TW: for abuse of minors, mention of suicide, PTSD and severe trauma.
I was a repeat offender of bad behaviour. I fully admit it and take ownership of that… I was a complete shit! The observable behaviour began in grade 1, but the disengagement and reasons for the behaviour began much earlier. You may be thinking: what the hell could be ‘much earlier’ than being 7 or 8 years old??? But yes, some shit can happen to kids before they even begin school…. My children suffered school can’t and trauma before starting school too – it’s actually pretty common for autistic people, but my experience was ‘a bit’ more (I say ‘a bit’ because it was actually a hell of a lot more, but my trauma tries to dull it down for self preservation).
I started out as the kid who’d been in fulltime day care since 6 months, both my parents worked full time, and I didn’t have a choice. Looking back, my ‘behaviour’ was a direct consequence of the way I was treated in all of the daycare, babysitting homes, pre kinder, kinder and schools. My behaviour simply escalated with each new centre or school, because none of them showed me good behaviour, or treated me kindly.
There were a couple teachers here and there (and I mean 2) that tried but failed….. and that led to my very early disengagement.
· Let’s start with day care:
I was dropped – physically dropped from a height. My sister told my parents all about it, as I was still a baby. It was a family-owned day care that allowed their own toddler/ children to man-handle the clients – completely inappropriate and illegal these days…. But in those days – totally normal. My mother was mad, and the centre eventually shut down, so she took us out and put us into private babysitting – with people she met along the way (one was the wife of someone she worked with, the other was one of our neighbours).
· Babysitting
My 2 main babysitters both gave me some PSTD, and a healthy dose of not being able to trust anyone, and a fear/ hatred of adults.
The first one: had an affair – in front of me, she also tied me to a bike so I couldn’t move, fed me stuff that made me gag and made me wait in the hot sun while she had sex with her mechanic. Her car used to break down all the time, so we grew a big mistrust of cars and safety around travelling anywhere, she had 4 kids of her own and with us two – there were not enough seat belts for us all – that was the very early 80’s. It was awful, she even shut the door on my sister’s hand one day. Her son also broke his leg (with the bone sticking out) and all she said/ did was say “That won’t kill you” – which made me afraid of hurting myself while at her house. Even her own children have stopped talking to her in adulthood and moved far far away.
The next babysitter had sons that held us upside down til we said ‘mercy’. She had lots of part time jobs for local businesses… where she made us do half the work: folding napkins, wrapping up junk mail for delivery and other things. She also took us to the beach without my parents permission and she nearly drowned me. So…. I won’t say the rest – as it’s private, but let’s just say her husband would’ve ended up in jail if I’d had the guts/or ability to speak, or if he hadn’t have moved away and subsequently died. This all grew my complete hatred, fear and disrespect of adults who were placed in authority roles or ‘caring’ roles (or uncaring roles as the case may be).
· In Kinder I grew a complete dislike of the education system. They kept me back due to being non-speaking or minimally speaking. They made us do activities that grew that hatred even more – things that were not interest based, or child led. The ‘circle time’ was the worst part, as my EDS caused massive pain and trouble for me to sit on the floor. Having to endure an extra year of it due to the direct discrimination of me being non-speaking was the last straw for me.
· Primary School: By the time I reached primary school I was completely disengaged, but fearful of new adults coming into my life (quite rightly after all I’d already seen and experienced). So, I shutdown all the time (it was part of me being non-speaking and situationally non-speaking – but mostly due to massive trauma). It looked like I was simply a ‘good student’ – as in, quiet and compliant. But I was really just fearful that the things that happened to me in daycare, babysitting and kinder would be repeated in school.
The principal tried to be kind by commenting on my writing; which is still horrendous due to EDS (it will never be good because my hands don’t work that way)– but I took it as an extreme insult and shut down even more… (he was actually a lovely man – his replacement was not). But this affected my writing and ability to take criticism for years to come.
By the time grade 1 arrived, I realised that school was different from those previous places. Teachers were held more accountable, and they weren’t allowed to abuse or do other things that I’d experienced previously. They were on display and didn’t have the chance to do things to me behind closed doors where I couldn’t dob on them (because I now had mouth words available to me). I began to realise the ‘rules’ of this new environment. I could finally use mouth words more reliably and began to speak up little by little. By grade 3, my mother was being called to the school monthly. By grade 6 – weekly to daily, depending on the week/day.
I grew a backbone. I started to realise – I don’t have to be treated this way, and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. I was bullied, ostracised, picked on, pissed off and hurt frequently. By teachers and students. I used to run away from school on a daily basis, but no-one noticed or cared- running was easier than using behaviour to communicate an unmet need and I wasn’t listened to even when I did speak up, so it was simpler to just remove myself.
I was getting A++++++ and they had nothing more to teach me, they wouldn’t extend me and I was bored out of my brain – I was given no reason to stay, so I didn’t. Years later I told my mum I returned home everyday she had dropped me off. It didn’t affect my education at all – because they had already caused my complete disengagement. There’s no point attending if they don’t listen, don’t teach, and don’t even notice you’re missing.
· Secondary school: In Australia, year 7 is the year you have a huge transition to secondary school. It’s scary and I can say that I went straight back to being situationally non-speaking (at times) because of it. Again, it looked like compliance – but it was still disengagement hidden by compliance.
I had run ins with teachers who I identified as problematic and dangerous. I had grown an antenna for abusers, unkind people and people who were doing the wrong thing (dishonest or SA or whatever else) – all due to my experiences before and during primary school. Like my homeroom teacher who I immediately pegged as ‘something being wrong with her’ (two years later she slept with a boy from my sister’s year level and was fired), but I made her life hell for one glorious year.
Unfortunately, I went to an all-girls secondary school, but when I was in year 8, the school joined and went ‘co-ed’ with the boys school (I experienced one full year without the boys, which was weird and very bitchy). I went non-speaking again. But over time I grew back into my ‘bad behaviour’; eg: switching from shutdown to meltdown. The behaviour that was trying to say: “I’m hurting”, “I’m struggling”, “this isn’t meeting my needs”, etc.
My Italian teacher copped the brunt of this, she didn’t deserve it – but they didn’t help either – none of the teachers did – and there were a lot of them since it was a huge school. They didn’t even bother asking or trying to help, they just continued on with punitive measures or ignoring me.
And you can’t say: “but you (I, Heather) should’ve been the one to say something or do something”. Because if you’ve realised by now, by reading my blogs and stories – and especially this one: I’d learnt from a very young age that if you spoke up, you got in trouble, if you tried to change something – you are the problem. If you use behaviour to communicate a need – you will be ignored or punished. I was taught from birth that self-advocating as a child means jack shit! Adults will gaslight you, ignore you and double down. Adults will say you are the problem – because they know you have no power and no one will believe you or listen to you.
By the time I was in VCE (year 11 and 12) I was 1000000012% disengaged (a little trump math for you, hahahahahaha).
I was back to my grade 6 habits…. I didn’t bother turning up most days – there was no point, they weren’t teaching me anything and didn’t bother trying to find out what the issues were. They threatened suspension which made me laugh – A LOT!!! None of it helped. My behaviour was a scream for help, but no one was listening for years and years prior to this. There was no getting me back, because they’d proven to me over and over again that they weren’t interested in teaching, they were only interested in compliance.
My parents were having their own problems and also knew that the school system had failed me in both primary and secondary schools. There was no point in making me go, because they’d totally and utterly failed me.
Ignoring doesn’t make the problem go away. Punishments also don’t make the problem go away – they just force the child further into disengagement.
When a child has a lower or higher IQ, or disabilities etc – the school system actively ignores them, and creates lessons, systems and curriculums that are made for typical brains – not divergent ones. They literally teach to the middle rung in the class.
Think about it – if you are being taught something that is only created for English speakers/readers and you only speak/ read French – you may become angry, disengaged, act out, shutdown or not do the work. This is what is happening in classrooms all over the globe.
Teachers are being taught and told to deliver learning to the ‘average’ brain using ‘average’ lessons built on the idea that there are no differences, no disabilities and that everyone has the same abilities and brains.
So – those children who do not fit into that ‘average’ everything (and let’s be real – that’s actually the majority of children – not the minority). Those children are being failed – so they act out, they try to be heard, try to have their needs met, try to understand – but CAN’T! The teachers often double down and punish them for something out of their control… but something the teachers could control if they pushed back – is ‘the system’. But instead they are pushing back on the parents and the children – who have no way of helping them.
By the time I was disengaged in grade 1, they could’ve fixed it but didn’t. My grade 1 teacher actually tried, but failed because she only tried a band aid solution. I told her the books were boring, and that I was bored with everything she tried/ taught and did. I literally told her the problem and she ignored me. Instead of speaking to the principal and putting me in the higher grade (which was the answer to the problem – as that’s the grade I should’ve been in), she just tried to find more interesting books for me to read. Those books she found weren’t more interesting, weren’t more challenging, and she didn’t extend me in other ways – in maths or any other subject, even though I was ahead of my peers. I just disengaged until my mother took me out of the class before the end of the year because I’d had it. The next year and the next repeated ad nauseum until I graduated year 12. But my disengagement increased and was exacerbated until I wanted to commit suicide. Yes, I was really close by the time year 8 rolled around.
Year 9 sent me a reprieve in the form of getting a job at a local supermarket. I was able to hyperfocus on it instead for a few years. But the boredom and disengagement began a new by the end of year 10 to the point of nearly suicide again in year 12. I was burnt out.
Some would say it sounds weird to have burn out from boredom and understimulation, but I can attest that it can be the worst type of burnout to ever experience. I’ve experienced burn out from many things, like: chronic illness, over working/ hyperfixation to the point of exhaustion, fatigue and depression etc… but disengagement and understimulation I’ve got to say was definitely the worst, because it dragged on for years and years and years – with no way out.
That’s what school can be for ND students. A never-ending torture chamber of disengagement for 12 years. It was for me.
If you’d like to know ways to prevent this, read my book: “Autism the Big Book Set of Help Book 5 Schools and Onward” https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0DB6268PP
Or keep reading my Teaching Teachers Blogs.
If you have a child in your class who is using ‘bad behaviour’ it just might be extreme disengagement. Go talk to them, find out what is going on now, or possibly in the past, and learn. Don’t get defensive about how you teach or what you teach… just listen and learn. Believe them! And try to re-engage them with meaningful solutions, not band aids or lip service.
My life would’ve been a hell of a lot different if someone had done this in school. My parents told the teachers like I did – but they didn’t listen or learn or DO ANYTHING about it. They caused me to be that little shit in the class that disrupted everyone’s learning…. Because in my brain and heart – they deserved it, and I still believe that – because I have so much trauma because of them, I doubt I will ever forgive them, because no one has ever apologised to me, or to my kids for the shit that went down with them too. I’d probably be able to move on if someone did bother to apologise, listen and learn.
Think about that the next time a student is misbehaving –“have they ever had a single adult listen to them or apologise to them”???? And what might that mean to them. I could mean the absolute world to them – like it would to me.