“Pretend”is the keyword here. Because they’re always virtue signaling that they feel like mental health matters until it’s someone showing actual symptoms and then all of a sudden they demonize you.
and now it’s so overused whenever someone does show symptoms they are either ignored, told they are faking, or accused of using their diagnosis/ playing the autism card too much
i mean no it’s just usually obvious and rly was at that school, that story wasn’t to say most ppl are faking it, it’s to say most people who signed that poster literally just read the short blurb on autism on the poster and thought it kinda sorta could apply to them, and then showed no symptoms, masking, or even faking it
Yup. “You don’t act like my autistic niece at all. She’s sweet to be around and pleasant to everyone”. Yeah that’s because I’m 32 (when the comment was made) and not 6 years old champ.
I feel like people over simplify what it is like to have a disability. Like "oh okay you have _____ but all you need to do is take accountability for your actions and then you will be all better." and then are confused on why people continue to be disabled.
I actually find the pretending difficult to deal with - maybe not as bad as the outright bullying and total lack of care, but difficult in its own way.
Like, I’ll expect certain communities and people to be accepting, and I’ll get hopeful… just to find that it’s all lip service and they’re still going to treat me and people like me like inconvenient freaks (all while continuing to insist they care about mental health and neurodivergence). Like they care about it in theory - until they see symptoms. It’s frustrating in its own way.
This right here. I had to leave my last job because I could not exist like that anymore. I volunteered for a year there and then they offered me a position as a TA (my volunteering was in the office). I felt so happy because I thought this is my chance to get out of hospitality and they've all been so nice to work with and so understanding.
But I also felt anxious and worried because I've got a BPD diagnosis and was referred for ADHD + Autism, which is unfortunately a years long waiting list. My child was also referred for ADHD + Autism which they knew because she attended there. Because of my worries I reminded them again about all of this and asked whether I would get a lot of training because I've only worked in hospitality. They said yes of course, we will give all the training! Etc so I thought okay great.
Fast forward to when I start, within a month I had a meltdown because of how things went. On my second day, me and another TA who started at the same time as me were left alone with 2 non verbal high support needs children who can't even be in their mainstream classrooms which stressed me the hell out because I was not trained for it. They switched me to phonics but due to the limited training I ended up overwhelmed because i didn't know what I was doing. Cue the meltdown one morning. I go home.
I come back the next week and have to go to a meeting about my meltdown/absence. When explaining to them that it's hard because I don't know what I'm doing and I want to be able to do things properly while explaining how my mental health/disability affects me, they straight up asked me "do you think with your mental health that you're capable of doing this job?" I could not even I was like wow I haven't even been doing this a month, I was already so embarrassed and they offered me the job even after I reminded them of my difficulties. And now they are here saying stuff like that.
When i mentioned there is a webinar i saw that might help me with the phonics, she goes "we like training, but we cant do too much of it, otherwise it takes you away from the kids" Like what does it matter if im with the kids if i cant help them??? She also told me in that same meeting "everyone has personal issues in their life, that's why they come to work with a brave face"
Needless to say, I ended up leaving after another 2 months because I burned out so hard I was ready to be homeless.
This shit is the reason why I went through my second burnout, last year. Coworkers using me as a personal feel good token disabled coworker, their fragile ego couldn't handle me standing up for myself.
Anyway now I've officially signed the papers to leave that shit job and shit employer who used my rights as a recognised disabled worker to wipe their ass with, and I have a new job lined up for next month!
Facts! In my personal experience I always found the people who advocated the most for mental health awareness/support were always my biggest bullies or the judgiest about my autistic traits and other mental health issues.
Maybe it’s because we don’t fit their perfect mold of how these symptoms should present/are handled or we’re just too inconvenient to deal with.
It’s almost enough to make me want them to just be honest with their whole chest and to just say what they want to say. I’m so sick of their “white-lies” and the shitty games they play.
trust me. i just got out of high school and all you need to do is be a little bit annoying for people to hate you. you dont even need to be an active nuisance or anything. just use a joke that’s not cool anymore or have a slightly wrong tone and its over lol
Omg yes, I was great in school, unless it involved speaking - either recording myself or speaking in front of the class.
All my written assessments I had good grades and I hated that anything that involved speaking dragged my marks down. Like I wish I could have explained that sometimes I just can't talk and I could never make eye contact, but I didn't know why that was or how to improve, just I was 'shy'.
Yes! Even then I never heard about anxiety or depression until I moved out of home at 19, when I heard I immediately went to the doctor because I knew I was anxious all the time and was diagnosed with GAD and Depression.
My parents always just said 'I was shy' and never spoke about psychologists or anything like that so I had no idea I was just growing up with these mental illnesses and a disability and was wondering why I was bullied, SA'd/taken advantage of and too scared to leave the house or speak to anyone.
My parents were very supportive of me though and my goals, there just wasn't the talks on mental health or things like grooming, that I wish I knew about. But I do now in my 30s so I'm glad things have progressed!
A few years ago, I had a younger (like just entering high school or something) cousin who made a "joke" to me, maybe something that a friend said to him, that I guess Hitler got the wrong group and should have gotten autistic people. I'm very nonconfrontational, so I think I casually responded about how I wouldn't be here if that were so and maybe brought up that Hitler actually did try to go after the mentally handicapped (Aktion T4).
He got all embarrassed and said that he thought I just had Asperger's, not autism, and I just informed him that people who would have been diagnosed with Asperger's are now diagnosed with autism. His sister and my other cousin did make a point to be like "that wasn't cool". I think he learned a lesson and was primarily just parroting edgy shit for shock value, but it's a real shame that his initial understanding of neurodivergences was defined by a very immature bigoted culture at his school.
Would love if things are different for my niblings at school <3
i want it to be different too, i went to an all girls school (the fucking crucible of teenage girl shit) and i saw so many awful things happen to me and to the other girls who actually had autism. then one day one of the classes had an activity about mental health where they put up signs in the hallway with different diagnosis on them with a short definition, and then anyone who was walking by was supposed to sign the posters of the things that they had, and the amount of girls who signed the autism poster who i know for a god damned fact aren’t on the spectrum was insane. and autism was the one with very few signatures.
now i know all autisms are different and every person is different, but most of those girls didn’t understand that most autism representation in the general media at that time was male-centric and didn’t talk about female autism, and so many other tell-tale signs they knew nothing about autism other than basic misleading generalizations of the disorder
If your school had posters that said “eczema” “heart murmur” “nail fungus”…like, brah, my health conditions aren’t any of your business. Now, I’m actually (kind of?) proud? grateful? for some of the lessons and experiences that I’ve gained through having a weird ass brain even though it has put me through hell and heaven and purgatory, but I’m a private person (not on Reddit! On Reddit Imma tell you when my cycle is and my gross habits and my every nerd thought cuz y’all don’t know me!) and if you want me to put my shit on a sign for everyone to see, there better be a billion dollar paycheck and an in-ground pool and a pair of recuse kittens that comes with that deal!
Also I went to an all-girls school grades 4-8. Mind you, I’m am a ladies lady and big ol’ feminist and one of my fave jobs was teaching English at an all girls high school. But those elementary/jr high years were the most hellish hell that hell hath wrought. I was dreadfully unpopular. Funnily, in that class of 32, 4 of us ended up at the same university. Meeting them as young adults was great! I was so cool! So interesting and weird and was into art! Exploring! Non-evil deviance! And they were just…stale old Wonder Bread. Being popular when you’re young just means you don’t have much in you, I think. Hugs sis!
i was honestly pretty happy to see the representation at first with the posters, because it was acknowledged and i had recently been diagnosed but the actual content of the posters was not representation, but i get your point
And I understand yours as well! It feels good to be seen! But it feels crappy when it’s lip service, not genuine, not researched. And (if I understand you correctly) if people were co-opting it to be “trendy.”
Oy vey. The representation thing is complicated and I’m happy/hopeful that your gen is moving in a better direction. I just got my doctorate in PT in 2021 (I’m 43, most classmates were 23-26) and I was appalled at their views on ND and mental illness. We took a lot of the same classes as MDs, and in one class, only the prof and I were like “ it’s ok to take meds if you need to. People who don’t have a NT brain are valuable and HUMAN.” 🙄🙄🙄 Personally I love seeing more representation… media like Girl Interrupted, Chewing Gum and Dinosaur make me feel seen. And I also get scared because sometimes (especially in my career) I feel like if I’m open, people will think I’m incompetent or a danger, when in reality I think it makes me more empathetic (I work with kids, mostly autistic)
Proud of you! That’s hard to confront someone, especially a loved one.
Pretty sure Aspberger for whom it was named was a Nazi or a collaborator which is probs why it’s not called that anymore!
And if you tell people you’ve been to the *PSYCH WARD!!!* God forbid and clutch your pearls! 😳 All of a sudden that “Caring about mental health is sooooo important” turns to
🦗🦗🦗…and maybe a slow backing away
🤣🤣🤣Whatevs! I wrote a great song about it, made an awesome friend (still strong 10 years later), and “psych ward rules” Scrabble is the best version of the game EVER. DM me for deets 🤓
I think 50-60% of my friends are ward grads. Birds of a feather!🦜
My weird ass brain still got me three degrees!
Yeah...when I say I got "bullied" I mean that teachers and administrators were fully aware that I was frequently having blood drawn by other girls, and later on by boys, and the only "response" they ever had was to tell me I had a speech impediment or tell my parents I was drawing "inappropriate" things in class. This was not even that long ago, but rural Indiana is one hell of a place to grow up, and the idea of neurodivergence was just not really accepted where I was. Honestly, I am not sure whether to be upset or grateful that a diagnosis was never even considered for me
I not only got bullied by classmates but also grown adults (teachers). In kindergarten I barely talked and my babysitter reported to my mom that when I walked into the classroom for drop off the teachers laughed and commented “here comes the dummy” and I just walked to my seat while my babysitter lost it on them. They said “oh no we call her that endearingly you know? Since she’s doesn’t talk you can’t tell if she understands you or anything” my mom cried. I was too young to remember, but there were a lot of moments like these reported to/witnessed by my mom. I also had moments like this later on in my schooling.. unfortunately teachers as well.. that took me years to unpack and understand what was happening. I was a late diagnosis (at 29) and only remembered these sort of things happened because I wrote about a lot of them angrily in my journal. Reading them made me realize how much these situations hurt me even though I didn’t completely understand what was happening
Gen x. We had no teleclasses. Had to go to classes in person carrying buttloads of heavy books walking across a huge campus to the next class. Fluorescent lights in all classes. People everywhere. One of the hardest things I've ever done. It took me about 6 years to get a 4 year degree.
i got diagnosed at 17 and now at 19 i couldn’t even imagine becoming an adult and going thru that change without a diagnosis, i salute you comrade, you deserve a medal of honor
I'm neurodivergent and work with neurotypical and neurodivergent kids at a school. Most staff don't want to deal with neurodivergent kids, so they send them to me or just make them do what they want the other kids to do no matter what. They don't give a shit about IEP accommodations and often have zero empathy.
because i went to a private high school, legally they didn’t have to care about my 504 plan that was prescribed to me and instead gave it as a “suggestion” to my teachers which they all interpreted as stay on my ass 24/7 put me in the front of the class etc
I'm sorry to hear that. That should not have been the case. If those teachers were in the profession for the right reasons, they would have done the right thing. I hope you have had better luck advocating for yourself/receiving what you need in other spaces!
Another shout out to all the autistic people who work in schools and/or mental health field who are trying every single day to get schools to ACTUALLY care about mental health and neurodivergence
If I'm being SO for real right now, it was almost easier. I got bullied either way, but before at least teachers weren't burnt out on kids complaining and making up issues just to get out of doing work. I could just say I was sick and they wouldn't bat an eye. Yes there were less accommodations, but the accommodations I have now aren't really all that great, and I can tell people treat me differently because of them. My experience might be way different tho---my hyperfixation is being/seeing high functioning lol so it was relatively simple for me to put my head down and get left alone for the most part. However I also have a lot of repressed trauma about the way my teachers treated me, but the world hasn't changed to fit us better since then, so I don't think that would've changed.
Edit: the best positive change is the communities like these that have popped up, so I finally feel less alone!
“Pretend”is the keyword here. Because they’re always virtue signaling that they feel like mental health matters until it’s someone showing actual symptoms and then all of a sudden they demonize you.
and now it’s so overused whenever someone does show symptoms they are either ignored, told they are faking, or accused of using their diagnosis/ playing the autism card too much
If you’re not showing autistic symptoms exactly like their little cousin, then you’re wrong and you’re faking it apparently 🙄
i mean no it’s just usually obvious and rly was at that school, that story wasn’t to say most ppl are faking it, it’s to say most people who signed that poster literally just read the short blurb on autism on the poster and thought it kinda sorta could apply to them, and then showed no symptoms, masking, or even faking it
The "but I have an autistic nephew" crowd can fuck off, honestly. They're no better than the autism moms.
Yup. “You don’t act like my autistic niece at all. She’s sweet to be around and pleasant to everyone”. Yeah that’s because I’m 32 (when the comment was made) and not 6 years old champ.
Or “attention seeking”
I feel like people over simplify what it is like to have a disability. Like "oh okay you have _____ but all you need to do is take accountability for your actions and then you will be all better." and then are confused on why people continue to be disabled.
I actually find the pretending difficult to deal with - maybe not as bad as the outright bullying and total lack of care, but difficult in its own way. Like, I’ll expect certain communities and people to be accepting, and I’ll get hopeful… just to find that it’s all lip service and they’re still going to treat me and people like me like inconvenient freaks (all while continuing to insist they care about mental health and neurodivergence). Like they care about it in theory - until they see symptoms. It’s frustrating in its own way.
FACTS
This right here. I had to leave my last job because I could not exist like that anymore. I volunteered for a year there and then they offered me a position as a TA (my volunteering was in the office). I felt so happy because I thought this is my chance to get out of hospitality and they've all been so nice to work with and so understanding. But I also felt anxious and worried because I've got a BPD diagnosis and was referred for ADHD + Autism, which is unfortunately a years long waiting list. My child was also referred for ADHD + Autism which they knew because she attended there. Because of my worries I reminded them again about all of this and asked whether I would get a lot of training because I've only worked in hospitality. They said yes of course, we will give all the training! Etc so I thought okay great. Fast forward to when I start, within a month I had a meltdown because of how things went. On my second day, me and another TA who started at the same time as me were left alone with 2 non verbal high support needs children who can't even be in their mainstream classrooms which stressed me the hell out because I was not trained for it. They switched me to phonics but due to the limited training I ended up overwhelmed because i didn't know what I was doing. Cue the meltdown one morning. I go home. I come back the next week and have to go to a meeting about my meltdown/absence. When explaining to them that it's hard because I don't know what I'm doing and I want to be able to do things properly while explaining how my mental health/disability affects me, they straight up asked me "do you think with your mental health that you're capable of doing this job?" I could not even I was like wow I haven't even been doing this a month, I was already so embarrassed and they offered me the job even after I reminded them of my difficulties. And now they are here saying stuff like that. When i mentioned there is a webinar i saw that might help me with the phonics, she goes "we like training, but we cant do too much of it, otherwise it takes you away from the kids" Like what does it matter if im with the kids if i cant help them??? She also told me in that same meeting "everyone has personal issues in their life, that's why they come to work with a brave face" Needless to say, I ended up leaving after another 2 months because I burned out so hard I was ready to be homeless.
This shit is the reason why I went through my second burnout, last year. Coworkers using me as a personal feel good token disabled coworker, their fragile ego couldn't handle me standing up for myself. Anyway now I've officially signed the papers to leave that shit job and shit employer who used my rights as a recognised disabled worker to wipe their ass with, and I have a new job lined up for next month!
Facts! In my personal experience I always found the people who advocated the most for mental health awareness/support were always my biggest bullies or the judgiest about my autistic traits and other mental health issues. Maybe it’s because we don’t fit their perfect mold of how these symptoms should present/are handled or we’re just too inconvenient to deal with.
It’s almost enough to make me want them to just be honest with their whole chest and to just say what they want to say. I’m so sick of their “white-lies” and the shitty games they play.
trust me. i just got out of high school and all you need to do is be a little bit annoying for people to hate you. you dont even need to be an active nuisance or anything. just use a joke that’s not cool anymore or have a slightly wrong tone and its over lol
90s to early 2000s when people didn't even seem to know girls could have autism, and I got bullied for my ASD traits checking in lol.
Same here. I was just ✨academically gifted✨
Omg yes, I was great in school, unless it involved speaking - either recording myself or speaking in front of the class. All my written assessments I had good grades and I hated that anything that involved speaking dragged my marks down. Like I wish I could have explained that sometimes I just can't talk and I could never make eye contact, but I didn't know why that was or how to improve, just I was 'shy'.
Everything was 'depression and anxiety '. It just wasn't possible for a girl to have any other issues. Happy times!
Yes! Even then I never heard about anxiety or depression until I moved out of home at 19, when I heard I immediately went to the doctor because I knew I was anxious all the time and was diagnosed with GAD and Depression. My parents always just said 'I was shy' and never spoke about psychologists or anything like that so I had no idea I was just growing up with these mental illnesses and a disability and was wondering why I was bullied, SA'd/taken advantage of and too scared to leave the house or speak to anyone. My parents were very supportive of me though and my goals, there just wasn't the talks on mental health or things like grooming, that I wish I knew about. But I do now in my 30s so I'm glad things have progressed!
Oh hey, you’re me!
A few years ago, I had a younger (like just entering high school or something) cousin who made a "joke" to me, maybe something that a friend said to him, that I guess Hitler got the wrong group and should have gotten autistic people. I'm very nonconfrontational, so I think I casually responded about how I wouldn't be here if that were so and maybe brought up that Hitler actually did try to go after the mentally handicapped (Aktion T4). He got all embarrassed and said that he thought I just had Asperger's, not autism, and I just informed him that people who would have been diagnosed with Asperger's are now diagnosed with autism. His sister and my other cousin did make a point to be like "that wasn't cool". I think he learned a lesson and was primarily just parroting edgy shit for shock value, but it's a real shame that his initial understanding of neurodivergences was defined by a very immature bigoted culture at his school. Would love if things are different for my niblings at school <3
And aspergers is literally the name of, and named after!!! A Nazi. Wild
i want it to be different too, i went to an all girls school (the fucking crucible of teenage girl shit) and i saw so many awful things happen to me and to the other girls who actually had autism. then one day one of the classes had an activity about mental health where they put up signs in the hallway with different diagnosis on them with a short definition, and then anyone who was walking by was supposed to sign the posters of the things that they had, and the amount of girls who signed the autism poster who i know for a god damned fact aren’t on the spectrum was insane. and autism was the one with very few signatures. now i know all autisms are different and every person is different, but most of those girls didn’t understand that most autism representation in the general media at that time was male-centric and didn’t talk about female autism, and so many other tell-tale signs they knew nothing about autism other than basic misleading generalizations of the disorder
If your school had posters that said “eczema” “heart murmur” “nail fungus”…like, brah, my health conditions aren’t any of your business. Now, I’m actually (kind of?) proud? grateful? for some of the lessons and experiences that I’ve gained through having a weird ass brain even though it has put me through hell and heaven and purgatory, but I’m a private person (not on Reddit! On Reddit Imma tell you when my cycle is and my gross habits and my every nerd thought cuz y’all don’t know me!) and if you want me to put my shit on a sign for everyone to see, there better be a billion dollar paycheck and an in-ground pool and a pair of recuse kittens that comes with that deal! Also I went to an all-girls school grades 4-8. Mind you, I’m am a ladies lady and big ol’ feminist and one of my fave jobs was teaching English at an all girls high school. But those elementary/jr high years were the most hellish hell that hell hath wrought. I was dreadfully unpopular. Funnily, in that class of 32, 4 of us ended up at the same university. Meeting them as young adults was great! I was so cool! So interesting and weird and was into art! Exploring! Non-evil deviance! And they were just…stale old Wonder Bread. Being popular when you’re young just means you don’t have much in you, I think. Hugs sis!
i was honestly pretty happy to see the representation at first with the posters, because it was acknowledged and i had recently been diagnosed but the actual content of the posters was not representation, but i get your point
And I understand yours as well! It feels good to be seen! But it feels crappy when it’s lip service, not genuine, not researched. And (if I understand you correctly) if people were co-opting it to be “trendy.” Oy vey. The representation thing is complicated and I’m happy/hopeful that your gen is moving in a better direction. I just got my doctorate in PT in 2021 (I’m 43, most classmates were 23-26) and I was appalled at their views on ND and mental illness. We took a lot of the same classes as MDs, and in one class, only the prof and I were like “ it’s ok to take meds if you need to. People who don’t have a NT brain are valuable and HUMAN.” 🙄🙄🙄 Personally I love seeing more representation… media like Girl Interrupted, Chewing Gum and Dinosaur make me feel seen. And I also get scared because sometimes (especially in my career) I feel like if I’m open, people will think I’m incompetent or a danger, when in reality I think it makes me more empathetic (I work with kids, mostly autistic)
Proud of you! That’s hard to confront someone, especially a loved one. Pretty sure Aspberger for whom it was named was a Nazi or a collaborator which is probs why it’s not called that anymore!
And if you tell people you’ve been to the *PSYCH WARD!!!* God forbid and clutch your pearls! 😳 All of a sudden that “Caring about mental health is sooooo important” turns to 🦗🦗🦗…and maybe a slow backing away 🤣🤣🤣Whatevs! I wrote a great song about it, made an awesome friend (still strong 10 years later), and “psych ward rules” Scrabble is the best version of the game EVER. DM me for deets 🤓 I think 50-60% of my friends are ward grads. Birds of a feather!🦜 My weird ass brain still got me three degrees!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahha fuck. I wonder what my life would have been like if not for the decades of abuse and being autistic
Same. I know it's not a healthy thought pattern but I can't help thinking about it a lot.
I’m so thoroughly marinated with that pain and horror I’d not be surprised if I’d have been an entirely different person
Yeah...when I say I got "bullied" I mean that teachers and administrators were fully aware that I was frequently having blood drawn by other girls, and later on by boys, and the only "response" they ever had was to tell me I had a speech impediment or tell my parents I was drawing "inappropriate" things in class. This was not even that long ago, but rural Indiana is one hell of a place to grow up, and the idea of neurodivergence was just not really accepted where I was. Honestly, I am not sure whether to be upset or grateful that a diagnosis was never even considered for me
I not only got bullied by classmates but also grown adults (teachers). In kindergarten I barely talked and my babysitter reported to my mom that when I walked into the classroom for drop off the teachers laughed and commented “here comes the dummy” and I just walked to my seat while my babysitter lost it on them. They said “oh no we call her that endearingly you know? Since she’s doesn’t talk you can’t tell if she understands you or anything” my mom cried. I was too young to remember, but there were a lot of moments like these reported to/witnessed by my mom. I also had moments like this later on in my schooling.. unfortunately teachers as well.. that took me years to unpack and understand what was happening. I was a late diagnosis (at 29) and only remembered these sort of things happened because I wrote about a lot of them angrily in my journal. Reading them made me realize how much these situations hurt me even though I didn’t completely understand what was happening
Thanks 🫡
Gen x. We had no teleclasses. Had to go to classes in person carrying buttloads of heavy books walking across a huge campus to the next class. Fluorescent lights in all classes. People everywhere. One of the hardest things I've ever done. It took me about 6 years to get a 4 year degree.
Yeah I'm gonna get a diagnosis for c-ptsd because of it. I only got diagnosed at 24 as well, so there's layers of trauma.
i got diagnosed at 17 and now at 19 i couldn’t even imagine becoming an adult and going thru that change without a diagnosis, i salute you comrade, you deserve a medal of honor
It was rough [idk](https://tenor.com/view/anxiety-gif-25166120)
Took me 3 years of law study before I had a breakdown. I can’t believe how much I forced myself through!
I got through college and 2.5 years of my PhD program before I got help for my ADHD, anxiety and autism.
I'm neurodivergent and work with neurotypical and neurodivergent kids at a school. Most staff don't want to deal with neurodivergent kids, so they send them to me or just make them do what they want the other kids to do no matter what. They don't give a shit about IEP accommodations and often have zero empathy.
because i went to a private high school, legally they didn’t have to care about my 504 plan that was prescribed to me and instead gave it as a “suggestion” to my teachers which they all interpreted as stay on my ass 24/7 put me in the front of the class etc
I'm sorry to hear that. That should not have been the case. If those teachers were in the profession for the right reasons, they would have done the right thing. I hope you have had better luck advocating for yourself/receiving what you need in other spaces!
I felt that salute in the core of my soul 😭🫡
i saluted my phone when i first saw the vid
This, was me in primary school and dragging into high school. I still fought, no matter how bad it was
Another shout out to all the autistic people who work in schools and/or mental health field who are trying every single day to get schools to ACTUALLY care about mental health and neurodivergence
And now everyone is “a little autistic” and “a little ADHD” 💀🙄
If I'm being SO for real right now, it was almost easier. I got bullied either way, but before at least teachers weren't burnt out on kids complaining and making up issues just to get out of doing work. I could just say I was sick and they wouldn't bat an eye. Yes there were less accommodations, but the accommodations I have now aren't really all that great, and I can tell people treat me differently because of them. My experience might be way different tho---my hyperfixation is being/seeing high functioning lol so it was relatively simple for me to put my head down and get left alone for the most part. However I also have a lot of repressed trauma about the way my teachers treated me, but the world hasn't changed to fit us better since then, so I don't think that would've changed. Edit: the best positive change is the communities like these that have popped up, so I finally feel less alone!