A thesis of when I thought I was different, to when I found out I was different, and dealing with pressures of middle school, high school, and general acceptance and the conclusion that everything I was taught in SPED, was not practiced in the general society and dealing with a social double standard.
Late 4th Quarter 1999 Dateline: Unknown.
It was when I was 12 that I found out I was officially different. It came to be when I was becoming of age for middle school. I found out by my long time psychologist ether on the phone or in the office. I don’t remember when or where, hence the vague dateline. Most people have a hard time with middle school (or junior high.) Especially when you are between a child like person but the difference is everything physically changes i.e. puberty, crushes, intense love, growth spurts etc.
Well I was different. I didn’t know things would change for me in all ways in an instant. When I finished my elementary school in June of 1999, almost two years (since I did fifth grade twice) of full preparation, it would soon backfire immediately. The summer program started off rough, and didn’t really improve. There were different expectations and I couldn’t adjust to them quickly. When the school year began later in the late summer, things went off the wrong foot the day before the first day of school. It happened on the orientation day. I do remember falling apart and being a basket case then. At this time I still had excessive emotions for a person of that age. In a 20/20 viewpoint, I had an emotional age of 9.
A Specific Beautiful Girl Who Destroyed Ones Heart.
I remember going on the bus for the first time the following day. About a few stops heading up the road, I saw a beautiful girl. (We’ll call her “Jessica” for the purposes of anonymity and allegedly protecting the innocent, if she really is or not.) I recognized her from my elementary school as a beautiful brunette a couple years prior. She was a year older from me, and the grade spread went two years with the staying a year behind by that point.
The memory is still vivid, she looked beautiful. Some would say she had the “drop dead gorgeous” looks from outsiders I will explain at a later time. I can’t remember if she looked like she could pass to be 13 or 15. The memory looked to me that she looked more mature for her own age or maybe there is some misremembering.
While payback was being my bitch (since I felt like it bit me big after dumping a 4th grade girl who had a crush) this girl also had to treat me like gravel. She at the time had a husky voice for reasons I do not know, again its from my memory. Allegedly she was an athletic type if that has to do with anything.  She also had a short fuse. And when she appeared to be angry in my eyes from 20 or so feet away it was horrific.  This girl had some severe case of hot temper. I had had several episodes and what was worse this girl of interest witnessed it. Maybe she just was going through a longer than usual monthly period for a young teenager, but regardless how she treated me would be the first of many scars to show and to this day still carries into my life.
I have only broken two girls hearts . One from a previous century/decade/millennium ago, and another one a few years ago. What did I do wrong to have my heart get trashed one after another?
The Middle School Tragedy
I was only at my towns middle school for only 2 months. Things fell apart by the second. It felt like a nightmare. In fact it WAS a nightmare. Everything went so fast, I wasn’t (and can’t to this day) able to place dates of when things exactly happened other than seeing it all fall apart quickly. The six years of elementary school (add an additional 5th grade to prepare me for the switch) all went down to hell in less than a couple of months.
Meanwhile, there was a team meeting with my mother and the SPED staff and they had came to a conclusion in that prior spring that they felt that I wouldn’t be able to fit into any of the programs and the staff wasn’t prepared to deal with my conditions. My mother fired  back saying if they knew about this, why didn’t anyone tell her so I could be placed out of district peacefully. In anyway the lack of communication in my former town was apparent back then too. (And to this day, the communication in that town is still their bitch and its causing that town to fall apart and have hell to freeze over, given some recent scandals in the executive office of that town’s government. I am glad I don’t live there no more.)
At some point in the last quarter of 1999, I was confronted that I had PDD, Autism or PDD/NOS as its widely known now. In many respects it was a wake up call to stop being so into myself (which of course wasn’t intentional, that part of my autism was in me) being weird, in my world or what.  In many parts, I figured out I was different and I would have a rough road ahead.
For the years that followed middle school and into high school I realized I couldn’t fit into my “peer groups” and I was growing with the feeling I was a misfit. Again, with no intention ether. The middle school years at the contracted school program was rough, since the teachers had a zero tolerance of anything that would be self interesting, they were really tough on their students. It was like boot-camp without having to live at the school.
They believed that the “time out” rooms were effective and they built one every day like how big box stores would be built and be opened. They thought restraining excessively was fine. They used “in school suspension”  practice as if it would be effective. They hated anything that we liked and we had to do things their way. We had no lead way at all. I think some of my hate came from the heartless teachers back then.
The High School years in the Most Bluest State in the Union.
The first 3 years in my high school based out in Massachusetts improved, but not far from perfect. There were many turnovers in staffing. On average, the staff had a shelflife of 2 years before they would get out before their careers in special education would be burned. Some were doing the general “experimenting” of finding out who they are as a twentysomething, again “experimenting” with the most human of human people in society, while in their ignorant brains they allegedly perceived the group as if they were a lab mouse.
My high school teacher was 25 at the time, and unlike my other teachers that were from the last remaining “tough generation”, this one was the start of the whiny, excessively laid back hippie liberal. Also known as the start of the Millennial generation.  While this synthetic red head had backgrounds such as having art studies in Manhattan (red flag #1) and studying psychology and other crap (red flag #2) and being a rebellious twentysomething (red flag #3) I had actually clashed with her more than I had felt at that time. She was as strong proponent of excessive laws coming from Beacon Hill, while those laws made her more of a middle manager having to do all the Massachusetts mandated paperwork while the teachers assistants were doing most of the legwork in front of the classroom. A little f’d up you think? And this person never followed the local politics, and never reads, listens or watches local media unless it is WBUR or NPR I bet.
The W-word – “Work” and Kiss your Childhood Goodbye!
The last 3 years leading up to my 21st birthday would be the worst in some regards, better in others. I went from the Millennial type of teachers right back to the “tough generation” type in my school to work program. This included staff backgrounds with no teaching degrees (which must be a Mass DOE loophole for school to work programs) and someone who had Wall Street experience w/ a family who had disabilities. The ring leader of the program was the middle manager type. She wouldn’t give a damn of how when or what the study was done, only if it was just done.
These people also had the excessive authority by forcing all of us to be “mature adults”, mature “young men” or “women” and we had to immediately grow up, since afterall in their eyes, its the the bratiness that causes the immaturity. There was also a subliminal messaging of that we were force to put away the toys from now on. There was also dry sense of humor that your teenage ends after 19. Yes that is true, but sometimes we like to have a few extra years – but that is socially inappropriate, from reading between the lines. They also frowned if you acted “immature” even when it was truly out of their control, they must think the developmental disabilities is just an “excuse” or maybe if they say IMMATURE they’ll smarten up.
What was even more damning was the teachers and staff also had done an effective job to teach us that society looks at us as creeps, weirdos, etc. We were taught how not do or say things. I dunno how many times I heard “sexual harassment” and the lectures of it over and over, and the BBC-styled proscribe list of what I COULDN’T say.  Again, more focus on the negative than the positive. And we were taught to accept differences. Riiiggghhht! But if you a right of centered politically minded person, and you were a Christian decent or having a slight favor of patriotism, that was ok to not accept those differences.

“You destroyed my reputation? I only ask to get it back”

I was personally taught how to “kiss ones ass” when the executive was ignoring calls from my district (of about 3 times) to exercise my right under Federal, and NH State law for my right as a “parent” (I was 20 at the time with being a self guardian) to schedule a meeting.  The director ignored 3 calls from my SAU (violation of the “laws”) because I was forced under pressure to write out a document of the reasons why I should stay in my school or graduate, since by that time 2005 and 06 passed and I was unable to attend those graduations. The lesson of kissing-ass was to do something as much as I hated (and even if the practice was illegal) to make the executive happy. So I had to do what was required under her grounds even when it was illegal.
While I never had any siblings, I started to slightly understand what a Middle Child Syndrome was like. I came in to the respective programs before a flock of newer kids appeared in my program while the established kids were there prior to me coming in. By the end of 2007, I felt like the middle manager of my school had abandoned me. After being honest, she actually enhanced the abandonment. They like to use reversed logic or something like that. I was working in accounts payable for a major cell phone chip company in Middlesex County, Mass  for a year prior. I had a good working relationship with the job coach, so I made a request on my behalf to my program and my SAU to extend the work hours and and reduce the school hours and reverse them by February, as weeks leading up to the Doomsday date.  I appreciated the extra money and also having a dedicated support person as the school was already done with me.
“Doomsday”
When an American citizen turns 21, that birthday is the uniform age of becoming a full legal adult (in the drinking regards.) In 40 of the 50 states, the IDEA funding and services expire on that date too. So if you birthday falls in the summer time, in the middle of summer school, see ya! If you birthday falls near Christmas, Ditto! In March – allivestia baby! Don’t matter when, its your last day of school. I remember when I was 18 and 19 (even 20) I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Some like my mother blamed her lack of teaching me looking out in the future, while I blame the “leadership” for teaching one standard of being “flexible” and dealing with unpredicitiblity while I was also told I needed “structure”
By March of 2008, I turned 21 and while things didn’t fall off the cliff immediately, it would over the course of the year. By June, I received my diploma at the local SAU office and later that week I felt like shit since my name was published in one local newspaper that’s setup as a yearbook, the name and the picture. Well I was placed in the section “No Picture Available.” Had no prior notice that my name would be publicized without my permission (at least from the best of my own knowledge and electronic paper trails.)
After 18 years coming into the district as severely autistic and graduating 3 years behind almost all of his peers as someone with aspiring  hopes and dreams immediately turned into ashes. The treatment in the publications was a slap in the face as someone who worked hard to get his diploma. And a real one too – not a “certification of competence”. However, thanks some probably stupid rules or regulations, maybe because I didn’t go to that school therefore maybe I was not able to be offered for a walk on the row to receive it. Nor was I ever notified to send in a photo to the local HS, or was even notified that they were going to publish my name publicly.
It was around this time I started to realize because of my “disorder” – I started to be treated like a mute and dumb person.
Understanding the logic of the lost of faith and integrity of Wall Street, Big Government and Liberal Democrats.
As the last four years that followed, two days after my last day of school, one of the major Big Banks declared bankruptcy, starting the big collapse of 2008, with the bailouts and the “too big to fail” entitlement. If that was a sign, along with the election of President Obama things started to get even worse. I didn’t get funding for services, since there wasn’t funds, also because in my state, we do biennial budgets, the budget period occurred during the Spring of 2007, if we had better help, maybe we could had spoken in the advance of the Doomsday date. The gridlock on the State level didn’t help manners yesterday and today. The House Republicans believe in almost zero-government and disapproval of any kind of a slight change. They believe solely on the Federal Constitution and their views are not aligned to the National Republican party. That doesn’t mean that the Liberal moonbat Democrats are any angels too. They have regulated the living crap of special needs, which I had learned in Massachusetts during my high school years. They have put so many laws for special ed and adult services, that its becoming too expensive.

“Happiness is overrated”

I was really upset when Obama went on Jay Leno’s show in 2009, less than several days of being President and his “Special Olympics” joke. Never mind his poor record for funding services for the autism population. I knew that before the election, and I was treated as a psycho for saying that John McCain would have a better track record for the ASD community. So if I had a bumper sticker it probably would say “Don’t blame me – I voted for McCain!” 
With the troubling economy, along with learning a new system of services, it caused more and more stress that I had never experienced before. I felt like I was illrelvent in not so relevant times.  That I wasn’t here for my happiness, but only for others. That I was here as a people pleaser. That I had to think for others and be “flexible”, and its not all about me – even when things change when you are an adult. Oh, and I came to the realization to listen more and more and more, because there are “experts” of ASD who claim that girls find it sexy when a man listens, but of course they won’t honor that same treatment to you if you’re a man.
In 2008, 9 years after I was told I had autism, I started to feel hopeless and helpless. I’ve felt that I lost my “voice” and confidence. I felt like an alien. That in order to really get services, it appeared that I had to be “mute and dumb”.  Because Asperger Syndrome people typically have social defects, traditional forms of autism you have more issues, that can’t always be legally documented.
2010 to Present – I smarten up
As my world suddenly opened, I saw how certain things worked in the world. I started to lay off my psychologist, after an 18 year professional relationship and my psychiatrist of 6 years. Between the two, both were pill pushers (the former didn’t have an MD, but a PhD, and acted as a knowitall to the autism subject and the latter had no practical knowledge of autism and barely understood ADHD.) The psychologist contributed to more hopelessness and even if she had given me fair suggestions to enhance my life,  I often reject to them for reasons I can’t explain. I don’t miss going to that place. Its in an office building built in the 70s and it has a Sick Building Syndrome feel to it, which wasn’t that welcoming.  Often her tough advice often required something like a post therapy of the therapy. It was a 2 hour event, given 30 minutes of ride time in between.
In 2012, while I have bottomed out significantly, other things haven’t change. I thought I would have a job with a supported work program that wasn’t going to have “fading supports” and least have one girlfriend or at some point live outside of my mothers shelter or maybe half the time or (learn to) drive a car.  NO, nothing like that has happened.  Not at all.
Things have gone better than worse (with several bumps in the road as some of the earlier posts may have shown.) I have dealt with reality that I need some job, and that’s the only thing I have going for my future. I’ve learned that liberals control autism, and there is nothing I can do about it. I can’t win against a PhD. on autism, that girls will always get away with inappropriate social standards, and among all the other things that are unfair in “life”. I am going through the grieving process. Hopefully by 2013 I will just accept myself for the few abilities and putting closure against any potential abilities later in my life.  Dealing with limited expectations may pay dividends later on, whenever that will be.

“I never asked to be born and be different. It just happened to be that way.”