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.