Disability Caucus Open Thread 10/20/2016: Recluse
There are times when I just wanna take a mega phone and tell the world that disabled life is rarely as it is portrayed on Tee Vee. Most of the time we keep to ourselves, or at least my wife and I do. She has a circle of friends she hangs with now and then but we're both home bodies. And I lost touch with the only 2 friends I ever had after leaving home for good.
High school was hell. The only things that kept me sane through those years were my forays into high school wrestling, ATA Tae Kwon Do (I regret never reaching black belt), my summer job at the Kennedy Space Center and exploration into Nichiren Buddhism. Of course through it all my mom was always poking and prodding with questions like 'come on son, why the hell can't you just be normal for a change? how do you expect to get a girlfriend?', while claiming to support what I was doing.
If you want to know just what the hell was normal when I was a teenager, here it is: Keg parties up and down the neighborhood, teen girls getting raped while drunk, drug use and all kinds of other partying crap that was more trouble than it was worth. The cliques. Teachers not giving a damn about their students because the students didn't give a shit either which damaged those who did give a damn. So I just stayed in my own space whenever I could because it was the only peace I could get.
There was the bullying too. Being disabled makes one a target and no matter what it is, you're 'retarded'. No exceptions.
I barely survived high school at all. My senior year I had to take a night class for a semester I had failed previously in order to graduate. I guess I was lucky I took home economics classes in high school because I wouldn't know how to cook otherwise, but I digress.
I guess I haven't changed much since then. I still don't like being around people a lot and most of the time I observe conversation rather than talk to others. Sadly that is something employers hate, it seems.
So for those of you with disabled kids out there, how was it for you? I'm sure many others have had similar experiences.
See ya around,
Aspie
Comments
I would have been described as Normal in HS.
I understand the isolation, I went to what was then a School for Girls, now coed. I was a scholarship student. I lived in a different part of town than my classmates. The first year (7th grade) was bad, many others had been together since kindergarten. So I was in the out-group. It got better, and I am still Facebook friends with many (22 females graduated). Back then there was no help when a student suicided, not like now. I insulated myself from deaths in my cohort.
I have always felt slightly disconnected, reclusive, by age or status. Not working now I have phone friends, FB friends, no human in my territory but me. Plus one dog. we survive.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.