking my rage out on the world. Please ask her to forgive me. I really couldn't even bear to hear her say that almost. I don't consider myself a cold or hard person, but I told her to tell him where he could put it. She thought the whole exchange and my reaction was funny! You do seem much kinder than me though, you probably would have forgiven them.

But still, not being part of the herd seems to be very difficult for many people, and children seem to be especially vulnerable to this. So you rightfully feel distrustful of people who stood by and watched you get tormented, but the really really sad part about that is that some of them, I'm sure, probably hated seeing what was happening to you but were too terrified to stand up for you. So this guy who is your friend, you want to trust him but have some trouble doing it. He seems like a really cool guy and I love him for loving you! Some people are just better at escaping peer pressure than others are. Maybe because he's gay and he's had adversity of his own or maybe he is just at leader and it comes natural to him.

Jen, I feel this in you very strongly, that you are going to be a leader yourself one day. I don't know of who or what, but I feel that you are currently one of the strongest voices on this website. And you are a voice for compassion and understanding and empowerment. And that doesn't mean that you have to be the head of an organization (although you could if you wanted to) - but in the same way that your friend has given you a new perspective by being himself with you, and the way he goes out into the world and affects everyone - it's about being yourself! The power of one kind human being can turn many lives around!

I never told you this, but that New Years resolution that I made to stop getting into fights - it was because I had just gotten into a really really stupid fight with someone (who shall remain nameless) and Cornflake had to come lock the thread because of us. I was embarrassed but mad that he closed the thread too, so I sent him a pm. Well he was really nice to me in his response (and here again is the power of a few kind words) - his kindness made me feel worse about having been so immature that the thread had to get locked. I was thinking about how when we were all in that thread arguing about what inferiority means, all of us adults were just yelling at each other in circles and none of us were really listening to the others, but every once in a while you come come into the thread. You never got caught up in the circular arguments, you asked questions and addressed everyone with respect and compassion. I was so impressed - that was what made me decide to stop getting into fights.

I'm still not as good at it as you are, but I'm working on it! I'm only like four times older than you!

Okay first I just want to clarify a little bit of a misunderstanding the boy that is my friend was not in my school previously you separate from the other kids who had witnessed the bullying and besides the fact I told him that was bullied in the past he doesn't know the extent of it all however he does live in my building.

I guess the reason I don't trust them completely it's because he's so popular and sometimes it's even hanging around my kids who have hurt me or that I guess we're afraid to talk to in the past who have not.

In fact I believe once he was waking in the hallway with the kids who were sexually harassing me. I have no idea if this is true or not but I'm sure he knows them.

And this is really strange but since he hung out with a lot of people. For a while I wanted to ask him if the girls who were saying they were a lesbian or bisexual and wanted to do stuff with me were actually lesbian or bisexual because you know I can barely understand it now and although I still understand it better than I did when I was a little which was in another world.

I saw this girl who now we are friends who was another victim and I don't know she's gay either I don't know if she thinks I'm gay or if the kids who were doing this thought I was gay. I don't know why the thought came to my mind but it's just my Curiousness.

I guess that shows my childlike attitude instead of wanting to get revenge on what they did to me and this other girl or confront them I just have a full Genuine curiosity to figure out if they thought I was gay and pretending to be gay harassing me but they were actually gay and just harassing me even though I wasn't.

I I don't get it the whole thing is very confusing I guess maybe that's why that's the first question I asked myself.

I don't know maybe it's because I want to figure out why they would've done something like that and maybe I want to just look at them as a full person even I barely know them how to figure out if there something going on with them.

I guess it's because like with the other kids I'm afraid that he's only doing out of sympathy or trying to do with the other kids did or I don't even know.

Again he is nice and this is probably just a automatic reaction when someone is nice to me after what happened .We even sang together when we walking home once.

Honestly as I said before I don't know what I'm going to do with this archer loving booming positive wonderful personality gone from our club . When I was Bombing and laughing on my lines he wouldn't get mad or frustrated you would just have fun with me joke around and treat me really nice to and tell the kids I can't help it not to worry about it because I'll be fine I was just a little nervous .

At the end of the play I was so surprised with the response I got from the audience actually previously before you got suspended like a few are one week before the play and he couldn't play his part and Someone had to replace him. So I didn't know whether he was coming to the play. And after the end and he saw me and he said I did great and then I said I could never have done this without you I couldn't do without all the people in the club but especially not without you thank you so much. And we hugged.

Trusting the other people that I have in my drama club is going to be really hard because we barely talk to each other except this one girl who seems very nice and this other girl who I previously talked about.

And I don't it from me are around each other It always seems to be awkward.

It's not that I don't forgive them it's just that I don't want to be that one insistent person who wants to be your friend when you don't want to be their friend even though you don't want to hurt them.

I never have lunch with them anymore either because we have different period lunches.

There are many people play trusted or just blindly followed because I wanted to look cool while not cool but normal. And pretty much all of those relationship has been a flop.

I did have two good friends in second and third grade the both of them moved one of them is now in my high school and the other one I never saw again The person that I had the people there in my class told this kid not to be friends with me but he was friends with me anyway. This other kid was probably an aspie. He was obsessed with dinosaurs and I guess a lot of kids thought he was weird. All three of us would hang together be a group but that's all I remember. Both of these kids were in special-education with me.

Then in fourth or fifth grade I came to the younger class to make friends and I was friends with this girl for a while but then she left me because she got cool are also some other kids one of them moved away and I don't really know what happened the other ones. And of course there was also bullies in this half haven and the kids that I was with the get into arguments sometimes. We created this club called supporters but we never really did anything because as hard as I tried I couldn't really convince them to do anything besides draw stuff for our club and have a picnic outside at recess.

Actually I don't want to get Into all these bullies because I would be here for while and I shouldn't even be able to tell you much of anything because of my memory .

About being a leader sometimes I look at him and wish I could be a leader like him or at least bed as liked as he is.

But unfortunately I don't think I would be able to handle dealing with and talking to that many people.

But if we could have a group of people with similar needs to mine and developed a relationship over a long period of time and also were passionate and I could lead them but we would also have each other's back and come up with ideas together also.

We should have a group of people from this site be advocates and create an organization as popular as autism speaks is .

And we can make people understand what disability really means.

As for your New Year's resolution I hope it goes well. I think me ever since I was young I've always avoided conflict because I had so much conflict already it was bubbling and bursting even before I was born. Maybe I heard it in the fetus. :p

And I do hope that I will be able to follow my friend's footsteps even if it only means for some other people that I see in my life when I'm older who were young and tormented like me maybe by then I'll be so empowered I'll be able to help them i'm keeping my hopes up.

You are on the right track I believe, constant pointless conflict just adds more stress to what is an already stressed life from Autism. I noticed that not just you, but a lot of people on this website manage to really contribute without ever once getting into a fight - I think that's why being around here has helped me a lot.

I started to think about it and it's like if I think I'm right about something, I HAVE to say it. And if somebody doesn't agree with me, I HAVE to keep repeating it until they do. But that doesn't work. I finally figured out being right (or thinking you are right) is only half the conversation. You have to take a lot of other stuff into consideration to have a real conversation also. I'm better about it in RL too, I think. But you know, life is always a learning process unless you are dead!

So you are in a new school and the boy wasn't in the old school? I gotcha. He didn't see the rope pulling incident. He really does sound like a special boy.

About all that gay stuff and the girls - people still constantly confuse me with their intentions. I have no idea what or why they do things half the time, but I often look at them with the same curiosity that you do, sometimes I plan to put them in my novel as a character so I study them and try to figure out what is going on, or at least a version of what is going on that makes a novel fun to read. One thing I have come to realize though is that however much we may want to understand the absolute truth, in the case of people's motives and intentions, sometimes there is no absolute truth. Sometimes they are doing things they don't even know the reasons for.

- ah how many of us have gone through that? How come I never got cool?



Yes, many people are starting grass roots autism groups now, but can you ever have too many?



It's a good thing the little fetus you decided to take the other route! I don't doubt that we can form strong ideas and feelings in the womb, when you think about it at the end of the pregnancy, we are pretty much just people waiting to pop out.

PS I'm reading The Giver. It's interesting so far. Sounds a little like the Chinese government with the choosing careers and all - but I haven't gotten very far.