When School is a Systemic Failure

*Names changed, as always...

Well, I thought I had finished blog posts about my school days for the foreseeable future, but then I learned something else that happened during my nightmare in ceramics class that I never knew about. 

A little backstory: in 2014, an old classmate, Annette, looked me up on Facebook. We had never been friends in school, and I don't really recall many interactions with her. However, she remembered the way I was bullied, and apologized for not stepping in. She said it had bothered her the way people treated me, but she also knew that if she stood up for me, she would be targeted next. I said something along the lines of, "The '90s were a more ignorant time, and we were kids. Water under the bridge." We are friends now, and when I visit my parents in Pennsylvania, we often get together.

This week, I sent Annette my last blog post, in which I related being at the mercy of a group of girls who constantly threw large chunks of clay at me in ceramics class. One day, unable to take it any more, I retaliated by hurling a container of water at their ringleader, Kay. She acted surprised and yelled, "Julie, why'd you do that?" loudly enough to get the attention of our teacher, Miss Mitch, who asked me the same question. Kay and her cronies innocently maintained that they hadn't done anything to me and that I had just thrown water for no reason. Humiliated and defeated, I left the room amid victorious cheering. 

Annette told me that she was in my class-- something I only vaguely remember-- and that she recalls that horrific incident. She also told me that sometime before then, she reported the bullying to Miss Mitch. Touched to learn about this, I asked Annette how the teacher responded. Annette told me that she said something like, "Well, what was Julie doing?" as if I must have provoked the girls in some way. Figures. Miss Mitch had told me to "just ignore them," and she essentially asked Annette what my role in my abuse was. 

I am sure you can guess the nickname I used for Miss Mitch for the rest of the conversation with Annette.

I never knew that Miss Mitch had seen me as a problem, but now it's absolutely clear. She probably thought I was too sensitive, that I was provoking the girls, that I was "asking for it" for not trying hard enough to fit in, all of the above, and more. I know there were at least a few teachers who perceived me through a similarly distorted lens-- one that comes to mind is my ninth-grade history teacher, Mr. Frank-- but I began to wonder: if there were two, there had to have been more. Annette told me that she recalls a number of teachers seeming to think I was a problem to manage, just by the way they said my name when they talked to me. Kids are very perceptive. If they picked up on how authority figures felt about me, then of course they felt emboldened to treat me the way they did. 

As Annette said to me in our conversation, "Looking back it is fucking insane that the kid who was perpetually bullied was the problem."

At any rate, it is now clearer than ever that the my issues at the school were systemic. It was not just a couple incompetent teachers and a few asshole kids. It was a total systemic failure that didn't just passively allow the bullying to continue, but actively encouraged it. It is the kind that has historically ensured that autistic kids don't stand a chance. There was an inherent bias against whomever didn't fit the mold: these kids were dismissed as weird, immature, sensitive, a behavior problem... take your pick. Additionally, it's easier to blame one kid than to blame an entire group of kids. If one kid is being disproportionately targeted by dozens of classmates, then it has to be that kid's fault. No way could that many kids be that mean. That one kid must be bringing it on themselves!

1 in 31 kids today are diagnosed with autism, due to broadening criteria that wasn't available in the '90s. There had to have been other kids who were going through similar hell. Or if they weren't, it was because they learned to mask: that is, "fit in"-- pretend to be someone they aren't in order to avoid psychological and physical abuse. My refusal to do this was not seen as a strength and self-understanding, but as a sign of immaturity and stubbornness. 

Many autistic people-- women especially-- from my generation and earlier have come forward about the masking they were forced to do as teenagers. A significant number of them have PTSD. While I don't have enough symptoms to fit the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, my therapist has said that I do exhibit some. My bullies probably don't even remember what they did, but 30 years later, I still remember very clearly. That speaks to the kind of trauma I endured.

While society has come a long way in the past 30 years in awareness of autism, bullying, and the intersection of the two, it is still a problem. Moreover, I fear it will be getting worse in the near future. After all, our current government-- with the worst kind of bully as the most powerful man on earth-- will only serve as affirmation to bullies that their behavior is acceptable. Additionally, I can only imagine how RFK Jr.'s recent disgusting comments about autistic people will give them more fuel for their fire.

How Did They Not Know?

 *As always, names are changed to protect the privacy of those involved...

Well, what can I say? My blog post from a few days ago, like many others about my childhood, was a double-edged sword: it was cathartic, but it also opened more wounds that I felt the need to address in another blog post. This morning I was talking to Mom about the post, as well as its predecessor, in which I wrote about losing my friend, Kat, in eighth grade over a joke I made about "old people smell." Convinced that I had been making fun of her grandmother, Kat spent the next few days on a revenge tour, telling everyone who would listen about what I did. And of course she made sure to humiliate me in front of a group of girls by suggesting the reason I wasn't drooling over boys was because I "needed hormones" and "hadn't yet gotten my period."

Mom admitted that she didn't know just how bad things were in school on a daily, hourly basis. She realizes now that, as she put it, all I had to do was show up at school, and it was "a critical mass of shit" directed at me. But I have to admit, while I am glad to hear this, part of me feels angry. I feel like a total asshole for thinking this way about my aging parents, but I sometimes feel angry at them for not believing me when I told them how bad and unfair things were at school. They often thought that I was exaggerating and overreacting when describing my experiences. In fact, the word "bullying" didn't even enter into the conversation. But I don't know how much clearer I could have been. The thing I repeatedly ask myself is, How did they not know? 

How did they not know that this was not mere conflict, but an imbalance of power that resulted in me being abused? How did they not know how serious the bullying was and how deep the wounds inflicted by other kids cut? How did they not know how that it was death by a million cuts to hear bitingly personal comments by large groups of kids on an hourly basis with no one to stick up for me, and teachers dismissively telling me to "just ignore it?" How did my parents not know that the way they often reacted when I came home in tears only made me feel like a worthless piece of shit with no redeeming qualities? How could they not have known that the way they were reacting to me not only was not helping, but was throwing gas on an already out-of-control fire?

In addition to the bullying, how did they not see how ridiculous it was that friends who had once invited me to birthday parties, sleepovers, and movie outings were now shunning me, further cementing the idea in my mind that my friendships were tenuous and that it was reasonable for them to end over jokes that fell the wrong way and, if my parents were to be believed in their suspicions, how I dressed?

And why is it that, 30 years later, they conveniently don't remember most of the hurtful things that they said?

The incident with Kat in eighth grade was a turning point with my group of "friends." By the end of that year, things with Torey were tenuous at best, and Khalia had said in exasperation, "We've given you so many chances." In the beginning of ninth grade (part of middle school in the district I grew up in), we were picking lunch tables-- and after the first few days of trying different lunch tables, we had to pick one to sit at for the rest of the year. Even though things were awkward with Kat, Torey and Khalia, I thought at least Gerri, Aviva, and Allison-- who, in seventh grade, referred to me as her best friend and even stood up for me against other kids-- would let me sit there, just as I had in seventh and eighth grade. They were still my friends, I thought.

But Torey said to me, "I don't want you sitting here. You're the most annoying person I've ever met. Nobody wants you here." Kat agreed. And my remaining "friends"-- not even Allison-- said anything. Gerri later told me that Torey said to her, "I don't care if Julie sits with a bag over her head. I don't even want to look at her." Gerri elaborated in a cold bluntness that was typical of her, "Nobody thinks you're funny, and you just don't get it." Later, during gym class, Torey shouted taunts at me, saying that I was a loser and had no friends.

In any case, the battle lines were drawn. What's clear to me now is that in the middle of eighth grade, Kat started to get the other girls-- most whom had known each other since elementary school, a different one that I attended-- riled up over my "old people smell" joke. And with more and more kids bullying me each day-- both verbally and physically-- it was clear that if they didn't want to be next, they couldn't be seen with me.

My mother was a teacher-- she had to have known that girls that age are nasty to each other. How did she not know? Did she not see anything similar in any of her students?

That night, my parents knew that something was wrong and forced the story out of me. The thing is, I was reluctant to tell them anything. I had just spent my first summer at Camp Negev, where I had had the best summer of my life. I made some new friends who liked me for who I was, and my counselor, Jonas, even became my closest friend there-- a mentor of sorts who invited me to stay in touch. Feeling that if I had made these great new connections that I must have changed somehow, I came to school optimistic that things were going to get better. And I felt I could handle my problems on my own-- that was the mature thing to do, wasn't it? But when my parents forced the story about the lunch table exile out of me, they both exploded.

Mom shouted, "You see what you've done? You've been annoying! You don't take advice from us! You make a joke out of everything and then wonder why people don't like you! Daddy and I give you advice to no end, but you refuse to take it! You annoy people, and the way you dress can't be helping either! With your hair tied back, you look like a boy! If you acted and dressed more feminine, maybe you wouldn't have all these problems!" 

It had been at least a year since I'd given up trying to get Mom to understand that I hated girly clothes; I hated how wearing my thick, wavy hair down made me look like some "pretty young woman" when deep down I was a tomboy, androgynous, gender-nonconforming, take your pick; and that I preferred T-shirts or flannels and jeans, not low-cut tops. And that, yes, I had a weird sense of humor, but I thought it was ridiculous that one had to be male for that to be acceptable. Explaining this sort of thing only made it sound like to her that I rejected my biology, that I was immature, that I was set in my ways.

At one point during the fight, I asked why things at Camp Negev were different, and why people there liked me. Dad said, "Because you were only there for a few weeks! Had these kids known you longer, they probably wouldn't have been able to stand it either!"

I told my parents that people at camp thought I was funny. Mom said, "So then you were their clown."

Because I have a very vivid imagination, I immediately got this image in my mind of me as the village idiot in a clown suit, handing out balloons to my campmates who apparently just saw me as some kind of bizarre entertainment, not someone they genuinely enjoyed having around. 

So it was clear to me what Dad thought-- the reason people at Camp Negev liked me was because they simply hadn't spent enough time with me. My friends from school liked me at first, but the more they got to know who I really was, the more insufferable they found me. 

When I finally went to bed, I wrote the following entry in my journal:

9/13/95

Today sucked. The end. And I wish Jonas was here.

Not long after that day, I actually sat down and calculated how many hours I had spent at camp that summer versus how many I spent at school in one academic year. Since more hours were spent in school than at camp, I seriously began to wonder if that was enough to make a difference in how I was received. 

As ninth grade progressed, things got worse, particularly in ceramics class. Every day a group of girls, led by a girl named Kay, threw huge balls of clay at me when I was trying to work, when I got up to get more clay, when I got up to refill my container with water-- name it. Whenever I reported it to the teacher, she simply told me to ignore it. So in class as I worked, I kept an eye out for balls of clay out of my peripheral vision and held up one hand to deflect them while I worked with the other. That was my reality, that was what I had to do because the kids-- not the teacher-- were in control of the class. I began to believe that what they were doing was apparently an acceptable reaction to someone so odd and annoying, and it was up to me to make it stop. My fault, my fight. My self-esteem, which had been pretty high at the beginning of the year, very quickly found itself in critical condition. By November, it was on life support, in a persistent vegetative state.

I wish my parents could have seen how hard I was trying under so much pressure. In fact, during our fight after the lunch table incident, Mom also said at one point, "When you go flying off the handle, that puts people off too!" But she and Dad didn't know how hard I was trying on that front. Again, how did they not know, especially since I tried to explain it to them several times? How did they not know that when I did fly off the handle-- today, in autistic speak, this is called a "meltdown"-- it was the end result of trying not to get upset, because I knew it was perceived as immature, but it only delayed the inevitable? How did they not know how often I tried to ignore other kids' taunts, and even what amounted to physical assault in ceramics class? I tried explaining to them several times that I did try to "just ignore them" and that it did not work. And, as any bullied kid knows, it just made them try that much harder to get a rise out of me. But somehow, they saw that as evidence that I wasn't trying hard enough.

And one Friday afternoon, I really did blow up in ceramics class, though I think even calling it a meltdown would be too dismissive. Keep in mind that this was in November, after having put up with this crap for two months.

I spent the entire period deflecting balls of clay, as usual. Tense and frustrated, but also pleased with myself for managing to handle it, the only thing I had left to do before class let out was empty my container of water into the sink. But then I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. I whipped around and saw Kay with a shit-eating grin on her face. I also saw a ball of clay, about the size of a softball, fall to the ground. In that split second, having reached my limit, I hurled the container of water at her. 

"Julie!" Kay yelled innocently. "What did you do that for?"

Only then did the teacher finally intervene, and when I explained that Kay had just thrown a large ball of clay at the back of my neck, Kay told her that she hadn't done anything, that I was just being mean. Of course, the other girls backed her up, confirming her side of the story. I stood there, frozen. It was clear that I was outnumbered, and that there was no way the teacher would believe me when several kids had a story that diametrically contradicted mine. I stormed out of the room in tears, an explosive cheer of victory trailing behind me. 

The teacher told me to go to guidance, and then told the other kids to "settle down," that their behavior was "unacceptable."

When I got to the office, Mrs. Hayden, the principal, saw that I was in tears and asked me what happened. When I told her, she asked for the names of the girls, vowing to punish them. I begged her not to, knowing it would only make things worse, that they would come after me for being a "tattletale" and that they would just find more creative ways to go after me undetected. "I hate this place and I want to get out of here," I finally said. "I want to call my grandmother to pick me up."

Incredibly, Mrs. Hayden allowed it-- but I also told her not to tell my parents, that they would freak out and scream at me. She promised that she wouldn't. About an hour later, my grandmother picked me up and took me out to lunch. She, too, promised not to say anything to my parents, and even made sure I got home before my mom did.

At home, I felt horrible for this act of deception, and had already vowed never to do it again. But I felt like I had no choice. I didn't need to hear yet another time from my parents about how annoying I was, how my tomboyish presentation and demeanor were unacceptable, and how I bring these problems on myself. It was a Friday afternoon, and I just wanted the weekend to pass so I could move on with my life, whatever that meant.

Just after Mom walked in the door, she asked me how school was. I said it was fine and then I went out for a jog. After completing my two-mile circuit, I came home and found her in the rocking chair in the den, a stone serious look on her face. At that moment, I thought, Oh my God. She knows. She asked me in detail how school was: "How was English? How was science? How was math?" etc. "Are those girls in ceramics class leaving you alone?" I just kept saying, "It was okay," and that "No, they're not bothering me anymore."

Mom didn't push the conversation further, and I went upstairs to check my email. I just wanted to talk to Jonas about what happened, but I also wanted to wait for him to reply to my last email first. Well, maybe I would email him later anyway. I had to get this off my chest to someone who'd understand. 

But I knew that Mom knew; I wasn't out of the woods. And when Dad came home from work, Mom called me into the den. I reluctantly came downstairs, knowing what was coming. They confronted me about what I had done, but I refused to say anything. Mom kept saying that they couldn't help me if they didn't know. I said, "I'm not going to tell you because you're just going to yell and scream at me that it's my fault, like you always do."

Dad then said, "Well, when Mrs. Hayden calls and tells us that you threw a container of water at someone, what are we supposed to think? That kind of behavior reflects on us as parents!"

Again, how did my parents not know? Yeah, okay, technically they didn't know that time because I didn't tell them, but I would have thought that they would have known me well enough that I would only do something like that when pushed to limits. But they automatically assumed-- or at least seemed to assume-- that I did it unprovoked.

Then again, Mom saw all these reactions as me "flying off the handle." But the reality is, I was like a cornered animal-- not just that time, but many times at school. And a cornered animal that is kicked around enough is eventually going to fight back. Forget "death by a thousand cuts." More like "death by a thousand bludgeons to the head." How did they not see that this was the reality I had to deal with on a regular basis? How did they expect me to be stoic in the face of not just verbal harassment, but physical assault?

So I finally broke down and told both of my parents everything that happened. And Dad said, "Christ, all you had to do was tell us, and we would've been up at the school complaining. But instead you lied to us when something enormous did happen." Dad paused. "Lying to your parents is the first stage of delinquency, and I don't know if we'll be able to trust you again."

And how did they not see that the reason I lied to them that day was because I was desperate, that I didn't want to be browbeaten about my clothes, hair, and behavior that felt natural to me but was unacceptable to them? I called my grandmother and asked her to pick me up, to get me the fuck out of there so that I could have a break from this torment for a few hours. I didn't sneak off to smoke weed with friends-- not that I had any left at school. How did they not question themselves, wondering why I felt like I couldn't tell them anything anymore?

"Dad, I'm sorry," I said. "I won't do it again."

Dad nodded.

"You don't believe me," I said.

Dad muttered, "Only time will tell."

I just wanted to get out of the room and email Jonas.

"And Julie," Mom said. "You cannot do this again. You are being punished. You cannot use the phone or email for the weekend. Do you understand?"

How could Mom not see that she was taking away the one line of communication I had to Jonas, someone who would listen, someone who would understand? How could she not see how cruel that was?

Later, Mom and Dad went to the market to get food for dinner-- and insisted that I come. Maybe they thought I was going to run away. All I could feel was that I really blew it this time, and that I made my already shaky relationship with my parents worse. We talked more in the car; I was in hysterical tears about how horrible things were and how I felt like I had to walk on eggshells to make sure I didn't do anything to annoy anybody, weird anybody out, or otherwise provoke them. And only after I started shaking from the release of pent up excruciating pain did Mom cancel the punishment. 

Mom said, "I'm not taking away your phone and email privileges this weekend. I can see that you're genuinely sorry, and I believe you when you say you won't do this again. And I'm sorry if we made you feel you can't tell us anything."

I was relieved to hear that both parents said they trusted me again.

So there Mom started to get a better idea of what my life in school was like-- but to her own admission, only in the past few years or so did she truly know how serious the bullying was, how I was like a cornered animal on a regular basis. Again, how did she and Dad not know?

And the reality is, I wasn't sorry for lying. I was sorry for the consequences of getting caught in the lie. Hell, I'm still not sorry I did it. It was a desperate act, an attempt to prevent another fight with my parents. Maybe they thought I should have been able to come to them with problems, but the fact was, I couldn't.  Because they simply didn't understand. They could think all they wanted that I was blowing things in school out of proportion, but I wasn't. I was at the end of my rope, and I still maintain that, given our relationship at the time, I had no choice.

Well, fast forward to 2025. I'm glad to say that my parents have evolved since then. Additionally, it turns out that stories like mine are hardly unique. Thanks to the invention of the smartphone, bullying of the severity that I want through is now captured on video. People now see that kids with stories like mine are not exaggerating-- the evidence is right there in front of them, and they cannot deny it.

But again, again, again, a thousand times again, how did my parents not know? Why did they not take what I told them at face value? Why did they second guess every story? Did they really think that I was out of touch with reality, let alone that much? Why did they blame me for things like my sense of humor and how I dressed when friendships ended? It felt like gaslighting, and I felt crazy. Absolutely crazy. Like I couldn't trust myself. I knew what I was looking at, but I had been trained to believe that whatever went wrong-- whether the end of a friendship or relentless bullying-- was my fault. It's honestly something that really continues to bother me from time to time, and I admit I've never achieved full closure.

  

Autism and Boundaries Part 2: The Double Standard

As always, names and details changed to protect others' privacy...

Oh my God, I can't believe how long it's been. Again. I intended to write the followup to Part 1 of "Autism and Boundaries" a week later but... I really have no good excuse. All I can say is that the timing was bad: ever since the 2024 United States Presidential Election, I have been overwhelmed. But here I am. Finally. If you haven't read Part 1 or need to refresh your memory, please do read it before continuing further with this post, because I'm not going to rehash everything. 

Well, what I can say is this: for many years, I didn't question the fallout with Kat that happened on the overnight field trip in eighth grade. I took it for granted that the whole thing was my fault. Sure, Kat and the other girls humiliated me and jokingly speculated about my personal medical history ("she needs hormones and hasn't gotten her period yet") to explain why I wasn't interested in dating, but apparently that was to be expected after my comment about "old people smell". My reaction after that episode was not to confront Kat and say, "Why the hell did you humiliate me like that?" but to ask her if she was still mad at me. That was what made sense to me: not to take care of myself, but to throw myself at the mercy of others and beg for forgiveness. I said something so truly horrible that the reaction of the other girls was warranted. Same with any other social drama I found myself in throughout adolescence. It was just the way things were.

Years later, in 2008, I wrote about the incident with Kat as a way to illustrate early signs of my being autistic and my lack of social skills. My brother read it, and said something to the effect of, "I don't understand what you are trying to convey. Kat sounds like a psycho, and it sounds like you had mean friends-- mean, flaky 'friends.'" Additionally, when I workshopped the piece at a writers' group, others likewise expressed their confusion. One woman said, "I knew when I was reading this it had to have happened in seventh or eighth grade."

Looking back, I cannot believe it never crossed my mind that, well, my boundaries were constantly being violated, and egregiously so. But I realize now that I was held to a double standard. While I constantly got in trouble for violating others' boundaries, I also got a very clear message that mine did not matter.

They also didn't matter when I was at a Bar Mitzvah as a teenager and didn't want to dance with a random boy who asked me to dance. At a Bat Mitzvah that same year, I said "hello" to the Bat Mitzvah girl's brother, a friend from early childhood whom I hadn't seen in years. The photographer, who just happened to be right there, asked us to pose for a picture, and insisted that the boy put his hand on my hip. I was extremely uncomfortable with this, and the boy didn't seem to want to do it either. In both instances, my parents admonished me, telling me to grow up. What can I say? It was the '90s and the concept of consent wasn't talked about with the broad awareness that it is today.

The message I got over the years was clear: others' boundaries were sacrosanct, and mine didn't matter. If I didn't make an effort to understand others' points of view, I was rigid and immature. If others didn't make an attempt to understand mine, well, I shouldn't expect them to, because it's a huge burden for that person. If I had a crying fit at home because some kids humiliated me, I needed to learn to be stoic and let bitingly painful comments roll off my back. But in terms of me making stupid throwaway jokes not intended to hurt anybody? I needed to accept that other people were fragile as fuck and that I should expect such slips to end friendships. If I didn't want to hug my grandmother or uncle or dance with a boy or let an old friend put his hand on my hip, that was me being inappropriate and immature instead of understanding what I was comfortable with.

My story is far from unique. Here we are in 2025, and we are seeing similar double standards play out in real time. People who are viewed as the "default"-- white, heterosexual, cisgender, male, and non-autistic-- are allowed more leeway, are allowed to set boundaries while getting away with blatantly violating others'. Look at our current president-- an obscenely rich white man-- and how in his almost 79 years he hasn't been once held accountable. Could Barack Obama, a Black man, have gotten away with the things Trump is doing? Could he have gotten elected had he been caught on video bragging about grabbing women "by the pussy?" And as for women, especially women of color, trying to get elected? They have to be perfect. And if any of these people were autistic and couldn't mask well? Forget it.

If you want to teach your child to respect boundaries, you need to be consistent. Because I am living proof as to how they end up internalizing the double standards they're held to.

Autism and Boundaries Part 1: Losing Friends

 As always, names and details changed to protect others' privacy

A few weeks ago, I invited my new friend and fellow autistic, Lisa, to my upcoming birthday gathering; she RSVPed "yes." When the day arrived and she didn't show up, I texted her and asked what happened. No response. A few days later, I asked Lisa if she was okay. Still no response.

Finally, I realized that I had to pose a question that I am all too used to asking: "Did I do something to upset you?" It turned out that I had. So what did I do?

A few days before the party, Lisa mentioned in a text that she was going on vacation to Los Angeles. I had written, "Oh, cool. You can stalk some Hollywood hotshots! ;)" Despite the absurdity of what I said combined with the winky face at the end of the text, Lisa thought my joke was a serious suggestion. She said it made her "extremely uncomfortable." I was absolutely floored by this. I told Lisa that it was a joke, and that I'd never seriously suggest that anyone should stalk a Hollywood actor (or anybody, for that matter). Lisa said that she didn't know that it was a joke. Now, I realize that Lisa is one of the more literal autistic people I know, but I didn't realize that she was that literal. She then went on to say that I shouldn't joke like that. 

Lisa and I talked a little more, and she also said that in addition to being uncomfortable with that kind of humor, she was uncomfortable discussing politics. I told her that if it bothered her that much that I wouldn't make such jokes and I would not discuss politics. She then asked me not to joke with her at all. I told her that while I could promise not to discuss or joke about certain topics, I couldn't promise that I wouldn't joke about anything-- it just wasn't realistic. 

Lisa responded, "I don't understand why you won't respect my boundaries. If you can't respect my boundaries, we can't be friends." I again reiterated that I would not bring up certain topics around her and then tried again to explain why refraining from joking around entirely was unrealistic for anybody. No response.

The friendship was over. 

My parents, therapist, and others were quick to reassure me that I did nothing wrong, reminding me that Lisa was obviously the type of autistic who was very literal and who approaches life with an exceptionally black-and-white mindset. But it did very little to make me feel better. This sort of thing where a stupid, throwaway commented ended a friendship or otherwise cost me socially has happened countless times-- usually with neurotypical people. I immediately think back to a painful incident from thirty years ago, when I was fourteen years old.

The girls in my eighth-grade history class were going on a three-day camping trip to Historic Williamsburg (the boys would be going the following week). I was looking forward to camping out in a tent with my friends Kat, Khalia, and Torey. On the morning of the trip, I sat in homeroom next to Kat, who inhaled the scent of her winter coat. "My coat is fresh out of the dryer," Kat said. "It smells like my grandmother's house."

Amused by this oddly-specific description, I quipped, "Oh, you mean like old people?"

Kat exploded: "What the hell? You have no respect for your elders! For your information, my grandmother keeps her house clean!" I tried to explain that it was a joke about the famous, well, old-people smell, not a jab at her grandmother and her cleanliness. But every attempt to deescalate the situation just served as more proverbial rope to hang myself. "You have no respect for your elders!" she said again. "At Aviva's Bat Mitzvah you laughed and said, 'Oh, look at all the old people dancing!' Someday you'll be old too!" She turned away from me and lay her head on her desk. "Don't talk to me. Just leave me alone."

Once we were on the bus, I sat alone and took out a book to read. Kat told the other girls in our friend group about the horrible thing I had said. As we began the journey south, I knew that I was in for a long three days. When when stopped for lunch at a picnic area a few hours later, things got even worse. Unsure of where I should sit, I took my chances and sat with my tent group along with our other friends, Aviva and Gerri.

Torey said to the other girls, "Have you guys seen that new student teacher in the other history class? He is so cute!" I remember feeling uncomfortable, because I hadn't had my first crush yet-- and everybody knew it-- and all the other girls' lives seemed to revolve around "cute guys." I chuckled, not sure what else to do. Wilma, a girl who sometimes hung around with some of the girls in my friend group-- and who I never got along with-- turned to me and said, "What, you don't like guys?"

"What the hell, Julie?" said Kat. "Why don't you like guys? You need hormones!"

With a taunting edge to her voice, Wilma asked, "You're not interested in guys? Why not?"

"I don't know," I said. I tried to laugh it off-- this was advice many adults had given me for handling the taunts of other kids. But it never worked, and I know that it always sounded forced.

"I told you," said Kat. "She needs hormones."

"Or maybe she's just a lesbian," Gerri said, in mock defense of me.

"Maybe she isn't interested because she hasn't gotten her period yet," said Wilma. "I got mine when I was nine."

With a mouthful of turkey sandwich, I made a vague, "Eew," sound. I thought it would be horrible to get your period that young.

"'Eew?'" said Wilma. "Hello! You're fourteen years old. You should be getting your period by now. And if you don't get it by the time you're sixteen, then there's something wrong with you and you have to go to the doctor."

All of the other girls laughed at this comment. I opened my mouth to explain that I got mine when I was eleven, but Kat was on a roll: "So, she needs hormones, she's a lesbian, and she hasn't gotten her period yet!"

Once again, I tried to laugh it off. But of course I was completely transparent.

After lunch, Kat got up from the table. I followed her to try to make amends. "Kat, are you still mad at me?" I asked.

"Oh, leave me the hell alone," Kat said, barely looking past her shoulder.

"Look," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you this morning."

"Shut up and leave me the hell alone," said Kat.

Wilma stepped in and said, "You heard her! Leave her the hell alone, or I'll beat you up!"

At the campground that evening, there was more friction as we tried to put up the tent. Kat kept telling me I wasn't helping, that I was doing it wrong, and that they didn't need me. At a loss for what else to do, I found my teacher, Mr. Henn, hoping he could mediate. He asked Kat what she was upset about, and Kat said, "She insulted my grandmother. All she ever does is insult people!" 

Mr. Henn said, "All right, it sounds like you two had a misunderstanding. Why can't you just bury the hatchet?" I wanted to, but Kat didn't. The mediation only resulted in Kat saying, "Oh, fine!" when Mr. Henn finished by pleading with both of us to try to get along.

A little while later, Aviva ran up to me and said, "Kat says that you made fun of my grandparents at my Bat Mitzvah." I was absolutely floored that a comment about "old people dancing" was somehow misconstrued as a personal insult directed at Aviva's grandparents. 

The rest of the trip was a nightmare. Kat only talked to me if she wanted to insult me. My other friends either did nothing, or they joined in on the insults. When I discussed the incident with my parents at home, they told that my comment that upset Kat was extremely inappropriate. 

Mom shouted, "There! You see what you've done? We try to give you advice, and you don't take it! This constant joking has to stop!"

Dad added gruffly, "Let me tell you something. Kat was right. She probably said to herself, 'There's only one word to describe this person, and that's "annoying,"' and she didn't want to deal with it anymore! I can't say that I blame her!"

"Did you hear him?" Mom yelled even louder. "Kat was right! We have always been on your side, always defending you, always going to the school to complain about other kids on your behalf, but now we are defending someone else's child!"

My appointment with my therapist wasn't better: he told me that my comment to Kat was inappropriate. 

Superficially, what it seems like it came down to was that Kat didn't want to be my friend anymore because my comment violated her boundaries. The other kids, my parents, and even my therapist seemed to think so. But right now, I'm sure you are noticing a lot of irony in what I related in this story. Well, stay tuned for Part 2...

Lessons About Meltdowns-- From My Cat

I wasn't sure what to expect when I brought my cat, Neptune, to my parents' house in Pennsylvania over this past Thanksgiving and Christmas. After all, he was sixteen years old, and he hadn't been to that house in ten years. Would he even remember it? However, I had to bring him with me: he has hyperthyroidism and needs to get a pill twice a day, and getting a cat sitter or boarding him (the latter of which I think would traumatize him) would have been prohibitively expensive.

What I didn't expect were the erratic behavioral episodes that Neptune had during both stays. One minute, he would seem fine, and the next he would growl and hiss in warning, not letting anybody-- including me-- near him. There were a couple instances where it was clear to me what he was reacting to. Once, my dad tripped over a chair in the dark and howled in pain, and Neptune was right there; Neptune obviously thought Dad was attacking him. There was another instance in which Neptune hid under the kitchen table and growled while the four of us sat down for dinner. The room has a twelve-foot ceiling, and I think the loud and unfamiliar sounds-- such as the clanging of the pots and dishes-- plus the approaching feet made him feel cornered. But there were many other instances that seemed to come out of nowhere. 

I had never seen Neptune act like this before-- not in the previous times he visited the house in his younger years, and certainly not in my apartment. During his stay in Pennsylvania, I didn't know what to expect from him. One minute, I could be petting him and he would purr; the next minute, he might growl, hiss, and swipe at my eyes if I got too close. My attempts to diffuse the situation only made things worse. Telling him, "It's okay, sweetheart," made him angrier and more aggressive. Scolding him and yelling at him didn't work either. What we eventually figured out was that ignoring him during these episodes was the only thing that was effective. If we did that, he was usually back to normal in five minutes.

Sound familiar?

Someone I talk to online, who suspects she herself is autistic, told me to think of Neptune's episodes like an autistic person having a meltdown. This made sense to me. Cats-- like some autistic people-- rely heavily on routine and familiarity. Unlike dogs, cats are by and large not novelty-seeking animals, and unfamiliar situations-- especially with excess noise-- can frighten them. This is especially true for older cats, like Neptune. I realized that the way we tried to handle Neptune's "meltdowns" were eerily similar to how the adults in my life tried to handle my meltdowns when I was a kid-- that is, they backfired spectacularly.

Adults saying, "It's okay, sweetie!" did not work. It made me more upset.

Adults saying, "You need to calm down," did not work. It made me more upset.

Adults saying, "You're acting like a two-year old," did not work. It made me more upset.

Adults saying, "You need to learn to control your temper!" or sometimes, "You need to learn to control your fucking temper!"-- Guess what? -- Did. Not. Work. It. Made. Me. More. Upset.

Am I making myself clear?

The problem was was that the adults unsympathetically viewed my meltdowns as childish temper tantrums rather than a manifestation of protracted intense anxiety, often over being left out of something, or feeling I didn't understand a situation, or otherwise having the acute awareness of being an outsider. For other autistic people, this may happen as the result of sensory overload, for example (I don't have the sensory issues, but many of us do). Overall, it is the result of trying to tolerate living in a world not willing to understand us, let alone accommodate us. I tried several times throughout my teenage years and into my twenties to explain to the adults in my life that my "tantrums" or "outbursts" (or some other label with a shameful connotation) were the end result of me trying to dam a raging river, the inevitable outcome being that the dam would burst. Unfortunately, they generally thought I was making excuses, not trying, trying to get attention, or just being "immature." Needless to say, I would feel like I lacked self-discipline, that I committed some horrible moral failing, and I would feel a sense of deep shame. I would vow to never let it happen again, while deep down knowing that it was only a matter of time.

So what does the situation with Neptune have to do with it? A lot, actually. Like it or not, people are animals too. The difference is is that a cat seeing another cat having a meltdown would react with aggression, and you cannot do anything about it. They're acting on pure instinct. However, as a more intelligent animal, humans can help each other to understand what is going on. They can make accommodations and help the person having the meltdown (after it's over) strategize what to do when they feel one coming on before it reaches the point of no return. Most importantly, in the case of Neptune and the case of me and others like me, these episodes have to do with anxiety, not maliciousness. When Neptune is in an environment where he's comfortable, he's as sweet as can be.

I said that ignoring Neptune's warning growls and hisses rather than facing them was the right thing to do. Obviously, this is because you can't have a conversation with an animal. You can-- and should-- have a conversation with an autistic person about their meltdowns-- rather than ignoring them, which could feel disrespectful-- but the point is that you should do it after the episode is over and the person has calmed down. It might help to say, "I understand this is hard for you right now. When you start to feel better, come to me and we can talk about this," or at least get them out of the situation that's bothering them so that they can calm down. 

I feel that I should further explain why addressing the meltdown in the moment makes things worse, even when "nice" words are used:

When an adult said, "It's okay, sweetie," what I heard was a sugar-coated way of saying, "You're overreacting and I have no concept of what you're upset about."

When an adult said, "You need to calm down," what I heard was, "Your emotions are making me uncomfortable and I don't want to deal with them."

When an adult said, "You're acting like a two-year-old..." God, did I hate this. I remember even trying to explain that two-year-olds don't have complex enough emotions to get upset about the stuff I was getting upset about. Thus, what I heard was, "We don't understand anything you're telling us, and your feelings about the situation are invalid."

And when an adult said, "You need to learn to control your (fucking) temper!" what I heard was, "I can't stand to watch you act like this. It's making me unbelievably uncomfortable and it needs to stop. This is about my needs, and yours don't matter."

What I realize now is that, whether adults meant to do it or not, they were making the situation entirely about me rather than owning their own discomfort and lack of understanding.

Keeping Neptune comfortable in whatever environment he is in helps to prevent his episodes. Remaining calm during his episodes when they do happen prevents them from escalating. 

And really, people are not much different.

"More Musings About Having Been Born in the Wrong Decade" or "How to Raise Your Consciousness"

For those of you who read my Born in the Wrong Decade series that I posted last month, I have some more thoughts about an incident I wrote about in the first installment of the series. 

If you recall, I talked about being very self-conscious about my focused interest in Back to the Future, which started when I was nine years old, and how my childhood efforts to hide it backfired spectacularly. I then related a story from when I was ten, in which Back to the Future Part III was released on video on the same weekend of the Bar Mitzvah of the son of a family friend. I wanted to leave the after-gathering at the boy's family's house so that I could go home and watch the movie, but I felt guilty for even thinking this way. Ultimately, a war broke out in my head between the Whims of My Mind and Doing What was Right, but this time the Whims won: I told my parents that I needed to do my Sunday School homework, which was a lie; I simply wanted to watch the movie. But then I was, once again, wracked with guilt. From the original post:

I've always hated lying, and I realized that I needed to confess my true motives. Following my mother upstairs... I told her the truth. She made a noise of disgust. Already ashamed of myself, I wasn't sure how to react, so I said, "You're angry?", but in a tone that made the question sound more like a statement. The next two seconds, where I looked aimlessly around the room, seemed much longer. Finally, she broke the awkward silence and said, "I'm disappointed. I can't believe you would give up someone's good time just for a movie." I was already self-conscious about my hyperfocus on Back to the Future, and hearing the disapproval from my own mother further cemented the idea in my head that it was wrong.

I then commented on how I think there might have been some unconscious bias on my mother's part, pointing out that it's not uncommon for little boys-- neurotypical little boys-- at gatherings that they find boring to say things like, "This sucks! I wanna go home and play video games!" Despite the fact that what I said to my mother was essentially a guilt-ridden confession of my "thoughtcrime" rather than an unconsidered demand, she still reprimanded me as if what I had said contained the subtext of the latter. And thanks to emerging efforts in the twenty-first century to encourage others to check their implicit attitudes, I am sure I am not the only one who would note the gender bias. Focused interests are more tolerated in boys, and there is also the expectation of girls to always consider others' wants and needs. An appropriate response from my mother at the house gathering would have been understanding, coupled with a reminder about how I needed to be patient and that a Bar Mitzvah is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, whereas you can watch a movie at any time.

However, I strongly suspect that had the circumstances been slightly different, my then-40-year-old, early-'90s-era mother would have been more understanding, once again, due to unconscious bias: there is one type of focused interest that is historically tolerated well in girls, and that is having a crush on a male celebrity. Mom now knows that I love the Back to the Future series because of the time travel element and, not insignificantly, that I find Doc Brown to be a strangely relatable character (as a kid I had no idea why, but as an adult it became clear when I eventually "headcanoned" him as autistic, but that's another quirky in-depth discussion for another day). I don't know if she knew about this back then, or even if she even questioned why I loved these movies so much, but I guarantee she wasn't laboring under the delusion that I had a crush on Michael J. Fox-- or any of the other actors for that matter. 

But what if I had had a crush on Michael J. Fox, and Mom knew that I wanted to go home and watch Back to the Future Part III so that I could ogle over Fox dressed as a cowboy? Or what if, like a lot of the girls in my fourth-grade class, I was into the then-popular boy band, The New Kids on the Block? What if a new NKOTB album had been released that weekend and I wanted to go home and listen to it because I had a crush on one (or more) of the members and listening to them was like a siren song for my on-the-verge-of-adolescence girl brain? I hate to say it, but in both cases I think Mom would have been more understanding, and her response, sans the disgusted edge to her voice, would have been more along the lines of what it should have been: that I needed to be patient. Similarly, also when I was ten, I relentlessly begged for a remote-controlled hovercraft. Why? Because it reminded me of the flying DeLorean in Back to the Future Part II. One day, after what was likely dozens of requests and audible brainstorming about how I could find a way to get this expensive toy, Mom told me that my "obsession" with getting the hovercraft was "obscene." But again, what if the thing that I had wanted so badly was related to a teen idol that I had a crush on? What if I had had a crush on the New Kids on the Block and there was a $129 statue of one of the members that I wanted so badly?* 

It is cliché for adolescent girls to have crushes on male celebrities, and back then plenty of girls were intensely infatuated with the members of The New Kids on the Block. One girl in my class-- I'll call her Karen-- swore the she was going to marry Joe McIntyre when she grew up. I suspect most parents wouldn't have been "concerned", let alone thought it was "obscene," which is strange because I would think a ten-year-old girl's repeated declarations that she would one day marry a male celebrity almost twice her age could be unnerving: what if she eventually developed a similarly-hyperfocused crush on a teacher or another adult male in her life, and it turned out one of those men was a pervert who would take advantage of her feelings and sexually abuse her? I don't think most parents of that era were cognizant of the disturbingly prevalent occurrence of adult male child groomers, but I suppose that's another illustration of how much more ignorant society was back then. 

As I keep reiterating, I was born in the wrong decade. I was born into an era in which phenomena like unconscious bias weren't discussed like they are now, and in which priorities were skewed. It was an era in which atypical behaviors were, at best, seen as superficial actions and, at worst, the result of brattiness, bad parenting, lack of discipline, take your pick. What they weren't seen as were the manifestations of a brain that was wired differently and was doing its best to get through life. As a result, I took many severe blows, even from well-meaning people like my mother who honestly and sincerely thought they were helping me learn to "get along" in society, not aware of the emotional cost of these lessons. My therapist has told me that he's heard countless similar stories from autistic people who grew up in my generation and earlier.  

If nothing else, I hope I have raised your consciousness here. Please go and think about it, especially if you are raising an autistic girl. You will save her a lot of emotional turmoil.

*This is roughly what the hovercraft cost-- in 1991. After adjusting for inflation, this translates to about $295 in 2023.

Born in the Wrong Decade Part 3: The Naked Emperor

In the first and second installments of this series, I talked about the perverse level of awareness I had by the age of nine as to how different I was, particularly as it pertained to my focused interest in Back to the Future, and the pathologizing word "obsession" that was often associated with it. These posts illustrated that I was born in the wrong decade because of the lack of acceptance of brains that operate differently; even I didn't accept my own brain, and I made fitful and fruitless attempts to change it and hide my focused interests, which felt "wrong". Had I been born in the 21st century, I would have been spared this self-criticism, as well as criticism from the adults in my life. But what about my own differences that I didn't try to hide, ones that I continually asserted that I shouldn't have to hide? 

Let's segue a little bit: As a rabid fan of the Back to the Future series growing up, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the 21st century, imagining a world of hoverboards, flying cars, and other advanced technology. Deep down, I didn't believe these particular things would be invented, but I anticipated some incredible technology that I couldn't wait to see. I wasn't disappointed; the me of the 1990s would have been thrilled to learn about the technological innovations of the 21st century, and the me of today is thrilled to witness it. But I don't associate the 21st century with advanced technology as much as I do with something else: a more open and accepting society, one in which people are owning up to their mental quirks that the social sin of thoughtcrime would have silenced them about in the 1990s and earlier. And, in contrast to my "thoughtcrime" about focused interests that I tried to hide, this "thoughtcrime" was something I didn't shut up about-- the thoughtcrime of rejecting the concept of expected gender norms.

As a gender-nonconforming girl in the '90s-- a tomboy, as was the common parlance-- I was expected by many of the adults in my life to be going through a "phase" that I would have to outgrow. Many movies of the era seemed to reflect this expectation: a 12-year-old tomboy gets her first crush on a boy, and by the end of the movie she looks, dresses, and acts more feminine; her sudden conformity a symbol of her maturity. Although I didn't question my mother's condemnation of the concept of "obsession", I vehemently questioned the orthodoxy of the concept of "tomboy" being a characteristic that I was expected to leave behind with the onset of adolescence. I also didn't understand why people even cared: I wasn't hurting anybody; why on earth should it matter to them if I dressed and acted more traditionally masculine than other girls? Sometimes my mother would comment that if I dressed and wore my hair a certain way, people wouldn't be able to tell if I was a boy or a girl. At least once, I said, "So the problem is people won't know what's in my pants? Why is it anybody's business? So they know if they can potentially reproduce with me?" And no, this isn't me retrospectively analyzing the situation as an adult. I was thinking and saying stuff like this by the time I was seventeen. Around then, I also said it shouldn't matter if a boy wants to wear a dress, which was seen as even more radical than the idea of a girl being a tomboy past the age of twelve. And, of course, all of these things that I said were dismissed by adults as the whims of a young, idealistic teenager, one who just didn't understand at all how the world worked. 

But guess what? I was just stating the obvious, that the emperor was naked.

Born in the wrong decade indeed! All these things I was vocal about and that fell largely on deaf ears are now talking points on the mainstream left, particularly as they pertain to transgender and nonbinary people. To suggest among your fellow liberals that being a tomboy at fifteen is a sign of "immaturity" won't go over very well today. Saying that your daughter should wear certain clothes so that people know that she's a girl? You would be laughed out of the room, after being told to get into the habit of asking people-- at the very least when you're not sure what gender they're presenting-- "What are your pronouns?" with the understanding that "they/them" could possibly be the correct answer to that question. 

After years of being told that, no, the emperor was not naked, and that I was the only one who thought that he was, more and more people are admitting that they, too, knew what they saw, but feared they were the only ones and so did not come forward about it. Today, hundreds of thousands-- if not millions-- of people are declaring the emperor naked, and others in their lives have to accept that, yes, he is. He's stark naked, and his nudity can be understood in many ways. It can be understood in the sense that you are someone who has weird focused interests-- or focused interests of any kind. It can be understood in the sense that you are gay, bisexual, transgender or gender nonconforming, or nonbinary. It can be understood in all of the above, or any other form of nonconformity. A lot more people than you realize always understood this.

Welcome to the 21st century. It's great to be here.

The emperor is naked.