Submitted by hollyhoppet in just_post
i originally posted this on my mastodon account but i figure this is also a good place to post it
i've been thinking back on how i got bullied a ton when i was in school probably for being autistic and closeted queer and it really sucked. by the time i was in middle school i was eating lunch alone in the corner of the cafeteria on a windowsill. nobody came to talk to me or on the rare occasions they did i was too scared to come sit with them. sometimes one of the staff members watching over the kids eating would come chat with me but that was about it
around halfway through high school i was able to carve out a small friend group, making short films with them as our group Thing that we did, but i was still always the weird one. friends would constantly miss showing up to things i asked them to, people would constantly make fun of me without my realizing it. i didn't know how to handle crushes i had.
meanwhile abuse at home was getting worse, and i think my teachers started noticing. they didn't do anything though. i wish they had been able to.
i don't know how it is nowadays at schools, but i assume it's not much better. i feel like i was just left to fall through the cracks.
we really need to do right by kids that are "different." it's not ok to stand by while they develop ptsd like i did.