Hello! You may not know me but I’m @silly-a-777’s friend, Iz (aka strawberry)! As you might know from my friend’s recent post, she has been struggling with a situation that has affected her deeply regarding certain things that has happened in our school. I try my best to give her my full support advice and comfort (even though I’m not the best at it), and try to just listen as best as I can. I love her a lot (because she’s what I consider my best friend), so seeing her suffer has made me upset at the people who hurt her. I know she is learning how to love herself and how to set boundaries, and I’m really proud. She encouraged me to tell my side of the story, so I’m going to do just that! {Disclaimer: I’m not trying to make this all about me. I put relevant parts from my past to show how my mindset on certain things have changed. Also, my memory is not the best, so if some parts sound wonky, it’s because I probably forgot/misinterpreted it. Also, there might be mentions of curse words (bad on my part) but reminder to not use profanity if you don’t have to.}
Let’s travel back to when I was a small child, (about 8 years old), when I was told by my mom that I had autism. As a tiny child who probably just had gained consciousness (lol), I didn’t know exactly what that was — to be autistic. For me, being autistic wasn’t that much of a change for me, just now I had a label for my strange antics (ex. me stimming, my past echolalia, and my difficulty understanding and even making friends with others my age). With autism came my anxiety, and other mental issues that branched from it. But being put in an environment with others like me really helped me in elementary school; except there was one problem — I was the only girl there. I always hated that. That meant having being put stereotypes by the guys in my group, and not being able to share things or do things with/around them because they were “inappropriate”, even if it meant just meant I couldn’t wear a tank top around them (in the hot summer) because it was “too revealing”. But as a child who obeyed teachers directions, I always just listened and never complained. I went to the same elementary school as blueberry, grape, and dragonfruit. They’ve been my closest friends because they understood that they could be “normal” just like everyone else even despite their disability. Making friends, though, was still hard for me; and the only other friendly people were teachers and counselors. They were people I felt I could trust.
Now let’s fast forwards to about 3 years ago, where I met @silly-a-777 — or technically a little bit before that. I went to a summer “camp” at my now new school with a program called the “nest program”, which I was familiar with since I’ve been in it for my entire life. The nest program is a support program for people with disabilities — physical or mental. That is where I met Ms. R and Ms. A. They were friendly and really welcoming to me, blueberry, grape, and dragonfruit. We continued to be friends, but something about them shifted. They would be more mean to me. I didn’t know why, but now looking back I fear it was because now since we were growing up, they didn’t want to be seen around a girl. They wanted to be cooler than that. That’s when our friendship started drifting apart. Not only that, but the fact that I was one of the only girls with autism in the program made me uncomfortable. The fact that also, I saw the boys being babied despite one of them literally watching p0rn in front of us. But it’s fine because he had Down syndrome, right? Now, fast forwards to when I met my lovely friend silly, she and I have been friends for a while. Along with, I had made a lot of other friends with the girls in my class. Mid 2023, I was friends with mango, and she was best friends with this girl we’ll call cherry. Their friendship fell apart, and then cherry spread rumors about her. I won’t get into good detail, but I got myself involved and called mango a bitch. After that she hated my guts (understandably), and I made myself the victim (which I very much regret because it was 1000% my fault). When Ms.A and Ms. R found out, they were disappointed. They made me show them the text where I called her a bitch and I got suspended. Now, was that punishment a bit extreme? Not really. But compared to what I’m going to say, it might. Now, there was the whole situation with mango being doxxed by grape, dragonfruit, and blueberry you might be aware of, along with the fact they were told “boys will be boys” as if they didn’t put mango’s whole family in danger. And you know what? They got the same punishment as me. One suspension and acting like nothing happened afterwards. I guess calling someone a bitch is the same as doxxing them. There was this other guy who was also autistic we’ll call banana. He was very bad, and got transferred just because he fought this kid from another class. Banana has done everything wrong, hitting kids, cursing at teachers, etc. And you wanna know what? Nothing happened until two years later. They didn’t punish him for his actions until two years later. All because he’s autistic. I see now. Not only were they coddling all the boys with autism, but the boys specifically. Maybe I’m exaggerating, because that’s apparently what girls do. They’re dramatic, crybabies, yet they’re put all this pressure to just know better. Yet when a guy who has autism, suddenly “they don’t know better”, then get coddled by their extra set of mommies called the counselors. (I’m not saying this because I want to be coddled, because I really don’t, but disability/girl or not they should have the same responsibility and consequences).
With @silly-a-777’s situation, I think it’s extremely unfair. At first, since I trusted Ms. A and Ms. R, I thought that silly would soon realized that “what they did was for the best”. But Ms. A and Ms. R were biased, and think that people can’t change, yet when little autistic timmy finally stops touching girls LIKE HES SUPPOSED TO DISABILITY OR NOT, then oh let’s celebrate woohoo! (Just for him to not change at all the next day). My point is, just because you have a disability, are a girl, are a boy, whatever, you should be treated the same: having consequences for your actions. These biased teachers just show how people of power can get away with things all because they can. Yes, we have all made mistakes, but we can change. And if people like them can’t notice that, well then they have to acknowledge that they need to grow up.
I’ve always been told I was mature for my age, but I guess they were right when I’m more mature than adults themselves. <3
Thank you for listening to me ramble. :)
