Eccentrics United: An Autism Blog: 2025

Over the course of the past few months, I have written ten blog posts in which I revisited painful experiences in middle school, running the gamut from losing friends to being bullied on a minute-by-minute basis; this eleventh post closes the series. The previous two entries discussed how my experience running track at the end of 9th grade gave me new friends, a supportive coach, and the chemical boost in my brain that enabled me to stand up to the bullies. With such a positive resolution and a high self-esteem at the end of the year, how is any of this still relevant-- especially to someone just a week from her forty-fifth birthday? I must have put it completely behind me, right?

Honestly, I thought I did. But let's address that elephant in the room-- or, as a more apt metaphor, that television in the bar. Upon recent reflection, as illustrated in the first post in this series, I hadn't put this nonsense behind me. Not completely. The events of middle school were core memories, created in the formative years of my life when my brain was still developing. As I only recently realized, they impacted how I would think about friendships throughout the rest of my adolescence and well into my adult life and, to a lesser extent, to this day. Even if I wasn't thinking intently about these memories, they were a constant backdrop, akin to a television playing in a bar. When you're at a bar, you are not directly focusing on the television, but you are constantly aware of its presence in your peripheral vision and hearing. My experiences in middle school largely taught me to expect friendships to be tenuous, and that any minute someone who once genuinely liked me could do a mental hairpin turn and abandon me, unless I learned to rein in multiple aspects of myself.

And let me just say this: if life were a Hollywood movie, after running track in 9th grade I would be consistently confident and have tons of good friends for the rest of my life, starting with high school that fall. That is, a perfect movie ending wrapped up in a neat little package. But that isn't how life works. Over the decades, I have gone through multiple cycles of confidence and self-loathing, depending on whatever obstacles and setbacks I encounter. Wash, rinse, repeat.

When I entered high school in the fall of 1996, fresh off the track team (where I made new friends) and my second rewarding summer at Camp Negev (a progressive and open-minded environment where I felt people really appreciated me for the first time), I was pretty optimistic. Most of the kids from middle school were zoned for the other high school in the district, and the new kids I encountered seemed very nice-- and for the most part, they were. With time, I felt, I would make some new friends. That isn't what happened. I had trouble connecting with people. But why? I had easily made new friends with the 7th- and 8th-graders on the track team the previous year, so why couldn't I make new friends in my high school? Sadly, it was probably because those friends from track were two and three years younger than me. Because I had repeated first grade, I was a year older than all the kids in my grade and, at age fifteen, these new friends were mostly twelve and thirteen years old. Like me, and unlike my agemates, they were still largely into "kid" things-- just like Ivy had been when we first met in 7th grade.

Now that I was in 10th grade, I could not find common ground with my peers. The conversations I would start with other kids felt forced and awkward. By the end of the year, it was clear that I wasn't going to make any friends. And when I could see that I was starting to annoy people and weird them out for a variety of reasons, I feared that I would be bullied again. So I did the only thing I could to protect myself: I withdrew and mostly remained quiet-- something people who know me well would find difficult to imagine. My strategy worked: I wasn't bullied in high school, but I didn't make any friends either. I had a few friendly acquaintances, but we we never became close enough to get together outside of school. I was scared to let them in on aspects of me that I had been repeatedly taught to keep hidden. The way high school unfolded suggested to me that my positive end to 9th grade was, like my experiences at Camp Negev, a tiny anomaly in a world that largely rejected me. Looking back, my decision to withdraw socially in high school is the biggest regret of my life. I know now that there had to have been other neurodivergent kids I could have become friends with who, like me, were hiding, because there wasn't yet a word to describe them.

I think of my yearslong friend, Andrea, whom I met in the fall of 1999, during my freshman year of college. Andrea remembers trying to get to know me and feeling like I wanted to be left alone. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was just that I was so afraid of putting her off or coming across as demanding that I forced myself to seem quiet and reserved-- no easy task since when I am comfortable I can be quite uninhibited, for better or for worse. Fortunately, Andrea was undeterred. We were both animation majors-- most of the others who planned to go into animation were guys, and Andrea wanted to get to know me, since I was the only other girl in animation she had encountered so far.

Even well into adulthood, the proverbial television in the bar is still on in the background. A couple years ago, at a family gathering, a bunch of us were playing with an AI generator. Because of how nonsensical and surreal the resulting images were, I joked that the computer was on drugs. One of my relatives, who had once had a drug problem, got upset and yelled at me in front of everybody. At the time, I thought he was upset because a little kid was in the room (I was unaware, as the kid was behind me). I only learned later that he was upset because the joke touched a personal vulnerability.

When I discussed the situation with my parents a couple weeks later, I lamented, "If this had happened with someone outside of the family, that would have ended the friendship." Mom replied, "Someone who ends a friendship over something like that wasn't your friend to begin with." I realized she was right, but that metaphorical television that played constant reruns of my middle school memories was still in the periphery of my life. Of course, I now also wonder why Mom and Dad didn't say the same thing after the fallout with my middle school friend, Kat, over my joke about old people smell in 8th grade, and when I was kicked out of the lunch table in 9th grade. Unfortunately, my parents don't remember their responses to either incident, or any of the others in which they seemed to blame me for friendships ending. They insist they never intended to blame me when these types of fallouts happened, which is puzzling because that is absolutely the message I absorbed. I guess I'll never know.

And, of course, most recently, there was my fallout with Lisa over my joke that she should stalk famous actors on her trip to Los Angeles, which she thought I meant as a serious suggestion. Although that situation is different because Lisa is autistic -- the hyper-literal, black-and-white-thinking type-- I still saw and heard that metaphorical television in the background. As you saw in that blog post, my mind reflexively went back thirty years to my fallout with Kat.

It's incidents like the aforementioned that made me realize how much the bullshit I went through in middle school shaped me and how I never completely moved on. It became clear that to truly put it behind me, I would have to radically reframe the past and deconstruct-- similar to the way someone might when leaving a cult or a high-demand religion. Contacting Ivy and Torey and clearing the air with them has helped me to do that, and I wish I would have done it twenty years ago. Perhaps addressing that television in the bar sooner would have made it easier to turn off. Unfortunately, it is still on decades later, and so it is that much harder to silence.

I want to end by saying that I am honestly glad to have reconnected with Ivy and Torey beyond getting closure. Ivy no longer lives in or near our hometown in Pennsylvania; she has long moved out of state, so I have no idea if I'll see her at any point. However, she has said that she is glad we reconnected. Torey, who for years had been living in the Midwest, recently moved back near our hometown, and we are going to try to get together when I visit my family for Thanksgiving.

Reconnecting with Ivy and Torey also gave me closure in that our discussions helped me realize that none of the kids in our ragtag group of eight were ever truly "bad." As I've discussed, we were all kids in a broken system in a more ignorant time. Ivy said it best: we were perpetually in fight-or-flight mode, constantly reacting and not yet mature enough to take a step back and see the big picture. For years, I thought if any of the girls in the group ever contacted me, I would only be receptive to hearing from Ivy, and possibly Torey, provided that they apologized for turning on me. I always knew that Ivy was a good person at her core and, as I've said, I do recall Torey acting genuinely sorry towards the end of the year after the parents and principal staged an intervention. However, after having talked to both women, I realized I would be open to hearing from the other five kids in the group. I could contact them, but I was honestly never really close to them (one girl, Rosie, I didn't even mention in any of the posts!), so I don't see the point. But, in the off-chance that any of them are reading this, I absolutely would be receptive to hearing from them.

Onward.

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Running Saved Me Part 2: How Running Saved My Brain

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

7. Closure Pt 2: How School Failed All of Us

8. Closure Pt 3: What Could Have Been Done

9. Running Saved Me Pt 1: A New Support System

*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy.

With a sport I loved and a supportive track coach, and new friends in the final weeks of 9th grade, there was only one thing left to do:

Stand up to my bullies.

Thus ended my previous post. For those who have only started reading my protracted blog series about my experiences in middle school (grades 7-9 in my district), let me fill you in:

I was bullied almost constantly throughout those years in ways that ran the gamut from bitingly personal insults to physical assault. As my mother put it in a recent conversation, all I had to do was show up at school and it was "a critical mass of shit" directed at me. By 9th grade, I had become afraid to go to school, as it was unsafe both emotionally and physically. As I discussed in a post from a few months ago, in my 9th-grade ceramics class, kids relentlessly hurled large balls of clay at me. I repeatedly reported this to the teacher, Miss Mitch, who dismissively told me to "just ignore them." During each class, I did just that-- working with one hand and deflecting balls of clay that I spotted in my peripheral vision with my other. Needless to say, the bullying did not stop. One Friday morning in November 1995, after two months of "ignoring" this abuse, I reached my limit, storming out of the room in tears, as almost the entire class cheered. I went to the principal's office and called my grandmother to pick me up and extricate me from the endless emotional pain and suffering.

When my parents later called the school to complain, Miss Mitch offered a solution: if I wanted, I could work in the classroom across the hall, which was empty during this time slot. I did just that for the remaining seven months of the school year, often while listening to 1960s rock or soundtracks from my favorite movies on a tape player that was in the room. By the time I joined the track team in April 1996, my self-esteem had been completely destroyed. And the "solution," ostensibly to protect me but which only further isolated me and suggested to my classmates that Miss Mitch didn't want me in the room (which I suspect had some element of truth to it anyway), did not help. Kids from the class regularly snuck in to taunt me, steal my supplies, and throw clay at me. Each time, I continued to "just ignore them," which, of course, did not work.

However, one day I made a decision: I was going to stand up to the bullies. That's where running track came in. How was it connected? Let me explain.

After I had been running track for about a month, my mother began to notice that when she picked me up from practice I seemed more alert, confident, and happy. I started to notice it too, and my mood was improving for extended periods of time-- not just after track practice, but also during the school day. What I didn't know was that in the immediate aftermath of track practice, I was experiencing a well-documented phenomenon known as "runner's high," a euphoric feeling believed to be caused by endocannabinoids released in the brain during vigorous exercise. That my mood eventually became elevated for longer periods of time suggests that running was also giving me long-term mental health benefits, also widely documented. To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that my unhappiness and compromised self-esteem that year were the results of a chemical imbalance. However, it seems running provided a chemical boost in my brain that gave me the mental resources to better address the exceptionally stressful situations that I was enduring every day.

I still remember the date that I made the decision to stand up for myself: Friday, May 3, 1996. I'm not sure exactly what in me finally flipped the switch in my head. Maybe it was the wonderful feeling of the newly tightened, firm muscles in my legs and core that made me feel stronger in both body and mind. In any case, that morning, as I was walking through the school hallways, I had an epiphany: the treatment that I had been experiencing was bullying. It was abuse, and it was wrong. Despite what I had been taught to believe, no, I did not bring this treatment on myself, and no, I did not deserve it. I suddenly promised myself that I was going to do something that I had never done before: defend myself, and no longer be a bystander in my own suffering.

My first opportunity to keep that promise came later that morning during ceramics when two large, physically-imposing guys came into the room that I was working in. They were likely closing in on six feet and 180 pounds each, in stark contrast to my 5'1" and 98 pounds. I knew then as I saw them that there was no turning back. Don't get me wrong-- I was nervous, already in the throes of the fight-or-flight response, my heart racing and body shaking. Recalling a time in 8th grade when I broke my hand punching a boy on the bus who was hitting me, I thought, "If I have to fight, I'll fight. If I break both hands defending myself, so be it."

The boys started with the usual bullshit, calling me names, stealing my tools, and throwing clay. That day, I was also listening to the soundtrack from the 1982 film Annie, which of course they could not resist harassing me about.

"What the fuck are you listening to?" one of the boys taunted aggressively as he towered over me.

Normally, I would have said, "Nothing!" to try to deflect attention away from something I knew they'd use as a weapon to embarrass me. But this time I wasn't going to roll over and play dead. Instead, I looked him square in the eye and said, "The soundtrack from Annie. You got a problem with that?"

Of course the boys laughed at my choice of music, a soundtrack from a movie that they probably deemed for kindergartners. And they weren't done yet.

"You fucking circus freak," one of them said. "We know why you're in here. It's because the teacher doesn't want you in the class."

It was a low blow, and I knew it. I winced at the emotional slight, but despite my racing heart and trembling body, I maintained eye contact and said, "Okay, so what? Why is that any of your business?"

After a few more rounds of insults and name-calling, I said, "Okay, guys. I've had enough fun for today. Why don't you leave?"

"Nah, we don't want to," said one guy.

My eyes still locked on theirs, I retorted loudly and firmly, "I am supposed to be in here, and you're not. And I am asking you to get out of here-- now!"

The boys left-- but not before grabbing my tools and turning the volume on the tape player up all the way. I recall thinking, "Great. Now all the nearby classrooms are going to hear the music, and soon the entire 9th grade will know what I was listening to, and I'll never hear the end of it." But then, remembering my promise to myself, my mind followed up with, "So what?"

I ran to the ceramics room, retrieved my tools, returned to the empty classroom, and quickly turned the volume on the tape player back to normal. The boys did not return for the rest of class. I have little doubt that they thought that they scored yet another victory against me, but to focus on that negates an important detail: I had at last mustered the strength to defend my dignity. I demonstrated that I was not going to put up with this kind of treatment any longer, and for that I felt that I had scored a victory. For once, I had won!

I think these boys came back to harass me maybe once or twice after that day. But before, it had been almost daily. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe Miss Mitch suddenly gained control over her class, but I highly doubt it. I think the most likely explanation is that I did exactly what the bullies were not used to seeing me do: I stood up for myself and made it clear that I was not going to bow in submission and accept my role as the perpetual target. In fact, in the final six weeks of school, very few people bothered me. Maybe just the fact that I was carrying myself more confidently, my head held high, made a difference.

On that fateful day in 1996, I learned something very important: the best weapon you can give a bullied child is self-esteem. I realize that standing up for oneself is hard, and it only works if self-esteem is conveyed in the response, but it is the only thing that ever worked for me. And doesn't that make the most sense out of all the advice adults implored me to take? I've already demonstrated in several posts in this series that ignoring bullies is ineffective, counterproductive, and only makes them try that much harder to get a rise out of the target. Pressuring kids to "learn to fit in" doesn't work either. My well-meaning but tragically-misguided parents in what I've come to think of as The Ignorant Nineties seemed inordinately convinced that if I stopped dressing like a tomboy and donned the feminine clothes that they were desperate to see on me but that I was profoundly uncomfortable wearing, the bullying would stop. But as my classmate-turned-friend-in-adulthood, Annette, once said, "It wouldn't have made a difference. You were pegged." Besides, that approach really smacks of victim blaming, even though that wasn't my parents' intention.

As you've seen in this post and its predecessor, I found community on the track team, joy in running, and a newfound sense of self-esteem that led to 9th grade ending on a positive note. So why, then, did I feel the need to revisit the social trauma from earlier that year and 8th grade in multiple blog posts? Why did I need closure after events from between twenty-nine and thirty-one years ago, and why did I feel the need to contact Ivy and Torey-- two of the former friends who turned on me-- to do so?

I'll address that elephant in the room in the next and final post in this series about my middle school years.

Saturday, September 13, 2025

Running Saved Me Part I: A New Support System

Thanks for coming! I am gradually moving my blog to Substack. You can see this post here!

Sunday, September 7, 2025

Closure Part 3: What Could Have Been Done

Thanks for coming! I'm gradually moving my blog to Substack! You can find this post there!

Sunday, August 31, 2025

Closure Part 2: How School Failed all of Us

Thanks for coming! I'm gradually moving my blog to Substack. You can check out this post there!

Friday, August 1, 2025

Closure Part 1: Reconnection

Thank you for coming! My blog is gradually being moved to Substack. You can see this post there!

Monday, July 7, 2025

Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

Thanks for coming! I am gradually moving my blog to Substack. You can see this post there on June 30, 2026!

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

When School is a Systemic Failure

Thanks for coming! I am gradually moving the blog to Substack. You can check out this post there!

Saturday, May 31, 2025

How Did They Not Know?

Thanks for coming! This blog is gradually being moved to Substack. You can check out this post there in two parts:

The first half is live!

The second half drops on June 16, 2026.

Come check them out!

Monday, May 26, 2025

Autism and Boundaries Part 2: The Double Standard

Thanks for coming! I am gradually moving this blog to Substack! You can check out this post here!