When I was in high school, I was waiting for my biology class to start. I was waiting outside with all the other pupils, and a girl from my class came over to me and told me that she'd overheard me, saying recently that I was disabled. I asked her why it was an issue, and she replied, "It's not that I have an issue with people being disabled it's just that I find it so unfortunate you have to live with a disability."
I did a double take and said, "I'm sorry, I'm slightly confused. Could you explain what you mean by that?"
She rests her hand on my shoulder and says "Well isn't it true that all disabled people die before the rest of us?"
I was in shock. I didn't know how to respond to this. Did she seriously think this? Or was she just downright stupid? Either way, I turned to her and said, "Disabilities aren't like foods with an expiry date. We are human beings. Nobody knows what's going to happen to us!"
She then takes her hand off my shoulders and mutters away about how she'd offended the hunch. (I was known as the hunchback of Notre dame in high school due to my difficulties with maintaining my posture due to my dyspraxia)
When I was in years 7 to year 9, there was a group of boys who would steal my bag and fill it up with bottles of urine without the lids attached. The staff refused to take me seriously. Until one time in year 9, I was 14 at the time, and I came into my last lesson it was science!
And I just threw my jacket at my table, and I bawled like a baby. It was one of my favourite teachers ever and he asked me what was wrong. I explained everything, and we went to go and look at the CCTV footage ourselves since nothing was being done about it.
Sure enough, I was right. From that point on, I was allowed to keep my bag on me at ALL times from that moment onwards.
I should probably mention as well that from years 7 through to year 11 my SENCO was determined to believe that under NO circumstances, could I ever be disabled. Even though she had all the information which told her otherwise.
In year 9 she went as far as getting me "assessed" without my parental consent. The person who assessed me tried to convince me that all I had was sensory processing disorder and nothing else.
I was so mad that I still told my teachers I got 25% extra time in exams. My SENCO got so mad at me for "faking my disabilities purely to get attention" that during one of my lessons she pulled me out my classroom in from of the whole class and once we were outside she smacked me for "creating havoc" and causing her a lot of paperwork over my nonsense.
I moved to a different secondary school for years 12 and 13 and it was definitely a lot better yet I was still misunderstood.
For example, at this point I had been diagnosed with autism officially. And I had this amazing teacher and she helped me create a 1 to 5 point scale as I couldn't always communicate my feelings verbally to her or some of the other staff.
In this particular course we had a female teacher and a male teacher and whilst he meant well he definitely made me feel uncomfortable about being disabled. I know it wasn't intentional but at times it felt a bit like being stung by a bee.
The male teacher wanted me to be able to become confident enough to express myself with my feelings so he would put my 1 to 5 scale away in a locked drawer.
Because of this action I would always feel the need to run away because it felt like he didn't believed in me or see me as a student but more of a subject he was trying to conquer. He would want me to take part in discussions there's nothing wrong with this but at same the time it was about the new virus, Otherwise known to be called Covid 19.
He would want my thoughts and opinions and nearly every single week we would discuss the death figures. I couldn't stand this so i would walk out off the sessions. it was two difficult for me to cope with. it was very sad and i couldn't express my emotions to him or the class because i just wasn't ready to be that vulnerable with everybody. it would feel like something was choking me and that the only way to get it out was to run away and just take some time away from everything. i just needed some air away from everybody else.
He would tell me i was selfish because i was only listening to what i wanted to see and hear. I wanted to run away though so the fact that i still did as i was told was a pretty huge achievement in my eyes.
Teachers gave my mum hell whenever i couldn't make it into school (due to my mental health)* making it ALL about attendance. Mum became stressed she wanted to help me by doing the right thing but school was applying loads of pressure which didn't help anybody.
Once I was diagnosed with autism, anxiety, and depression I was able to get a disability rights bus pass.
I thought "finally I'm being seen, people are going to start acknowledging that I do in fact qualify as being disabled." I couldn't have been more wrong.
Bus drivers would look me up and down and question me as to why I have a disability bus pass when it was obvious to them that I wasn't disabled. It would get to the point where they'd refuse to drop me off at my stop as a form of punishment. One time i had panic attack on the bus because i didn't want to go upstairs but it was very crowded on the bus so i'd have to lean onto one of the poles for support, on this day the anxiety felt so bad i couldn't even do that so instead i sat on the bottom of the staircase and tears were running down my cheeks. i felt really embarassed and nobody offered to help me not once! i had my lanyard on and everything! I've had bus drivers refuse to drop me off at my stop because they wanted to teach me a lesson.
