Tag Archives: School Districts

Health Issues of being a Hopeless Autistic

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Since my teenage years, my health resulted in two major issues (since resolved)

  • Severe acne, (due to a large dairy intake), which resulted in migrating away from day to day dairy intake, to the infamous acne medication which can cause massive issues if you accidentally knocked up a woman (which I’m forgetting the name and the FDA program for a moment)
  • A case of an underbite. My mother has kicked herself for not addressing the problem sooner, and this also caused my teeth to be worn because of grinding at night. Regardless, we waited to get a mouth guard till I went on a surgery that moved my upper jaw forward along with a second round of braces. This also rebooted my confidence and gave me a smile that people remember me when I was younger. The underbite (or TMJ) made my face look very different. While the surgery was for substance, not worrying about “jaw clicking”, etc., this was necessary.

Both cases were from my father’s genes/side of the family. I’m not going to finger this on the father I have no idea who the hell he is, and not the diet, that is stereotypical autistic diet, but more of what happened in 2004 to 2008.

I was on some medications I shouldn’t had been on to begin with. The medications caused me more anxiety and paranoia, that I feel had a contributing factor to why I was not developing like my other teenage peers. The fear of messing up, the fear of being targeted for mistakes, the fear of being a creep among remaining in one piece for 7+ hours on weekdays factor in my legitimate case of autistic behaviors had perhaps 80% of the physical damage on both the acne and underbite – again even if it was genetic from my father. 

I’ve made a lot of notes from recollection of those painful years (in some cases the worst years of my younger adult life) to convert that energy from pain to preventable measures. And those doctors are well aware of that.

Where I am going at is despite all the analytical gathering I’ve complied and made conclusions; of if I changed my diet, laid off medications, and alike, that I wouldn’t be where I would become. No, I do believe a very oppressive, and depressive support system, that was “support” in legal name only had a lot to do with my regression. (And no, I’m not talking about just the regression of my first 16 months out of school ether.)  I’m almost as smart, bright or functioning as some of my peers of 10 years ago today. I could’ve had a brighter future if it weren’t for being in a system where people had no business working in.

These treatments were very expensive and luckily my mother’s healthcare plan had me in the system because of my “pre existing conditions” that basically, in my mothers recollection began months after birth.

Estimates of an autistic’s lifespan for services and medical expenses alike will average $2 to 3 million dollars. Do I want to be a million dollar man? No. If you put adequate supports with people who really mean what they are doing, professionals who only care about the students when they are “on the clock” and aren’t just following the robotic SOPs, and poor planning in logistics, etc., maybe some people wouldn’t need to go to Boston and stay a few nights or go into a very complex anti acne treatment. Maybe my teeth wouldn’t be as short as it is.

Of course, my solution to the problem is, love, respect, happiness, and mitigating problems over “curing” but of course showing respect to students would be “unprofessional” as they have to be the control freaks because by law that’s what they get paid to do, destroy your dreams “say no” because “you’ve never heard ‘n’ or ‘o’ too many times” and other BS which needs to be destroyed.

Divided Special Needs “Teams” = Hopeless Autistics

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I laugh about how there are IEP “team meetings” because in reality, there apparently is an “I” in the word team.

At least on the special ed level, and least in some areas in the Granite State.

Again in some areas, the culture in the special ed system, is all about silos, firewalls and safety mechanisms to protect each others interest. Unless you have the luxury of having an advocate involved, you’re out of luck.

I really am saddened how the New Hampshire special education and special needs system is all political. Sadly in your child’s live its not like Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil (D, Mass) and President Ronald Reagan (R) where they had differences, but worked in the best interest of the United States. On a very nano level, an IEP team is more divided than a political caucus. What’s more disturbing is the politics are more divisive when the child is in that grey years of 18 to 21.

There is no such thing as unity, unification, a common goal for the individual themselves. It’s political exploitation, manipulation and not enforcing basic IDEA rights and getting away with it only because the family is too ignorant or too poor to take legal action. Perhaps being too scared for recourse by the school systems.

This type of division I am a victim of. I use present tense, because the chars of glass that was broken in the high school years have not been put fully back together.

The system is broken. We need to stop having the professionals think about what they want from the child, and be open to what child or family wants. The disruption to the existing system should’ve began 10 to 15 years ago, but of course, politics stalled this. Now we need to enforce this disruption of service delivery so this nightmare of hopeless autistics can stay as a bad dream instead.