Quarter Turn Toward the Right

Autism involves focus to the exclusion of all else. When I flipped those light switches and flushed those toilets, I was so absorbed, so focused, that nothing beyond that occupation existed, not time, not my parents, not even hunger. Once we started having homework and spelling tests in second grade, I began applying that inborn focus to my schoolwork.

I did not do it consciously; that was yet another connection I did not recognize. Nevertheless, I studied two hours a night for those spelling tests. And I did it pretty much on my own. My mother worked full time and my dad was generally tired after a long day at work, so while they would help me if I was really stuck, most of the time they merely said, go look it up in the dictionary.

Those test scores had left me feeling inadequate and ashamed. I was not as good or as far along as I thought I should be, as Mom fully expected me to be, so I also could not bring myself to ask my teachers for extra time. They were all wonderful and gave me as much help as they could, but I knew it was all on me. Succeeding became very intimate, very personal, just as my earlier behavior had been for my mother. Feeling the weight of that responsibility, I became intense, just like my mother. I pushed myself to work harder and harder and used my focus disability, possibly the only thing I was more advanced at than my peers, to do the best I could with what tools I had. I taught myself to learn. It was a grueling, but powerfully individualistic experience. I felt pressured, lonely, and inadequate, but was going to become the most hard-working, steadfast, and focused person in my school.

My diligence paid off. I became friendly, if not exactly friends, with some of the kids in my class, so I always had someone to play with including two particular boys who let me hang out with them. I still lacked social instincts and skills and teased people for attention, but either these two guys tolerated it better than the rest or they just did not care.

Once when the three of us were on the playground, one of them pulled out a match book. I knew better than to play with matches. But I also knew these guys did not call me fag or wimp or Booger Man. When the one with the matches said he wanted to light them, we can do it in the bathroom. There is nothing to burn there my craving for friendship beat out my better judgment. We all went to the boy's room, where they started lighting the matches. Of course we got caught. Some other student walked into the bathroom, yelled, hey! You are not supposed to do that! and ran to tell the first adult he saw. The next thing I knew, we were being interrogated in Principal Harris's office and asked why did you do this? You boys are in big trouble! You could get expelled for this. Now I have to call your parents!

My stomach was in knots. Playing with matches was extraordinarily bad, irreversibly horrible and I had not even done it, which made me feel even sicker. I was caught in the middle, the proverbial witness being tried as a co-conspirator. What was I supposed to do? Rat out my newly acquired friends?!

I only had a few friends. I had to be loyal to them. Then my mom came in, and she and Mr. Harris were both so angry. He kept saying, you can get kicked out of school! Trapped, confused, guilty, and frightened, I finally blurted out the name of the boy who had actually lit the matches. The other two of us merely watched. I felt even worse after that for letting my friend down, but somehow I also felt better. The whole episode had an enormous impact on me. I stopped liking the principal, for one thing, and promised myself I would never do anything to upset him or get sent to his office again.

By the end of second grade, I had improved enough academically to be put in a third andfourth combination class the following year. The move made me feel vindicated. I was smart, but it also made for an extremely awkward third grade term. I felt uncomfortable at school, sometimes, for the first time, I did not even feel safe. My third grade classmates were eight and nine. The nine and 10 year old fourth grade boys were all pretty rough and tumble and looked at me as a wimp, an easy punching bag. They would grab my arm and just punch, punch, punch. I never told anyone, but I went home with black and blue marks all the time. Just as one set of bruises started to heal, I got another. This kept up all the way through eighth grade.

P.E. was a big part of the problem. I still could not play sports. Any sports. A group of boys from my class played basketball with some of the older kids every day after lunch. I just stood and watched. On those rare occasions when they let me in their game, I sucked. With all the pull out sessions, private therapy, and articulation drills, no one ever helped with me hand-eye coordination, one of my more prominent, to me, developmental delays. I had low muscle tone and ran tilted. I looked uncoordinated and funny and assumed I was a failure at all ball activities.

What was wrong with me? I even felt inferior when I was with the few friends I had; I felt as if I was the also or other instead of an actual part of. I still teased people, but I was very shy and very unaware of how to really make friends rather than be a tag along. I desperately wanted to belong, to impress people, to become close with other people, so I kept putting myself out there, but it was nerve wracking for someone so shy. I was embarrassed all the time. Nevertheless, I endured and kept at it. I would not accept any other option.

I was too mortified to go to my parents with this. I knew my mom would tell me to forget about making friends, and my dad, well, he coached my T ball team. How could I tell him I saw the ball over here when it was really over there?

Our school district started a GATE ,Gifted and Talented Education, program while I was in third grade. Every Wednesday a bus would take those special, hand picked students to a different school for their special, higher quality program.

I did not know what the program was all about or even if I would like it, but since a lot of the kids I knew were chosen to go, I wanted to go, too. When I told my mom I had not made the list to be tested, she called my teacher and demanded I be given the chance.

That is how things were back then, it was all about winning, all about being on top. In my kids' generation, everyone gets a trophy, win or lose. That is pretty unrealistic; I am glad I was brought up the way I was. My successes are the result of overcoming a slew of obstacles, one of which was the unspoken but, nevertheless, virulent belief that if I was not the best, I was a failure. And that was exactly how I felt most of the time, like a failure.

Taking the GATE test only reinforced that perception, because my scores were not up to GATE standards. I was beyond humiliated. I had gone out of my way, demanded and received special treatment, all designed to prove I was smart. Now, I had just proven to everyone that I was not. Could I be more of a failure?

I was so devastated, so beside myself with shame and frustration, that when one of the fourth grade boys in my third and fourth class said something snide about it, I snapped. Usually, I was careful not to piss off this guy because he was so overall mean to me. He was one of the boys who liked to trap me on the playground and whale away on my arm and I owed a lot of my black and blue marks to him. But that day,having degraded myself in front of the whole class, my few friends, my teacher, my parents, and everyone else in my universe, my rage and humiliation somehow turned into courage, and I stood up in the middle of the class and cussed him out, right in front of everyone.

I guess my teacher must have understood what was going on with me, she did not send me to the principal.

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