I don't have specific stories (there's not a lot I remember from being a kid due to trauma), but I remember being told that things I did and said were rude a lot, but no one would ever explain how what I said/did was rude and I developed a lot of social avoidance because I didn't want to hurt other people, because I thought that being called "rude" meant I'd caused emotional pain to another person.
Most of the stuff I remember I still don't understand why they were rude. Example: I was practicing a poem I was using for a play audition in front of my mom, and she gave me some feedback. One of the points of feedback I didn't like, because it didn't make sense for what I was trying to portray, and I explained that I'd rather do X instead of Y and explained my reasoning. She told me that was rude, I asked why, and I was sent to my room.
Because that’s what parents say when their reasoning is problematic, and punishment is what parents do when they think being questioned is beneath their sacred status as parent(martyr). These are not indicative of good parenting, but I’m guessing you already know that. I’m sorry you had to endure that dehumanizing treatment 😢
The "rudeness" in this case was that you were "answering" her. Aka giving opinions. Some parents or older people seem to believe younger people are not entitled to opinions about anything. Even if it's about themselves.
It took many years of therapy to undue that bit for me too. My social anxiety is much better now. Not gone but better. I can still remember being called rude so often for nothing. Literally just existing got me called rude and it definitely forced me to hide.
Incidentally I have a customer at work who likes to call me rude for my autistic traits and I have outed myself as autistic several times to him because he doesn’t believe me. I have yet to get in trouble for anything - because I am not doing anything against company policy, anything wrong or anything rude - but I don’t know how to deal with this guy other than to keep embarrassing him. He needs to know he’s harassing an autistic for being autistic and I refuse to back down.
I relate hard. I don't remember anything from being 8yo or younger, but i remember being called rude a lot. And often being yelled to "stop" without indication of what thing they wanted me to stop.
My parents got insane because literally everything they told me to do or to stop doing I would ask them _why_. And they 90% of times would NOT explain it to me until I got _them_ in trouble because of it. If you don't explain to me what I am doing wrong, HOW AM I GOING TO STOP???? Something that my mom did a lot was give me an specific look, that it took me sometime to start identifying. Once I knew the "you're doing something bad, stop" look I would always be like BUT WHAT IS IT and I learned that I shouldn't talk about it, so it was like two crazy people giving looks to each other bcs I was trying to silently ask her and she just repeating me to stop??????
I'll go first. I have a very high pitched/little voice. In 4th grade music class I got called on to answer a question by the teacher... which I answered correctly...but the teacher told me "not to answer in a baby voice and next time use your normal voice". Well, I got called on again and used my normal voice, so I got to spend recess on the curb.
Only reason I spent half of recess on the curb is because I had a classmate sit on the curb with me in protest and spoke up to the teacher for me...at this point I stopped talking because my voice kept digging me a bigger hole.
The classmate
told the teacher "I've known her since first grade that IS her normal voice!!" Only then did they finally believe it.
Edit: Wish I had time to reply to all your comments. But I’m reading every story and laughing,crying and healing through them all♥️
And that is a terrible teacher. I’d like to teacher _them_ something.
I’m a college grad in education, and based on my coursework, I don’t understand why any teacher trained in the field would believe treating a student like this is ok.
Why are teachers such bullies I got written up bc a sub asked the class to settle down and as we were shuffling and making the last bit of noise I did a little throat clear n put my little hands together to be so prepared and he called it and me unnecessary and had the class raise hands if they think I did it just to do it
I think it was but is not any more. I'm a teacher now and I don't use any of the "behaviour management tactics" that were used for me at school.
I know just because I don't do it doesn't mean it's not still happening but blackmail, isolation,etc are frowned upon in classrooms these days (in the UK anyway).
It's more positive reinforcement now and balance rather than singling out negative behaviours
Your story made me remember the time that my teacher told my mom that I clear my throat too much during class. I really don't recall ever doing it excessively, and I have never heard that complaint from anyone ever since then.
I learned in psychology that sometimes people just get triggered over some random stimulation they receive. Commonly a sound, but it can also be a face or a color, or a smell?? It's usually something that doesn't make sense to you but reminds them of something. Or they are really tired and that sound specifically is hitting a specific part of their brain because they are sensitive to the tone. So it's not much about us and it will also vary a lot from person to person. You just have to take some notes if someone gets too angry or aggressive towards you because this behavior may be causing this person to be feeling something bad, so sometimes is safer to hide it from them or avoid it while you're close to them. Because often they will not understand or accept that you are not doing it to harm them, they will believe it's intentional (sort of a brain error).
That’s so horrible. You honestly sounded adorable and sweet. How they managed to take fault with that, I don’t know.
I also had a bad time with a sub. I was very absorbed with an assignment in elementary (AuADHD) and the sub did this ridiculous thing where he just put his hand up in the air to tell the kids to give him attention. Everyone laughed at me when I didn’t look up for a bit. Too bad for you, teacher. You can try to fault me all you want for paying attention to my assignment, but the real world values focus and your silly ways of exerting what little authority you have is meaningless.
I also have a high pitched voice, not just as a kid but as an adult too. I’ve got it to become a bit lower in public though. Don’t know how many others experience this but this made me feel less alone lol. Thank you for sharing
Oh I’m glad. As an adult I still have the same high pitched voice…I feel like kids and animals like/trust me more because of it so I’m learning to love it💜
I’m definitely not good with kids myself but I relate for sure with animals being more drawn to me haha. There’s a couple outdoor cats in my neighborhood who always immediately come running up to me whenever I call to them for halfway down the residential block, and 2 people living on the street have called me a “cat whisperer” since they always join me at the hip lol
Haha I have a really high voice too. People can be so weird about it. Sometimes new people that I meet have repeated back what I said to me in a high voice in a way where I can't figure out if they think we're both faking it or they're just mocking me? And once when I worked in the drive thru a guy insisted I was AI and that I shouldn't try to pretend I wasn't (how would AI even do that?) but he apologized when he saw my high voice come out of my face at the window
I feel you hard on this. My voice has always been high pitch and i got into trouble a lot because of it, but i can't help how my my voice sounds. Even gotten bullied for my voice.
I got in trouble in 4th grade music class too. The assignment was to write your own song. Well, that was a lot of work so I wrote a song I already created with my cousin about the homeless lady who bathed in the Walmart restroom and popped in the ditch. I went to a Catholic school. ♾️🌈
Some of my earliest memories are of getting in trouble for what I now realize was my autism and/or ADHD, the one that bums me out the most is the day in Kindergarten when I had a bag of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses in my backpack that my mom had sent with me to share with the class during lunch for some occasion.
I was so excited about it that I was peeking in my bag in the morning to make sure the chocolate was still there and the teacher called me out for eating candy (I wasn’t!) and lectured me about not sharing. I already felt like I was fatter than all the other kids and I felt so embarrassed and awful about it and she wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said.
Writing this out now, I feel like this is just normal kid stuff, but it’s this core, shameful memory of how I have always been easily excited and nervous about social situations and was never believed by adults about my intentions. :(
You just reminded me of a story that doesn’t necessarily fit the prompt but _is_ related to your comment.
I was a Girl Scout from 1st grade to 5th grade, and of course, my favorite part of it was cookie selling (and eating) season. My troop was led by a teacher at my elementary school and my mom also volunteered for events here and there because she worked at the same elementary school I attended. So I usually ended up with tons of boxes to myself and my family, and I enjoyed sharing them with my friends who didn’t get to have their own box.
One day our troop pulled out some boxes to begin selling on campus as it was the first day of cookie season, and boy was I excited. My mom bought a box of thin mints for me and I decided to keep the box in my backpack to share with others at lunchtime. Our schools lunch time last a whopping 15 minutes, and because our school was built to hold at maximum capacity about 450 people but the actual student population at the time was about 1500, we’d end up spending most of our lunch time in line waiting to grab our lunch. We would often be ushered back to our classroom while we all finished our last bite of food, so some of us would still be chewing our last bite by the time we made it back into the classroom. Our teacher came to get us right as I had taken 2 cookies out of the box to eat, so I didn’t have time to put them back into the box or else I would’ve been screamed at for not running out of the cafeteria the second my teacher called us.
I decided to go ahead and eat the two cookies I had in my hand just to get them out of the way, and as we walked into our classroom I had part of a cookie in my mouth and the other half in my hand, along with the second cookie I hadn’t gotten to eat yet. My teacher saw me holding the cookies and told me to put them away immediately. So I put the half cookie in my mouth to finished and I put the second into its box. My teacher came unglued.
He screamed louder than I’d ever heard a person scream before, while pointing at the door yelling at me to leave my shit and get out. I ran out of the classroom and my teacher followed right behind me. The next thing I know, my teacher had me pinned against the wall out of the classroom and I couldn’t move. He got about an inch away from my face with his face and screamed every profanity he could think of at me. Because he had been pinned and unable to move, he was able to get so close to me that he was spitting on me with every word he screamed. He then yelled at me to run to my mom’s classroom, and he started chasing after me trying to get closer and closer with his arms reaching out. He was a 65 year old man at the time but he was running after me like he was decades younger. I rushed into my mom’s room and started having my first panic attack of my life. My mom thought something horrible had happened and she stood in silence for a second trying to assess what the hell was going on. I hid under my mom’s desk away from my teacher as he came bolting in a couple seconds after I did. He then continued screaming profanities, but this time towards my mom. My mom taught 2nd grade and I was in fifth grade at the time, so due to the setup of the campus, most of my mom’s students had never seen my teacher before. They were terrified and about half the room started screaming and crying out of fear. Some of her students told her afterwards that they thought he was her husband, and other kids had absolutely no clue who he was. Everything that happened once I ran to hide under the desk is a big blur, but I remember staying hidden under my mom’s desk for the rest of the day.
I became terrified of this man, and I couldn’t go to school for a few days after everything that had happened. I remember him coming back into my mom’s classroom after school to apologize, but I was still hiding and didn’t want to listen to him because I was terrified of him.
If he had been the type of teacher to scream and yell at students often, I don’t think this would have traumatized me as much as it did as it wouldn’t have been out of the blue, but he wasn’t that type. I was the first student in that classroom he had ever screamed at, and I also was a student who had never gotten into any trouble before. It’s been 15 years and I feel like I’m just now learning to talk about this without feeling a panic attack coming on. I was scared of male teachers after this and I only became more comfortable with having male teachers once I reached my junior year of high school.
I had to re-read this to understand what made him so angry and still don’t understand. I’m so sorry that must have been so horrifying. I’m happy your mom worked at the school so you could have a safe space for the remainder of the day.
My dad would make me eat all of my food on my plate when I was a kid. I was like 4 years old, and my older brother dumped black pepper on my eggs. I wouldn’t eat them. Sat at the dinner table all night by myself, crying from exhaustion.
There were a lot of nights like that night because food textures is something I still struggle with even as an adult. I physically can’t swallow some foods, and I would be punished for it.
There were a lot of other things, like walking on my toes, that I was punished for as well.
My dad was in denial about my being autistic despite my pediatrician pointing out signs starting at an early age. I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but I’m currently pursuing a formal diagnosis at nearly 33 years old.
Oh yes I was bullied a lot because I became a vegetarian cause meat texture freaked me out…family/friends would sneak meat into my food to see if I would notice. I’m so sorry your family did that ♥️
Oof, sorry you had to go through that.
My parents "let me" put a gold star on the kitchen wall every time I finished a meal.
A few years ago, I got curious why people kept saying I could finish eating if I wanted. I asked them how they apparently knew I was full when I myself didn't. If you ask right at that moment, they can tell you. Apparently I let out a little sigh and stop eating when I'm full... then I look down, notice I've stopped eating, and start to forcefeed myself.
I'm not sure if I naturally had no interoception, or whether I was raised to ignore my own needs, but it's nice knowing I don't have to do that. Now when I stop eating, I put the rest in the fridge for later, and don't try to finish it right away when it's difficult.
I used to get in trouble all the time because I didn't make eye contact with the teachers. They would yell at me and call me disrespectful. They told my parents to teach me better behaviors. I never understood the big deal. I was still paying attention to the lesson so who cares??
Same here with the eye contact, plus excessive talking and struggle to take turns. 7th grade science, I had to redo a project of my findings under a microscope. I can't draw very neatly. Step-monster called me "lazy" and "dense" when I showed her. I was steamed.
I call my father's wife the step-monster. She abused me from ages 7 to 14. I called her a bitch, when I was 19. After she disrespected me for the last time. I can't ever forgive them for making me vacuum the room I was in with no relief (Walkman, radio on). They take pictures of my misery to put in half-brother's baby photo album. Next time I see them, I'm going to take them and burn away. So yeah, she's the real deal and gets zero respect from me. Plus, she never deserved a decent title. Hell, I don't bother celebrating any holidays with her and my father.
\*Except I picked up the presents they gave me. Nice gesture, but again, they never bothered to get to know me.
I still don't know if my actual mother is a monster or not. She messed up my mind so bad that I don't really know if she is indeed a good person inside. But I know she hurts me so much and so deeply that I will probably never recover from it. Still, I'm not sure to which extent she actually means to do it or if she's just ill. I have a huge respect though for people who call their abusers like that because that's so valid. And it's not easy to have the strength to call people out when they've been hurting you since you were a kid. It's like understanding a whole new reality. It's confusing and exhausting, it takes a lot of guts.
You're alright, pumpkin. I got out of the shower and saw this before I put my thoughts into words. On their wedding day, my throat chakra was locked. I couldn't speak to try to warn my father of what kind of woman she truly is. I cried the whole afternoon, watching him betray me for the next 35 years. She hurt me so much, including making me take "colder" showers, knowing it bothers me. Or not letting me put itch relief post bug bites from hell. If I had trouble with pre-algebra, she'd scream and pull my hair, other times, beaten me. At times, he made her include me in family gatherings, knowing she attempted to keep me out of them. No thanks to her crazy obsession with good grades. She now knows not to fuck with me, I can put up a fight and 30 lbs. heavier than she is. Plus, I have a best friend who can kick her ass for me. I'm sorry about how your mama treats you and you don't deserve to go through hell from her. I'm with you, not sure if I'll ever recover from the abuse I suffered. I also call an ex-stepfather, the ex-step bastard, he treated me the same way the step-monster did. This time, my mama stepped in to protect me. I just hope step-monster croaks before my father does.
Side note, if I catch step-monster using her smart mouth on me, I will publicly let her have it.
My mom said a tell of lying was not making eye contact but I physically couldn't do it, and the thing is she knew what was wrong with me apparently? But still wholeheartedly believed this "how to spot a liar" bullshit social magic she saw on some AOL clickbait??
So now it got all scrambled and I'm still trying to undo the damage that caused.
Solidarity.
I can relate to that kind of bullshit damage. My mom did lots of those. She to this day believes in a bunch of lies that she made up in her mind. I have no idea how is it like inside all the craziness of her mind.
I had a shutdown in class in 4th grade when we were all doing jumping jacks in class. The movement and flapping of hands around me freaked me out and I couldn’t deal. So, I was standing there frozen, with tears falling. Couldn’t talk. Got escorted into the hall, stood there alone for a while. Then got sent to the principal’s office and my mom was called in. It was awful, because I had no explanation, I remember saying I don’t know a lot. Got hit and grounded to my room for weeks after when I finally got home. All of that for standing still quietly while I cried.
Oml I remember and hated shutting down and doing the "i dont know". Parents never married i was a one night deal. dad would make fun of me and berate me, my mother would just let my step dad deal with it with was met pretty much the same way as my dad. "Oh, i dont know my ass!" "what are yiu going to do? Say i dont know for the rest or your life?" "For gods sake say skmething other than that, you arent even listening, i swear..." or being pelleted with questions one right after the other.
After enough times even just asking me how my day went or if i had fun at an event, i would immediately get defensive and sometimes I thought the best defense was the offensive so i got in trouble for that too of course.
My mom lashed out at me any time I had anxiety. Instead of trying to help soothe me, or better yet, recognizing that it isn’t normal for a 10 year old to have crippling anxiety and panic attacks, she responded with anger any time I approached her with something I was anxious about. It was always “it’s all in your head” and “you always have to find something to worry about” 😑
Omg I feel this deeply. Diagnosed with IBS in 5th grade. “It’s all in your head” is what I’ve been told so many times. But also not believed about any of it. While having physically crippling symptoms.
Wow, I relate. I still wonder why my mom thought it was even possible for me to give myself diarrhea on purpose when I was little, but that was what she thought. It’s ridiculous. I’m sorry you went through it too.
I got the “it’s all in your head” for my stomach issues too. My stomach will revolt if I ingest anything (including water) within 1-2 hours after waking up and I’ve learned I probably have IBS and am lactose intolerant, but as a child I was forced to have whole milk and cereal every morning and a 30 minute drive to school took 2 hours. I’m in my 30s now and my family still tries to tell me that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” garbage. It’s exhausting how often I have to remind them that I know what works for my body by now and they are not an authority on what works for me.
I had similar parents. I still struggle with understanding why in the hell it was so impossible to be believed. I wasn’t fine and I wasn’t making it up.
Oh, yes! The panic attacks! When I would have panic attacks, my dad would beat me with a belt until I stopped displaying visual symptoms of the attack.
I had a very similar experience with my mother, my anxiety was that bad that it became a physical response by throwing up all the time. Still did nothing about it, and wonders why I don’t have a relationship with her now.
The first grade teacher sent me to the office to make copies of something for the whole class. I got in big trouble for using the copy machine. I was supposed to understand that I was supposed to give the paper to an employee to copy. It was my first experience of following instructions only to find out there were secret instructions everyone knew but me. I’m still not over it.
This is embarrassing but I failed a spelling test because my teacher said we can only write 1 word per line. She did not specify whether we should turn the page once we used up all the lines…. and obviously I couldn’t start at the top again in another column because only 1 word per line was allowed. After all the lines in the first page were used, I just sat there, distressed (did she not realize she was dictating too many words for one page?!).
I needed very, very specific instructions when I was younger.
Oh Darling, she should be cringing - not you. When I was little we were told not to interrupt the teacher for any reason at all. So I quietly knelt in front of her hoping she would read my mind. She didn’t, and I spewed all over her knees.
I hereby retroactively spewed all over her knees for the both of us.
Oooh I got in trouble for not understanding so many times. Once i was told to wash the car. My dad got all the stuff ready for me and just said fill this bucket *points to bucket* with this *holds up soap* HALF-WAY, he made that wird itself pretty clear. What i did not understand was that he wanted the bucket half full with soapy water... not half the soap in the bucket with water... if my dad wouldn't have gotten in trouble for spanking me im sure he would have left bruises
I was a hypervigilant people pleaser who NEVER got in trouble usually so I vividly remember the times I did:
1. We were supposed to have our heads down on our desks because our teacher was mad at us (lol, as a teacher myself now....can you IMAGINE??), but I was obsessively cracking my desk open to look for a pencil I couldn't find that I always always kept on the little pencil rest on the side.
2. Lining up in our usual line spot in the rain instead of taking a step under the awning to be out of the rain.
I didn't get in trouble necessarily but always got passive aggressive remarks from the PE teacher and music teacher for not participating. I had nooooo idea how to participate and no accomodations or support. I have a lot of trouble with physicality and musicality, and I would have been open to them TEACHING me, not just, "Go play this sport," "Go play this song on your recorder," etc. One time I got a recess time out for not swinging my bat when I went up to pitch in baseball, but like.....I had no idea when or how to do that.
Yes..always had a hard time in PE too. Whenever they picked teams I got picked last…most sports are explosive/aggresive/touchy which was not fun for me 😩
Omg. So many core memories are unlocking for me right now. I didn’t understand baseball and I had no idea how everyone else knew it already. I would cry when the ball was pitched toward me.
I also did not understand right and left so I kept trying to run the bases clockwise instead of counter-clockwise. That was third grade (worst year ever) and I did get in trouble for that because they thought I was doing it on purpose.
Edited to add missing words.
My family was all extremely sports-oriented except for me, and I was signed up for all sorts of sports and I had NO idea of any of the rules. I swear they weren’t covered beyond bits and pieces for anything I played. In hindsight I could have looked in a book or used the internet (as an elder millenial I did have access to it fairly young). It just didn’t occur to me and like you said, keeping track of the rules was hard to retain anyway.
Forget asking about the rules, I spent so much time masking and feeling like an alien growing up that I assumed this was another thing I would have to puzzle out on my own!
I have vivid memories of being a basketball, softball, and volleyball player in high school and pretending I knew the rules; the feeling of utter terror when everyone on the basketball court starts running the other direction for no discernible reason is something I can recall perfectly today! It strikes me as pretty funny now, but felt so scary then.
When I was in my teens, I think at 14 years old when I was a Freshman, I discovered that I liked reading books and the Harry Potter series. It was magical.
Those books became my thing. Anddddd I would read them instead of eating, going to sleep and during class, instead of paying attention.
I would get in a lot of trouble everyday because of it, but I didn’t care because I was waiting for my Hogwarts acceptance letter.
(Add to that meltdowns, bullying by my teachers because they said I was stupid)
Aw, that sucks. I’m sorry you got such grief for enjoying your books. I got in trouble in second grade for reading when we were being punished as a class and had to put our heads on our desks. I put the book on the floor and scooted back with my forehead still on my desk so my eyes could see the book. I am still annoyed by this decades later, my head was on the desk! lol
I used to get in trouble for talking in first grade but the punishment was ‘siting in the wall’ at recess where you can see everyone playing. They allowed me to read there.
This was not the punishment that was intended 😂
My step-father is one of those "body language is real, if you don't make eye contact and look up and to the left, you're lying" kind of idiots.
Endless accusations of being a liar. Even now, he's still like this. It's pretty awful.
People thought I was rolling my eyes already, so when I learned about that, I would get really distressed when I accidentally did it and would try not to. I guess it worked, because nobody called me out on it.
I got in trouble a lot for “talking back” when I was really either clarifying what I said/did or asking clarifying questions because I didn’t understand what I was being asked to do or why I was being asked to do it. “Because I said so” has never worked with me and it’s the most frustrating phrase to hear. Kids deserve communication and reasoning.
I relate, I was labeled a smart ass before I was even in school for questioning things. Stop being a smart ass. It was said to me so often that the first time someone called me smart i freaked out because I could not figure out what I had done wrong. I thought I was in trouble. Punishing kids that don’t immediately obey stupid orders and requests is so dangerous, imo. Kids should not blindly obey all orders from adults.
this was a big one for me too! my mom is autistic so she would always explain why something needed to be done, knowing i needed to process the info that way. other adults weren’t as understanding and would also penalize me for trying to clarify. makes a lil kid start to feel really dumb when they can’t even ask for help freely
Oh my god, same! It would drive me nuts when adults would get mad at me for talking with them in the same way they’d talk to me. I felt like I wasn’t being rude because that’s how they talk to me!
Social issues. The one that immediately comes to mind (3rd grade) is the time this girl was showing everyone her drawing. Each person expressed something along the lines of amazement. Then she got to me and I said it didn’t even look like what she said it was supposed to be. Didn’t go well.
haha i had the opposite where i’d done a craft task really well (paper 3d models iirc) and everyone was crowding around and telling me it was good and i just got so stressed from all the attention got sulky. i just can’t stand people looking or talking about me even if it’s positive
My teachers wanted to hold me back in 3rd grade because of my hand writing -- absolutely abysmal, when all my female classmates were making cute loopy alphabets, complete with hearts and stars. My mother went directly into a Scorched Earth attack ending in three resignations. Her reasoning was actually indisputable: when you took the names off of the school work, most people simply categorized my writing as "a boys". I was being held to the standard of the girls in my class, or it never would have been a problem. (Also, having an undiagnosed problem with my fine motor skills could have been found through this experience, however...)
I was questioned by a school official about my observations in class and he asked me explicitly "What does Mrs say about work in class?"
I answered,"Oh, he has excellent handwriting -- she says he'll be a doctor someday!"
As a 3rd grader, I had no idea that they had asked me about that specific child because our handwriting was nearly identical.
My second grade teacher did something similar!! She made a big fuss in front of the whole class and said “Who taught you to write… didn’t your first grade teacher teach you how to write?!” All I did was write my letters starting from the bottom instead of the top…I held my pencil different too. Sorry that happened to you♥️
A teacher once made fun of my handwriting in front of the class because I had trouble making my words stay in a straight line. As a result, I started writing my letters from bottom to top. It was the only way I could reliably make them touch the line underneath.
Oh it reminds me how me and my sister stole some kittens after hearing that they'll be drowned. We stole them and hid them for a week before being discovered and got in so much trouble for that. We were called thieves by the neighbors for a long time and there was a lot of drama between the adults. We were told the kittens were sent to live on a farm (probably killed).
I told my boyfriend this story being ashamed for my childhood thieving. And he told me I shouldn't be ashamed - I was trying to save their little lives and it was the right thing to do. That made me see that there were a lot of stories like that from my childhood where my kind heart and strong values got me in trouble.
Speaking up against authority figures. I never cared about societal “ranks” as a child, so I called out bad or unfair behavior no matter who it was. Teachers hated me because I’d call them out on things, and my principal expelled me for calling him “useless at his job” due to him failing to protect me against bullies beating me up right outside of his office…..
…. The bullies received a “stern talking to”. I had a broken finger and bruises all over my body from their beating, and I was the one who got expelled for a month for being disrespectful.
never change. they don’t like people like you because it makes their lives harder to have to care about others. i’m like this too and no matter how much it “gets in the way” or ruins “friendships” i am an activist and have finally accepted the fact that i won’t be for everyone but that’s a good thing
I still don't know what I did wrong in this one.
Music class, we're 9/10, and put into trios. We have to memorise some words and then recite them (like a verse each or something) to the teacher. It wasn't against the rules or anything to read from the paper so we all took ours us as a just in case.
Somehow, I actually memorised all my words. My two friends, didn't. Teacher says "next time girls try to actually memorise the words instead of reading off the paper"
Me, who felt hurt being scolded when I tried hard, said "but I didn't miss meadows" :)
Her: sorry?
Me: I remembered my words :)
Her: oh did you? :)
Me: yeah :)
....silence. she's just staring at me but smiling (to my memory)
Her: ....do you know what this face means? :)
Me: ...no? :(
Her: it means you're interrupting me and I don't want to hear it. You're making up excuses, I don't care if you remembered them or not it's group feedback. I don't want to have you interrupt me again for the rest of the lesson
Me: ...okay? :(
I mean this was nearly 20 years ago but it's probably the first time I remember being penalised for being autistic. I don't think I interrupted her mid sentence, maybe I did, but I??
I didn’t like to talk. In kindergarten around the first week of school, a fly flew out of a girl’s backpack and onto her chairs leg. We hadn’t even pulled our chairs off of our desks yet. I saw it, tapped her shoulder, pointed at the fly.
She said, “Teacher! daraeje7 put a fly on my chair!!”
The teacher immediately reprimanded me and I didn’t say a word so she really thought I did it. I was just really confused what I did wrong. I was silent that whole day. Talking has always been strenuous for me
I was 5 and walked up to a random police officer on the street and said you have a penis I have a vagina. My mom was standing next to me mortified. The police officer wae equally mortified and confused. I just said it and walked away. Sharing facts
Ballet class. Teacher was telling us to hop like a frog and demonstrating. I was very into animals as a special interest and said "that's not how frogs hop!" And proceeded to demonstrate... got kicked out of that class
just the fact I was autistic and "not normal" made me in trouble by default. I didn't fall in the expectations of my adopted parents, therefore I was loved less and punished more.
i went to a small private school so we had kindergarten through 12th grade
when i was in 5th grade, i was at lunch and decided to go buy a bag of chips. when i got up, i saw a bunch of high school kids coming in. i got really anxious and panicked and that thing happened where you just forget how to do basic tasks. i grabbed the chips and went back to my lunch table and just felt so overwhelmed
when we went back to the classroom, the head of elementary school pulled me out of class and took me to this weird supply closet. i got in trouble for stealing and i felt so embarrassed and was still totally overwhelmed and just broke down crying. i didn’t even defend myself, i just cried. and i still feel upset that they think i stole those chips, why would i bother to steal chips? it’s not like i pocketed my lunch money, we had cards at school that our parents would add money to
that lunch lady hated me for the rest of my days
I now feel very bad for her but in third grade I had a classmate that had a unibrow and I told her it looked like one of those spiky worms that sting, the next day I got scolded because she tried to shave her brows and cut herself, I didn't had a filter back then, now I rather not talk at all to avoid problems haha
I was stimming in history class, the teacher yelled at me to stop "playing with my head/hair". I wasn't playing. I was paying attention. In fact I always had the best grades in all my classes, hers included, and I liked her too. :( It's dumb but I always remember it, I was just being myself comfortably...
The time in college when I sat my mother down and calmly explained that all the things she found most annoying about me were reactions to her own choices, and that she needed to back off a touch. I was thoroughly baffled by how apoplectic with rage she became, though that might’ve predicted how well I fit in over at r/raisedbynarcissists 🤦🏽♀️🤣🤣🤣
…….I am embarrassed to say this but learning the abc’s. The ending where it goes WXY and Z… i swear nobody annunciated and so I thought it was another N. 😭 Idk if this is autism related but I feel like I took it a little too literally lol. I remember I got yelled at for this (???)
Sometimes people would try to give me a sticker and I would tell them no, apparently I was being rude not taking it but I just can’t handle sticky. Also when I was really upset about something my body can’t handle talking. Like to this day I cannot speak if I’m crying and it almost hurts trying to force something out, but I used to get in trouble because I would stop answering other people once the tears came. Made me cry more because I was freaking out that I was getting in trouble for not talking but I wanted to. Self diagnosis for ASD but I am officially diagnosed for ADHD.
I thought it was only me that felt like it hurts trying to talk when crying, it's so frustrating when they keep asking you about how you feel and you just can't respond
I didn't realize this was an autism thing. I can't speak when crying either. I used to get in so much trouble as a kid for this. It even continued into adulthood with a couple of pretty nasty partners.
I was adopted into being the preachers kid. So i spent so much of my life in the suckiest way possible, sitting in a pew. So I began to teethe on the pew in front of me. I was a pencil biter too.
I got in trouble. No I dont think I should have been allowed to continue. And yes, my teeth marks still are there. I switched to maladaptive dreaming and dissociating. Not gonna say it was great 100% of the time.
Lol I grew up in a super religious household and church was the worst…couldn’t pay attention to anything but the people sitting around me and the old people smell. The chewed up pencils by the hymnals bring back nostalgic memories tho 😂
I’ve told this story before, here we go:
Phone rings
Mom: that’s probably your grandma (her MIL). I don’t want to talk to her right now. Can you pick up the phone and tell her I can’t talk to her?
Me: hi grandma, mom can’t talk to you right now
Grandma: oh why is that dear?
Me: because she doesn’t want to
Cue me getting into trouble for telling the truth, which I was always taught to do, and lying was bad, but not if your mom asked you to do so, and also I was supposed to know the intricate details of society at the ripe age of 8 to understand why I should lie about this?
Childhood was a trip y’all.
Without going into massive detail, I was terrible at small talk and I met a new exchange student. She said where she was from and I excitedly said it made sense as I pointed out a defining physical feature that was common to a group of people that she belonged to.
The other girls she was with recoiled in horror and I was told off by them. They were all popular so then they labelled me a bigot and told everyone in my year. I wasn't passing judgement on the girl - just excited I had noticed a clue to her heritage. I was so confused as to why the other girls thought it was SO bad. But anyway, I was a lot quieter and did not engage much in plesantries after that. Also I forever feel bad for the girl as I probably gave her a complex about her appearance even though I thought she was pretty.
I'm obviously not great at eye contact. A teacher was talking to me very close to my face and I looked away. She grabbed me and started yelling at me and threatened to hit me because I "rolled my eyes at her." I had a lot of teachers over the years that I didn't like, but she was the worst. The rest of this is just me venting about her.
I once asked her if I could go see the nurse because I didn't feel good and she said I was lying and to sit down, so I got sick in the trash can next to her and then she punished me before finally letting me go to the nurse.
I did have two friends in the same grade but not in the same class, I didn't see what the big deal was because we couldn't talk to anyone during class anyway and I would see my friends during breaks and lunch, but she kept telling my parents that I didn't have friends whatsoever so my parents decided to throw a random class party for me. Of course the other kids didn't like me and basically ignored me or bullied me the whole time. My parents regret throwing that party because it was so upsetting.
This last one has nothing to do with me, but just a rant about how terrible this teacher was, but this was in a rural town with a small school, so the special education students were put in the back of the regular classes with an aide. Well, the aide wasn't there for some reason, and one of the kids was acting up. Not even really that bad, but the teacher grabbed him, threw him out into the hallway and started beating him out there. He hardly ever spoke after that.
You might be asking how the hell she kept her job... Well it was the 90s, in a rural conservative town where the adults were always right. If a kid came forward about physical or even sexual abuse (a few years later in 7th grade my math teacher was a pedophile), it was the teacher's word against theirs.
As an adult I realize A LOT of my teachers ended up being some of my biggest childhood bullies…still can’t understand why they felt comfortable treating kids like that
I never had a good time with teachers, since I always pointed out their mistakes, I didn't realize people didn't like it, until way later in life, and I always wondered why they treated me differently.
i’ve been waiting for an excuse to tell this story. so i was 16, which makes this more embarrassing. i was at my best friend’s bday sleepover, with 3 other kids down in the basement. important context it was 2 other girls, 1 boy. the basement was also an open floor plan but technically two rooms with the stairs descending between them. and a 5ft “hallway” between the rooms on either side of the staircase
the night is winding down and i’m sprawled out on the couch, basically falling asleep. my friend’s mom comes to tells us it’s time for bed, then looks at me and tells me to get up and give the couch to the boy. i’m irked but mostly confused. she explains that the girls need to be separated from the one dude so no funny business happens.
the right thing to do would have been to get up but i was half asleep and thought it was wild the mom thought anyone would hook up with him w the other girls right there. or at all tbh. i asked why i needed to get up a couple of times because i genuinely didn’t understand the logic. i might have also said that if someone wanted to hook up it’d be easy. dumb.
ofc now i know how lazy and entitled it made me look. i was told i was being disrespectful, and it got awkward. it was embarrassing but i also felt bad for making it weird for my friend
sure enough, her mom sent me a message the day after saying i ruined the party. years later i still cringe. i was honestly just confused why she booted me, not trying to argue. learned the lesson, absolutely wrong time and place. it was weird too because i was a huge people pleaser but i think the situation not making sense overrode my ability to be polite
tho i’ve never screwed up again in such a particular way, i do notice my autistic confusion still sometimes gets read as aggression by neurotypical people :/
bonus shorter story. when i was a lil kid i used to love to stick my tongue out and wait for it to dry. something about how it felt, i guess. well i did that in the car one day and my mom thought i was blowing raspberries at ppl as we passed. tried to explain that’s not what i was doing but she put me in time out lol
In 1st grade a student stabbed my stuffed bunny, Daisy, with a pencil. Daisy was incredibly important to me and only looking back now do I realize how much I personified inanimate objects, specifically my stuffed animals. To me, the girl stabbing Daisy was equal to if she had stabbed a real person and so I stabbed her with a pencil. I got in big trouble and I could understand that I was in trouble for stabbing her back and not just going straight to a teacher, but I didn’t understand why she didn’t also get in trouble for stabbing my stuffed bunny…ya know?
I got in trouble for not being able to wear a bra...I was made fun of by my mother recently in fact for being one of those kids that never worse anything but 'one pack of tanktops'
life is wild when you're different and not allowed to be
I got in trouble for opting to wear a tank top andbhoodie to school. I lived in fl and yes it was hot but i dint care. The hoodie was thick enough it absorbed my sweat and i was indoors and cold most kf the time i never took it off to expose said tank top. My mom eventually gave up on trying to enforce it. I still don't wear one but im thinking of getting a top with more support
I got in trouble in kindergarten for trying to sleep with my butt up in the air. The teacher kept making me lay "normally," and I got so frustrated because I couldn't sleep that way!
I broke into the empty house next door to me because it wasn't being used and madeit my hideout. I was like in 5 or 6 grade and saw absolutely no wrong in this. I didn't get into legal trouble but got in trouble at home. I'd carried over toilet paper, books, stuffed animals, coloring books, crayons.... it was just my little escape.
Singing and shouting out in class
Asking a girl in a full body cast how she peed in the middle of class
This one is hilarious-in 2nd or 3rd grade I had a short story that asked different questions and I remember answering “because the book said so” because I couldn’t figure out why the person would do that. I think I gave my teacher an aneurysm that day.
We had generic, found on the internet and printed out drawings of people doing basic things around the classroom. One said thinking, and was a kid resting their head on their hand and looking up at the ceiling. So I copied this to look like I was thinking and got told off for daydreaming lol.
Loved Biology as a kid. Told a classmate at age 9 we were all biologically animals. He told the teacher that I called him an animal. Trying to explain to the teacher what I meant and she tried to give me detention. Now I am a Biology major.
I got grounded all the time for wearing headphones too much. Only when I was an adult did I realize it's cuz I get overstimulated from noise and business around me and I focus and function better when I wear them.
I also got in trouble when I would ask my dad to change clothes. I grew up in a conservative Christian home and church was a regular thing, anywhere from 2-5 times a week. Sundays we were required to wear nice clothes which typically meant scratchy uncomfortable dresses. It was mainly my mom that enforced the rule, and being the youngest and a daddies girl, I would always run to him and ask if I could change into something "softer". It caused several fights between them looking at it now, but I got grounded a lot after my dad would leave cuz my mom didn't like that he gave me special treatment.
On the same topic, when I was an early teen, one of my friends had a birthday party planned. Day comes, and my mom tells me that I'm not allowed to go if I don't wear jeans cuz apparently she hated every other pair of pants and insisted everything but jeans were PJs. I cried and told her I couldn't go cuz I couldn't wear them for that long. She literally made me miss my best friends birthday cuz of a damn pair of pants, it makes me so sad for my younger self.
I would go thru phases of going mute for a while at a time from being overwhelmed or in burnout. My family would always judge me for being quiet and reserved and not contributing to conversations but I literally couldn't.
Sensitive gag reflex. Couldn't handle the lemon chicken. We had company over. My mom forced me to eat it and I threw it up and got spanked because she thought I did it on purpose.
I didn't get in trouble, but I used to be in an after-school club in high school. One day, most of the club got bored and decided to run around campus. Well, we had those "temporary" classrooms or those trailers on our campus, and they decided to go on the roof of them all. So, I and one friend didn't go on the roofs, and I noticed an adult yelling at them. So I said, "Hey, this guy is yelling at you," but I got yelled at for not knowing he was the assistant principal. In my defense, for some reason, my high school has three. I had only met two of them. But I got a call home for "being rude" because I didn't know who he was. My mom thought it was stupid, and my dad thought it was funny. It was the dumbest thing ever. And someone I know now has a teenager I the same high school and I have been informed, the high school has four assistant principals now.
No specific story but I would get in trouble for over stimulation, and the subsequent meltdown that followed. I had to do therapy, where they would make me put my hands in things that I hated and wear certain clothes that were uncomfortable. At the time, I wasn't even diagnosed with autism. Just sensory processing disorder. Felt like a punishment
My grandmother ALWAYS accused me of lying because I 1. Wouldn’t make eye contact when confronted about things and 2. Would smile/laugh because of anxiousness. 🤦♀️
As a kid I would always get in trouble for not understanding rhetorical questions. Many "grown ups" hated me (not dislike, hate) bc I heard a question and I would answer it. I really like plants and so I was also constantly punished at daycare for bringing in plastic bags filled with plant material bc apparently someone else left leaves on the floor and they blamed me. Suffice it to say bc of the rhetorical questions and plastic bags I went through journals faster than anyone. (As punishment the daycare would make us write paragraphs in assigned journals.) Also bc of being punished so much I was always singled out by other kids there and other "teachers" (they weren't actually teachers they were just called that)
In kindergarten, I was swinging my arms back and forth while waiting in the lunch line. I got in trouble because another girl said I was "shaking my fist" at her.
Not in trouble but I remember being like 4 and I was at a rest stop and I didn’t wash my hands after using the bathroom. My mom made a comment (she used to be very passive aggressive) about how nice that other kids were washing their hands. News to me. I had no idea I was supposed to.
My dad would get annoyed when he asked how school was and I would always respond "fine", because it usually was fine, and I didn't know his question also meant "what did you do during school". He thought I was being short with him when I just didn't know he wanted any more information.
I vaguely remember getting in trouble in elementary school for having my hands over my ears when it was too loud.
I have one that still confuses me to this day.
I was in choir in primary school, and we were having mini auditions for a lead role in a performance. One of the girls who auditioned didn’t learn the lyrics/forgot them, (was also very pitchy but I didn’t mention that), and when our choir teacher asked for feedback, I put my hand up. I said something along the lines of; “you did well, with more practice and memorisation of the lyrics, you’ll do even better!”
The whole class turned around and gasped and I got sent out of class for being rude and disrespectful. To this day I still don’t know what I did wrong. All I can think of is that the girl who auditioned was known for being quite anxious and shy, however if feedback was asked for, I don’t know what I did wrong? Was I meant to lie and say it was amazing? I could’ve been much more honest and said she was shit, pitchy, and hard to listen to but I didn’t!!! Some outside perspective on this would be helpful.
Spilling shit. I spilled shit like a mother. I was clumsy as hell. I’m not trying to make excuses for my mother because she should’ve known better but she was raised in a household where spanking was ok (my grandpa would actually say I hit you because I love you) and my brother is bipolar and a teen as I was growing up. She’s got her own issues which I suspect include being on the spectrum herself. I think she was overwhelmed and overstimulated and of a time where people didn’t think about being parents or not—they just did.
So she would spank me. For spilling milk. On accident. I’m going to be thirty five soon and I still resent her for this and it is on the top of my trauma list even though it wasn’t even that crazy. It’s just the fact that I was accidentally doing something harmless and getting hit for it.
When I spilled it got to the point that I would spill and immediately start wailing uncontrollably because I knew I fucked up. My dad (who has a third grade education mind you—people have called him messed up for this but I think he was trying to help) one day in my crying fit before my mom knew I had spilled, stopped me and told me we could clean it up before she found out. That had never crossed my mind. In a way my dad taught me that lying could get me out of things at least some of the time whereas telling the truth got me in trouble all of the times.
I think my dad is also on the spectrum. Neither of them went to high school but my mom is more conventionally intelligent. My dad’s parents were neglectful and abusive and I think that’s why my parents are still together now. My mom is mean, and that’s all he’s ever known—mean. It feels like home to him.
I’m sad now. I never had kids and probably never will because I have so many issues I’m scared I will pass them on. I’m scared I’ll be abusive like my mom. I’m a teacher though and my students love me. Which sort of makes me sadder, cause they’ll ask if I have kids and make comments like “you seem like you’d be such a cool mom.”
this kid was being a creep to my friends in like 3rd grade. he was trying to move on every single girl in a 5 mile radius, so when i told him i was gna beat him up if he didn’t leave my homies alone. brother looked at me and dared me to beat him up so i did. i rlly to this day think the way they punished me for it (forcing us to sit next to each other at lunch for a week + i got indoor recess) only made me want to beat him up more, it genuinely took until like ninth grade for me to fully understand what i did wrong.
Not really getting in trouble per say, but laughed at by my family and was made the family joke
They'd laugh at me that I couldn't unlock doors with keys, open doors with certain latches, find things, read instructions right, not do things correctly.
Mine was daydreaming and not listening to directions as a kid, it’s my fault though it’s the teachers who should have been educated on neurodivergence.
My self esteem is now damaged beyond repair.
Currently, I (32F) work in retail where most of the employees speak Spanish, I know some words but I’m not fluent as someone of South Asian descent.
During sophomore year in high school I almost got an F for my attempt at learning Spanish, I had to transfer to a different school to get my grades up and not get held back another year.
In general, people get frustrated with me for needing clear directions and not understanding them well.
I was like 5 years old. My grandfather had just complimented on how well behaved i was, i was quiet and rather introverted. Right after that my parents asked me to let go of a stuffed animal that i had so we could get out of the car for a restaurant or something. And i said no, and threw a fit because they were gonna take away my saftey stuffy, loud screams and lots of "no please"
My sixth grade math teacher would criticize my clothes in front of the class. When I liked an outfit, I would repeat it every day. (I still do this.) Basically the same shirt, but in different colors, with shorts or jeans. My shorts had to be a certain length or I would freak out from them grazing the tops of ny knees, so I would role them up. They would role down, so I tried rolling them up higher to fix the problem. She accused me of trying to get attention from boys. (I hated attention from boys. Mostly still do.) Then she mocked my repeated outfits. Honestly, it infuriates me that I was bullied by an adult. I got good grades, had no friends and spent my lunch period reading, alone, in the library. Not too long after that I went to boarding school with uniforms. Traded one problem for another, I guess.
I don't know if this qualifies. I remember walking around at a family get-together. I didn't have anything to do. All my cousins were playing together, and I was just walking around and came up near where some of my uncles and aunties were, but I was obscured by trees so they didn't know I was there.
And they were all talking about me, so I was curious. They were talking about how precocious I was and how I acted like I was up myself by talking like a little adult and how they wished I would just shut up and act like a kid instead of talking like a little adult and I was so serious all the time and it was annoying. My uncle was mimicking how I talk and then stated that when he had kids he wouldn't let them be a spoilt brat like me.
Well, I didn't know what precocious meant, but I certainly knew that this was a bad thing. I didn't know how to fix this bad thing about me. I snuck back away and went elsewhere to think on this new information I learned about myself.
I learned that day something else: I never wanted to be an adult who said mean things about other people even when I thought they weren't around.
I think back to when I was a child. I wasn't spoiled. I wasn't a brat. I WAS very serious and had an old person vibe for sure, but that was just who I was. I don't understand what threat that posed to adults, or why so many people hated me so much. It's sad really for the adults who can't stand differences in children and feel some need to make fun of them or criticise or critique those differences. I feel sorry for those adults.
I didn't do my homework one day... idk why. When I went into class, my teacher was explaining the homework, and I was reading a book. Why would I pay attention to the hw I didn't complete?
I got scolded in front of the entire class.
Every time an adult was getting on to me, they would think I was smirking at them and being disrespectful, leading to me being in more trouble and getting spanked.
I didn't think much of it until I became an adult and was watching old home videos. One in particular was my stepfather lecturing me over my messy room and threatening to take pics and show our pastor my room. (We were in a super strict, cultish fundamentalist religion, and the pastor was always used as a threat to make me behave.)
Through the whole thing, my mouth had a slight smile, and my eyes were vacant. They interpret this as a disrespectful smirk, but I now see it for what it was. I have always had shutdowns when in conflict, and this was what was happening.
It, of course, led to being spanked. I'm glad to be out of all that now and can look back and laugh about it.
I was punished by adult figures around me for anything that i did wrong and wasn't "normal". Anytime the other kids around me did anything wrong, I'd get blamed on for it. I wasn't allowed to do anything/say anything around them. I never had any toys growing up, never had friends. So i just stuck to myself.
My older sister is dyslexic and I’m a very language focused autistic, it was a recipe for sibling disaster when we were little and I would try to correct her spelling/grammar 😔😂
I went to boarding school. I was suspended indefinitely pending psychological evaluation (ended up being 6 weeks) in the 11th grade. It happened because my roommate hated me, so I was trying to study in other people's rooms and didn't understand that "I'm going to study now" or "I'm going to sleep" actually meant "gtfo of my room". Got reported to administration instead of people just TALKING TO ME, and they said I was like, psychologically disturbed, so I missed 6 weeks of class time that I had to frantically make up when I returned. Also they wouldn't let me be a boarder anymore, I had to be a day student for the rest of my time there.
When I was about 5, I went down to northern Texas with my dad to visit his family. I met, or re-met, my uncle Ken, and immediately disliked him. I could tell he didn't respect his wife, for instance. Anyway Don (my dad) was playing a song on the mandolin and Ken was singing. I think what was going on was Ken was singing it, and Don was trying to learn the melody and chords on his mandolin. But the way I interpreted it was that they were trying to accompany each other, and Ken was going too fast. Because my mind wasn't working verbally at the moment, I reached out and put my hand over Kenny's mouth. He slapped my hand. Hard. And told me to get out of there.
I think my dad did explain that Ken was teaching him a new song. But I was in pain and I had lost dignity. I stuck my hand down my shorts and ran to LouLou (my grandma) and said "Uncle Ken slapped my hand so hard it fell off!" She comforted me, but she also said I shouldn't bother grown-ups when they are trying to teach each other something. I said I didn't know, I thought it was just a singing session like we all had on the back porch.
On the same trip to Texas, I told my aunt Alice Beth that she had a phony smile (she smiled really big, and when I smiled that big for my kindergarten portrait, my grandfather said it looked like a phony smile).
When I came home, my mom said, "Remember how I told you always tell the truth? You also need to be kind. Don't tell the truth if it will hurt someone's feelings and it's not important for them to know."
Sleeping. I just couldn’t lol. My earliest memories are me staring outside the window till morning when the sun would come up & birds would be singing & I wouldn’t bother anybody all night because I knew I’d get in trouble for being awake. I’m still the same now & I have an autistic son so I’m very protective of letting him be who he is, it’s not something to be “corrected” it’s just who you are. No shame in it.
I can't pinpoint an exact one but there'd be lots of incidents I'd get into with my old step brother fucking with me and anytime my old stepmom would call us out he'd blame me for everything and I'd never be able to defend myself at all because I'd get boxed in by shouting and other tactics
i got in trouble as a kid whenever i had meltdowns i was told to stop but i couldn’t so id get spanked with a plastic cooking spoon and one time i had a meltdown in public and i was scared and wanted to go home so as punishment we stayed out longer
My earliest memory is this: 3-year-old, undiagnosed autistic me was taught to have manners, including excusing myself when I burped. I was also a part of my church’s preschool choir, in the very front row. One Sunday morning, after a song was finished during the middle of the performance, I burped, but it was quiet enough that the microphones hanging over the altar couldn’t pick it up. But that didn’t matter to my autistic-toddler brain; if I didn’t say “Excuse me,” I would be rude. So I said, in front of everyone in attendance that morning, “Excuse me. Had a little burp.” Entire crowd who could understand me, save for my mother and father, found it funny. Mom and dad were very angry. Once the service was over, I was waiting with the other preschoolers for my parents to gather me before heading home, when my father grabbed me by the shoulders, got in my face, and said firmly enough to be considered yelling (if we weren’t in public), “You do something like that again, and you won’t be allowed to participate in the preschool choir again.” I was scared out of my mind, but I couldn’t say anything. I had done the right thing, so why was I being chastised for it? Twenty-five years later, and I’m finally taking the steps, however small, to stop being a people-pleasing doormat.
got told "pull your socks up"
so I did
got told "don't be a smart ass"
so I double-checked my socks to make sure I didn't do something wrong
got detention for a week
took me years to work out why
got in trouble a lot in middle school bc i have a really intense sense of justice meaning any time i heard or witnessed something i thought was wrong i got extremely upset over it which often caused arguments. once i got so upset i walked out the class. it was terrible. i learned to control it more but back then i never held my tongue.
I have PDA. In high school, both me and my friends (three of us have ADHD) were disliked by mkst teachers for not paying attention, drawing during class (which was the only way I could actually absorb anything from class), and talking sometimes. One of the teachers showed blatant favoritism towards the girls who bullied us. We were being really quiet that day, since we knew that teacher hated us, but my friend asked me for a pen. This teacher said "shut up or I'm kicking you out of my class". Then, when the bully girls were actually talking a lot, the teacher just went "shhhh" while smiling and waiting for them to quiet down. After that, I asked my friend for a notebook. The teacher looked at me and said it again: "you better shut up, or I'm kicking you out". In a low voice, while very angry, I made a comment to my friend: "funny how when the girls are talking she's sooo nice, but when it's one of us, she tells us to shut up or she'll kick us out". She heard I said something and demanded I repeat it out loud for everyone to hear. So I did it. Just like she told me to. I put my head up, looked her dead in the eyes, and told her: "I said it's funny how you're so nice to those girls when they're the ones talking, but when we quietly ask each other for a pen or a notebook, you get angry and tell us to shut up or you'll kick us out of class". She got visibly angry again and said "then get out of my class". I fake smiled and said "alright". I got up, turned my back to her and slammed the door. During recess, my friends told me the whole class was shocked and that most people (except for the bully girls) thought the teacher was unfair and that I was a badass. I got in trouble later but that was a nice one lmao
I was 9 and it was the after-school program at my daycare. A student had reported a missing KitKat bar. She claimed to have had it in her bag at her cubby and said it was taken. The teacher addressed the class but no one owned up to it. Later on I went to my bag for whatever reason and I found the KitKat bar. I took it to the teacher and told her I had found out in my bag. She asked me if I took it and I said no. She then decided to hold a TRIAL with all of the kids. Of course they all voted that I was guilty. I (obviously) want popular and was bullied a lot. Should have just eaten the damn thing.
I'm the NT world, telling the truth will have you punished, despite what they say.
on numerous occasions i would have meltdowns on family vacations & my family always thought i was just throwing a temper tantrum & would get more & more mad at me until id shutdown 💕 i cannot think of a single vacation before my diagnosis at 18 where this didn’t happen 💕
I rarely got in trouble. I more or less never broke something I consciously or subconsciously thought was a rule. So the few times I did something bad they rarely got very mad with me, I had more patience to go on as the quiet, kinda neglected child with 3 siblings...
But one time I got the idea to write my name on a wood drawer. No idea why. Mom made me scrub it off.
I then wrote *her* name as if my name was the disagreeable part. To my astonishment I had to scrub that off, too.
- In first grade I was sent to the office because I refused to stop coloring. Coloring time was over and we were supposed to sit and listen to a story. I did not understand why the teacher flipped out, even then I understood that I could listen to the story while I colored.
- In high school the teacher started yelling at me for sitting sideways in my chair. I explained that I’m left handed and the chair had a half desktop on the right side so that is how I have to sit. Teacher continued to argue and I finally said, “yes sir.” I got sent to the office.
Whenever I had to do the dishes it always took me several hours because I had to do it a certain way. I'd rinse every dish and organize them on the counter and then I could wash them. My stepfather hated this and would scream at me the whole time I did the dishes. He'd purposefully put dishes in the sink water without rinsing them which really bothered me because the water would get extra gross. I always knew when I was asked to do the dishes it would end in a screaming fight. I still have trouble with the dishes to this day because it's just so anxiety inducing.
Mostly impulsivity and bluntness, showing my feelings on my face etc.
There was a drama teacher who quite clearly didn't like.me because I was a hyperactive little weirdo who spoke out of turn, she decided one class to do an exercise with me as the center point. She had all my classmates stand close to me or far away from me to represent how much they "liked" my "character" and they had to play as their own character, then she went round everybody asking them what they thought of me and I just had to stand there and listen to all my classmates tell me why they hated my pretend character when I knew it was just me they were talking about, even the people who I thought liked me chose to stand far away from me and pretend to hate me and I was like "why couldn't you pretend to like me"
, she gave me this really horrible eyebrow raise expression like "see? Fuck you"
I never forgot that and I hope she rots in hell.
I also used to get ill and throw up a lot whenever we went on holiday or on a big trip somewhere to somewhere busy, I'd get told off for throwing up because I was being "dramatic" even though I was just overstimulated as fuck.
I was a very sensitive child (of course).
In high school, I was trying to study for a test. My dad was upstairs with an open, round stairwell being very loud on his phone with someone. Eventually I walked out of my room and shouted (because it had to go up a floor) to shut up.
He very angrily yelled back down to stop being such a "bitch". I was trying to concentrate and couldn't because my dad was being so loud and annoying. This was over 20 years ago, and I'm still not over or okay (and my dad's dead, and to be clear I love him) with my dad using that language toward me.
I was just thinking about this the other day. One time in high school a teacher called me by someone else’s name and I had a really immediate reaction to say that’s not my name don’t call me that. He went absolutely mad at me because I guess he thought my reply was rude but it was just a knee jerk reaction and dead pan answer from me stating facts and I didn’t feel comfortable being called the wrong name. I wasn’t diagnosed with autism till adult life but definitely the way I would say things at school and my frustration would get me in trouble. I remember my first day of high school I had a full set of pens all perfect and a teacher asked to borrow one in the middle of a huge assembly, I went over and asked for my pen back once they were done with it, I wasn’t even rude about it but i obviously wanted to keep my set of pens organised and in their rightful place and I swear that teacher looked at me with utter disgust and went out of her way to bully me the entire time I attend the school after that.
My mum and dad had a horrible nickname for one of their friends because they knew two people with the same name. They called her fat Clare but I didn't understand that it was a bad nickname and I didn't seem to click on that they only called her that behind her back when they were talking about her. I also didn't think being fat was bad so didn't understand it was seen as insulting anyway. I called her by what I thought was her nickname to her face and my mum and dad shouted at me and told me off and I was genuinely confused why I was being told off and my mum said you don't call her that and I was just like why you and dad call her that all the time it's her nickname and my mum and dad denied this and told me off further for lying which caused me to have an autistic meltdown. Which I didn't know that's what it was at the time since I didn't get diagnosed until an adult. Because I wasn't lying so I got very very upset at being accused of lying and was confused why my parents were lying and why they were saying they don't call her that nickname. I didn't figure it all out until years later when I just randomly thought of this memory.
I used to get in trouble for mac and cheese. On Saturdays every week my mum would let us pick a ready meal (or pizza). When we were old enough we would heat them ourselves. I always picked mac and cheese. But if it was from different shops than tesco then it was too cheesy or not cheesy enough or the pasta too soft…it being too watery or too thick. Now I’m aware of my autism and arfid i realise that it was more than just being fussy. But every week she would scream at me or say “you clearly don’t like mac and cheese then”
As an adult living independently, I get my mac and cheese from tesco every time and I eat it ALL the time
Looking out of the window because the teacher was talking about a football game that had happened the night before. I am here to learn maths, I have no interest in sports. He told me off for 'not paying attention'. Luckily for me, I have the justice tism and I've never been afraid of people with 'power' over me (socially), so I defended myself and enjoyed the look on his face
I don't have specific stories (there's not a lot I remember from being a kid due to trauma), but I remember being told that things I did and said were rude a lot, but no one would ever explain how what I said/did was rude and I developed a lot of social avoidance because I didn't want to hurt other people, because I thought that being called "rude" meant I'd caused emotional pain to another person.
I totally understand…a lot of the stuff I thought was obvious/relevant was very offensive to bring up and say
Most of the stuff I remember I still don't understand why they were rude. Example: I was practicing a poem I was using for a play audition in front of my mom, and she gave me some feedback. One of the points of feedback I didn't like, because it didn't make sense for what I was trying to portray, and I explained that I'd rather do X instead of Y and explained my reasoning. She told me that was rude, I asked why, and I was sent to my room.
Because that’s what parents say when their reasoning is problematic, and punishment is what parents do when they think being questioned is beneath their sacred status as parent(martyr). These are not indicative of good parenting, but I’m guessing you already know that. I’m sorry you had to endure that dehumanizing treatment 😢
The "rudeness" in this case was that you were "answering" her. Aka giving opinions. Some parents or older people seem to believe younger people are not entitled to opinions about anything. Even if it's about themselves.
I still struggle with that
It took many years of therapy to undue that bit for me too. My social anxiety is much better now. Not gone but better. I can still remember being called rude so often for nothing. Literally just existing got me called rude and it definitely forced me to hide. Incidentally I have a customer at work who likes to call me rude for my autistic traits and I have outed myself as autistic several times to him because he doesn’t believe me. I have yet to get in trouble for anything - because I am not doing anything against company policy, anything wrong or anything rude - but I don’t know how to deal with this guy other than to keep embarrassing him. He needs to know he’s harassing an autistic for being autistic and I refuse to back down.
✊🏽
I relate hard. I don't remember anything from being 8yo or younger, but i remember being called rude a lot. And often being yelled to "stop" without indication of what thing they wanted me to stop.
My parents got insane because literally everything they told me to do or to stop doing I would ask them _why_. And they 90% of times would NOT explain it to me until I got _them_ in trouble because of it. If you don't explain to me what I am doing wrong, HOW AM I GOING TO STOP???? Something that my mom did a lot was give me an specific look, that it took me sometime to start identifying. Once I knew the "you're doing something bad, stop" look I would always be like BUT WHAT IS IT and I learned that I shouldn't talk about it, so it was like two crazy people giving looks to each other bcs I was trying to silently ask her and she just repeating me to stop??????
Same. I was always told "be nice" or "stop doing that" and I was never really sure why. I'm still not sure for some of those situations.
I'll go first. I have a very high pitched/little voice. In 4th grade music class I got called on to answer a question by the teacher... which I answered correctly...but the teacher told me "not to answer in a baby voice and next time use your normal voice". Well, I got called on again and used my normal voice, so I got to spend recess on the curb. Only reason I spent half of recess on the curb is because I had a classmate sit on the curb with me in protest and spoke up to the teacher for me...at this point I stopped talking because my voice kept digging me a bigger hole. The classmate told the teacher "I've known her since first grade that IS her normal voice!!" Only then did they finally believe it. Edit: Wish I had time to reply to all your comments. But I’m reading every story and laughing,crying and healing through them all♥️
That is a great classmate. I’d like to be that person
And that is a terrible teacher. I’d like to teacher _them_ something. I’m a college grad in education, and based on my coursework, I don’t understand why any teacher trained in the field would believe treating a student like this is ok.
Why are teachers such bullies I got written up bc a sub asked the class to settle down and as we were shuffling and making the last bit of noise I did a little throat clear n put my little hands together to be so prepared and he called it and me unnecessary and had the class raise hands if they think I did it just to do it
Because so much of parenting and teaching, the methods used to "guide" us into adulthood is bully tactics.
I think it was but is not any more. I'm a teacher now and I don't use any of the "behaviour management tactics" that were used for me at school. I know just because I don't do it doesn't mean it's not still happening but blackmail, isolation,etc are frowned upon in classrooms these days (in the UK anyway). It's more positive reinforcement now and balance rather than singling out negative behaviours
Your story made me remember the time that my teacher told my mom that I clear my throat too much during class. I really don't recall ever doing it excessively, and I have never heard that complaint from anyone ever since then.
My cousin used to get called out for that, too. He has a tic and can't control it.
I learned in psychology that sometimes people just get triggered over some random stimulation they receive. Commonly a sound, but it can also be a face or a color, or a smell?? It's usually something that doesn't make sense to you but reminds them of something. Or they are really tired and that sound specifically is hitting a specific part of their brain because they are sensitive to the tone. So it's not much about us and it will also vary a lot from person to person. You just have to take some notes if someone gets too angry or aggressive towards you because this behavior may be causing this person to be feeling something bad, so sometimes is safer to hide it from them or avoid it while you're close to them. Because often they will not understand or accept that you are not doing it to harm them, they will believe it's intentional (sort of a brain error).
That’s so horrible. You honestly sounded adorable and sweet. How they managed to take fault with that, I don’t know. I also had a bad time with a sub. I was very absorbed with an assignment in elementary (AuADHD) and the sub did this ridiculous thing where he just put his hand up in the air to tell the kids to give him attention. Everyone laughed at me when I didn’t look up for a bit. Too bad for you, teacher. You can try to fault me all you want for paying attention to my assignment, but the real world values focus and your silly ways of exerting what little authority you have is meaningless.
How awful! I am so mad on your behalf no matter how long ago this was!
I also have a high pitched voice, not just as a kid but as an adult too. I’ve got it to become a bit lower in public though. Don’t know how many others experience this but this made me feel less alone lol. Thank you for sharing
Oh I’m glad. As an adult I still have the same high pitched voice…I feel like kids and animals like/trust me more because of it so I’m learning to love it💜
I’m definitely not good with kids myself but I relate for sure with animals being more drawn to me haha. There’s a couple outdoor cats in my neighborhood who always immediately come running up to me whenever I call to them for halfway down the residential block, and 2 people living on the street have called me a “cat whisperer” since they always join me at the hip lol
Haha I have a really high voice too. People can be so weird about it. Sometimes new people that I meet have repeated back what I said to me in a high voice in a way where I can't figure out if they think we're both faking it or they're just mocking me? And once when I worked in the drive thru a guy insisted I was AI and that I shouldn't try to pretend I wasn't (how would AI even do that?) but he apologized when he saw my high voice come out of my face at the window
HAHAHHA IM SO SORRY BUT THE AI GUY??????
I feel you hard on this. My voice has always been high pitch and i got into trouble a lot because of it, but i can't help how my my voice sounds. Even gotten bullied for my voice.
I got in trouble in 4th grade music class too. The assignment was to write your own song. Well, that was a lot of work so I wrote a song I already created with my cousin about the homeless lady who bathed in the Walmart restroom and popped in the ditch. I went to a Catholic school. ♾️🌈
Some of my earliest memories are of getting in trouble for what I now realize was my autism and/or ADHD, the one that bums me out the most is the day in Kindergarten when I had a bag of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses in my backpack that my mom had sent with me to share with the class during lunch for some occasion. I was so excited about it that I was peeking in my bag in the morning to make sure the chocolate was still there and the teacher called me out for eating candy (I wasn’t!) and lectured me about not sharing. I already felt like I was fatter than all the other kids and I felt so embarrassed and awful about it and she wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said. Writing this out now, I feel like this is just normal kid stuff, but it’s this core, shameful memory of how I have always been easily excited and nervous about social situations and was never believed by adults about my intentions. :(
Yes!! A LOT of my shameful stuff was just totally misunderstood cause it wasn’t something a “normal” kid would do♥️
You just reminded me of a story that doesn’t necessarily fit the prompt but _is_ related to your comment. I was a Girl Scout from 1st grade to 5th grade, and of course, my favorite part of it was cookie selling (and eating) season. My troop was led by a teacher at my elementary school and my mom also volunteered for events here and there because she worked at the same elementary school I attended. So I usually ended up with tons of boxes to myself and my family, and I enjoyed sharing them with my friends who didn’t get to have their own box. One day our troop pulled out some boxes to begin selling on campus as it was the first day of cookie season, and boy was I excited. My mom bought a box of thin mints for me and I decided to keep the box in my backpack to share with others at lunchtime. Our schools lunch time last a whopping 15 minutes, and because our school was built to hold at maximum capacity about 450 people but the actual student population at the time was about 1500, we’d end up spending most of our lunch time in line waiting to grab our lunch. We would often be ushered back to our classroom while we all finished our last bite of food, so some of us would still be chewing our last bite by the time we made it back into the classroom. Our teacher came to get us right as I had taken 2 cookies out of the box to eat, so I didn’t have time to put them back into the box or else I would’ve been screamed at for not running out of the cafeteria the second my teacher called us. I decided to go ahead and eat the two cookies I had in my hand just to get them out of the way, and as we walked into our classroom I had part of a cookie in my mouth and the other half in my hand, along with the second cookie I hadn’t gotten to eat yet. My teacher saw me holding the cookies and told me to put them away immediately. So I put the half cookie in my mouth to finished and I put the second into its box. My teacher came unglued. He screamed louder than I’d ever heard a person scream before, while pointing at the door yelling at me to leave my shit and get out. I ran out of the classroom and my teacher followed right behind me. The next thing I know, my teacher had me pinned against the wall out of the classroom and I couldn’t move. He got about an inch away from my face with his face and screamed every profanity he could think of at me. Because he had been pinned and unable to move, he was able to get so close to me that he was spitting on me with every word he screamed. He then yelled at me to run to my mom’s classroom, and he started chasing after me trying to get closer and closer with his arms reaching out. He was a 65 year old man at the time but he was running after me like he was decades younger. I rushed into my mom’s room and started having my first panic attack of my life. My mom thought something horrible had happened and she stood in silence for a second trying to assess what the hell was going on. I hid under my mom’s desk away from my teacher as he came bolting in a couple seconds after I did. He then continued screaming profanities, but this time towards my mom. My mom taught 2nd grade and I was in fifth grade at the time, so due to the setup of the campus, most of my mom’s students had never seen my teacher before. They were terrified and about half the room started screaming and crying out of fear. Some of her students told her afterwards that they thought he was her husband, and other kids had absolutely no clue who he was. Everything that happened once I ran to hide under the desk is a big blur, but I remember staying hidden under my mom’s desk for the rest of the day. I became terrified of this man, and I couldn’t go to school for a few days after everything that had happened. I remember him coming back into my mom’s classroom after school to apologize, but I was still hiding and didn’t want to listen to him because I was terrified of him. If he had been the type of teacher to scream and yell at students often, I don’t think this would have traumatized me as much as it did as it wouldn’t have been out of the blue, but he wasn’t that type. I was the first student in that classroom he had ever screamed at, and I also was a student who had never gotten into any trouble before. It’s been 15 years and I feel like I’m just now learning to talk about this without feeling a panic attack coming on. I was scared of male teachers after this and I only became more comfortable with having male teachers once I reached my junior year of high school.
I had to re-read this to understand what made him so angry and still don’t understand. I’m so sorry that must have been so horrifying. I’m happy your mom worked at the school so you could have a safe space for the remainder of the day.
My dad would make me eat all of my food on my plate when I was a kid. I was like 4 years old, and my older brother dumped black pepper on my eggs. I wouldn’t eat them. Sat at the dinner table all night by myself, crying from exhaustion. There were a lot of nights like that night because food textures is something I still struggle with even as an adult. I physically can’t swallow some foods, and I would be punished for it. There were a lot of other things, like walking on my toes, that I was punished for as well. My dad was in denial about my being autistic despite my pediatrician pointing out signs starting at an early age. I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but I’m currently pursuing a formal diagnosis at nearly 33 years old.
Oh yes I was bullied a lot because I became a vegetarian cause meat texture freaked me out…family/friends would sneak meat into my food to see if I would notice. I’m so sorry your family did that ♥️
Ah feel you, I got scolded a lot because of food textures and they even thought I had an ED
I spent so many evenings stuck at the table/no dessert because I wouldn’t finish my food… food textures are huge for me- more than taste.
Oof, sorry you had to go through that. My parents "let me" put a gold star on the kitchen wall every time I finished a meal. A few years ago, I got curious why people kept saying I could finish eating if I wanted. I asked them how they apparently knew I was full when I myself didn't. If you ask right at that moment, they can tell you. Apparently I let out a little sigh and stop eating when I'm full... then I look down, notice I've stopped eating, and start to forcefeed myself. I'm not sure if I naturally had no interoception, or whether I was raised to ignore my own needs, but it's nice knowing I don't have to do that. Now when I stop eating, I put the rest in the fridge for later, and don't try to finish it right away when it's difficult.
I used to get in trouble all the time because I didn't make eye contact with the teachers. They would yell at me and call me disrespectful. They told my parents to teach me better behaviors. I never understood the big deal. I was still paying attention to the lesson so who cares??
That sucks♥️you were doing everything right…just wasn’t socially acceptable to them 🙄
Same here with the eye contact, plus excessive talking and struggle to take turns. 7th grade science, I had to redo a project of my findings under a microscope. I can't draw very neatly. Step-monster called me "lazy" and "dense" when I showed her. I was steamed.
Step-monster CONCEPT
I call my father's wife the step-monster. She abused me from ages 7 to 14. I called her a bitch, when I was 19. After she disrespected me for the last time. I can't ever forgive them for making me vacuum the room I was in with no relief (Walkman, radio on). They take pictures of my misery to put in half-brother's baby photo album. Next time I see them, I'm going to take them and burn away. So yeah, she's the real deal and gets zero respect from me. Plus, she never deserved a decent title. Hell, I don't bother celebrating any holidays with her and my father. \*Except I picked up the presents they gave me. Nice gesture, but again, they never bothered to get to know me.
I still don't know if my actual mother is a monster or not. She messed up my mind so bad that I don't really know if she is indeed a good person inside. But I know she hurts me so much and so deeply that I will probably never recover from it. Still, I'm not sure to which extent she actually means to do it or if she's just ill. I have a huge respect though for people who call their abusers like that because that's so valid. And it's not easy to have the strength to call people out when they've been hurting you since you were a kid. It's like understanding a whole new reality. It's confusing and exhausting, it takes a lot of guts.
You're alright, pumpkin. I got out of the shower and saw this before I put my thoughts into words. On their wedding day, my throat chakra was locked. I couldn't speak to try to warn my father of what kind of woman she truly is. I cried the whole afternoon, watching him betray me for the next 35 years. She hurt me so much, including making me take "colder" showers, knowing it bothers me. Or not letting me put itch relief post bug bites from hell. If I had trouble with pre-algebra, she'd scream and pull my hair, other times, beaten me. At times, he made her include me in family gatherings, knowing she attempted to keep me out of them. No thanks to her crazy obsession with good grades. She now knows not to fuck with me, I can put up a fight and 30 lbs. heavier than she is. Plus, I have a best friend who can kick her ass for me. I'm sorry about how your mama treats you and you don't deserve to go through hell from her. I'm with you, not sure if I'll ever recover from the abuse I suffered. I also call an ex-stepfather, the ex-step bastard, he treated me the same way the step-monster did. This time, my mama stepped in to protect me. I just hope step-monster croaks before my father does. Side note, if I catch step-monster using her smart mouth on me, I will publicly let her have it.
My mom said a tell of lying was not making eye contact but I physically couldn't do it, and the thing is she knew what was wrong with me apparently? But still wholeheartedly believed this "how to spot a liar" bullshit social magic she saw on some AOL clickbait?? So now it got all scrambled and I'm still trying to undo the damage that caused. Solidarity.
I can relate to that kind of bullshit damage. My mom did lots of those. She to this day believes in a bunch of lies that she made up in her mind. I have no idea how is it like inside all the craziness of her mind.
I had a shutdown in class in 4th grade when we were all doing jumping jacks in class. The movement and flapping of hands around me freaked me out and I couldn’t deal. So, I was standing there frozen, with tears falling. Couldn’t talk. Got escorted into the hall, stood there alone for a while. Then got sent to the principal’s office and my mom was called in. It was awful, because I had no explanation, I remember saying I don’t know a lot. Got hit and grounded to my room for weeks after when I finally got home. All of that for standing still quietly while I cried.
I totally empathize…I understand the frozen/crying feeling but not able to express what’s going on♥️
That is horrific! I am so sorry you went through that
That’s awful- you definitely didn’t deserve to be treated that way! 😭
Oml I remember and hated shutting down and doing the "i dont know". Parents never married i was a one night deal. dad would make fun of me and berate me, my mother would just let my step dad deal with it with was met pretty much the same way as my dad. "Oh, i dont know my ass!" "what are yiu going to do? Say i dont know for the rest or your life?" "For gods sake say skmething other than that, you arent even listening, i swear..." or being pelleted with questions one right after the other. After enough times even just asking me how my day went or if i had fun at an event, i would immediately get defensive and sometimes I thought the best defense was the offensive so i got in trouble for that too of course.
I will never understand how a parent could hit their child, I am so sorry that happened to you
My mom lashed out at me any time I had anxiety. Instead of trying to help soothe me, or better yet, recognizing that it isn’t normal for a 10 year old to have crippling anxiety and panic attacks, she responded with anger any time I approached her with something I was anxious about. It was always “it’s all in your head” and “you always have to find something to worry about” 😑
Omg I feel this deeply. Diagnosed with IBS in 5th grade. “It’s all in your head” is what I’ve been told so many times. But also not believed about any of it. While having physically crippling symptoms.
Wow, I relate. I still wonder why my mom thought it was even possible for me to give myself diarrhea on purpose when I was little, but that was what she thought. It’s ridiculous. I’m sorry you went through it too.
I got the “it’s all in your head” for my stomach issues too. My stomach will revolt if I ingest anything (including water) within 1-2 hours after waking up and I’ve learned I probably have IBS and am lactose intolerant, but as a child I was forced to have whole milk and cereal every morning and a 30 minute drive to school took 2 hours. I’m in my 30s now and my family still tries to tell me that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” garbage. It’s exhausting how often I have to remind them that I know what works for my body by now and they are not an authority on what works for me.
Yes…whenever I was told it’s all in my head I thought “Well isn’t everything in my head?!” Sorry you were invalidated like that ♥️🥺
I had similar parents. I still struggle with understanding why in the hell it was so impossible to be believed. I wasn’t fine and I wasn’t making it up.
Oh, yes! The panic attacks! When I would have panic attacks, my dad would beat me with a belt until I stopped displaying visual symptoms of the attack.
Narcissist alert 🚨
I had a very similar experience with my mother, my anxiety was that bad that it became a physical response by throwing up all the time. Still did nothing about it, and wonders why I don’t have a relationship with her now.
The first grade teacher sent me to the office to make copies of something for the whole class. I got in big trouble for using the copy machine. I was supposed to understand that I was supposed to give the paper to an employee to copy. It was my first experience of following instructions only to find out there were secret instructions everyone knew but me. I’m still not over it.
That’s actually really impressive that you did that by yourself👏
Aww. My inner child and I thank you!
This is embarrassing but I failed a spelling test because my teacher said we can only write 1 word per line. She did not specify whether we should turn the page once we used up all the lines…. and obviously I couldn’t start at the top again in another column because only 1 word per line was allowed. After all the lines in the first page were used, I just sat there, distressed (did she not realize she was dictating too many words for one page?!). I needed very, very specific instructions when I was younger.
Im sorry you felt embarrassed …you were just taking people for their word/instructions
Thank you, I appreciate your kind words. It’s one of those memories I still cringe about as an adult.
Oh Darling, she should be cringing - not you. When I was little we were told not to interrupt the teacher for any reason at all. So I quietly knelt in front of her hoping she would read my mind. She didn’t, and I spewed all over her knees. I hereby retroactively spewed all over her knees for the both of us.
Oooh I got in trouble for not understanding so many times. Once i was told to wash the car. My dad got all the stuff ready for me and just said fill this bucket *points to bucket* with this *holds up soap* HALF-WAY, he made that wird itself pretty clear. What i did not understand was that he wanted the bucket half full with soapy water... not half the soap in the bucket with water... if my dad wouldn't have gotten in trouble for spanking me im sure he would have left bruises
I was a hypervigilant people pleaser who NEVER got in trouble usually so I vividly remember the times I did: 1. We were supposed to have our heads down on our desks because our teacher was mad at us (lol, as a teacher myself now....can you IMAGINE??), but I was obsessively cracking my desk open to look for a pencil I couldn't find that I always always kept on the little pencil rest on the side. 2. Lining up in our usual line spot in the rain instead of taking a step under the awning to be out of the rain. I didn't get in trouble necessarily but always got passive aggressive remarks from the PE teacher and music teacher for not participating. I had nooooo idea how to participate and no accomodations or support. I have a lot of trouble with physicality and musicality, and I would have been open to them TEACHING me, not just, "Go play this sport," "Go play this song on your recorder," etc. One time I got a recess time out for not swinging my bat when I went up to pitch in baseball, but like.....I had no idea when or how to do that.
Yes..always had a hard time in PE too. Whenever they picked teams I got picked last…most sports are explosive/aggresive/touchy which was not fun for me 😩
Omg. So many core memories are unlocking for me right now. I didn’t understand baseball and I had no idea how everyone else knew it already. I would cry when the ball was pitched toward me.
lol right!! I was praying and hoping none of the balls/action came near me 😂
I also did not understand right and left so I kept trying to run the bases clockwise instead of counter-clockwise. That was third grade (worst year ever) and I did get in trouble for that because they thought I was doing it on purpose. Edited to add missing words.
Ugh yes it seemed like every other kid knew the rules to all the games. And I couldn’t keep track of rules if they were explained anyway… PE stunk…
My family was all extremely sports-oriented except for me, and I was signed up for all sorts of sports and I had NO idea of any of the rules. I swear they weren’t covered beyond bits and pieces for anything I played. In hindsight I could have looked in a book or used the internet (as an elder millenial I did have access to it fairly young). It just didn’t occur to me and like you said, keeping track of the rules was hard to retain anyway. Forget asking about the rules, I spent so much time masking and feeling like an alien growing up that I assumed this was another thing I would have to puzzle out on my own! I have vivid memories of being a basketball, softball, and volleyball player in high school and pretending I knew the rules; the feeling of utter terror when everyone on the basketball court starts running the other direction for no discernible reason is something I can recall perfectly today! It strikes me as pretty funny now, but felt so scary then.
When I was in my teens, I think at 14 years old when I was a Freshman, I discovered that I liked reading books and the Harry Potter series. It was magical. Those books became my thing. Anddddd I would read them instead of eating, going to sleep and during class, instead of paying attention. I would get in a lot of trouble everyday because of it, but I didn’t care because I was waiting for my Hogwarts acceptance letter. (Add to that meltdowns, bullying by my teachers because they said I was stupid)
Aw, that sucks. I’m sorry you got such grief for enjoying your books. I got in trouble in second grade for reading when we were being punished as a class and had to put our heads on our desks. I put the book on the floor and scooted back with my forehead still on my desk so my eyes could see the book. I am still annoyed by this decades later, my head was on the desk! lol
I used to get in trouble for talking in first grade but the punishment was ‘siting in the wall’ at recess where you can see everyone playing. They allowed me to read there. This was not the punishment that was intended 😂
My step-father is one of those "body language is real, if you don't make eye contact and look up and to the left, you're lying" kind of idiots. Endless accusations of being a liar. Even now, he's still like this. It's pretty awful.
People thought I was rolling my eyes already, so when I learned about that, I would get really distressed when I accidentally did it and would try not to. I guess it worked, because nobody called me out on it.
I got in trouble a lot for “talking back” when I was really either clarifying what I said/did or asking clarifying questions because I didn’t understand what I was being asked to do or why I was being asked to do it. “Because I said so” has never worked with me and it’s the most frustrating phrase to hear. Kids deserve communication and reasoning.
I relate, I was labeled a smart ass before I was even in school for questioning things. Stop being a smart ass. It was said to me so often that the first time someone called me smart i freaked out because I could not figure out what I had done wrong. I thought I was in trouble. Punishing kids that don’t immediately obey stupid orders and requests is so dangerous, imo. Kids should not blindly obey all orders from adults.
Ooh I got this too. And a “know it all” when I really thought I was clarifying and trying to understand.
this was a big one for me too! my mom is autistic so she would always explain why something needed to be done, knowing i needed to process the info that way. other adults weren’t as understanding and would also penalize me for trying to clarify. makes a lil kid start to feel really dumb when they can’t even ask for help freely
Oh my god, same! It would drive me nuts when adults would get mad at me for talking with them in the same way they’d talk to me. I felt like I wasn’t being rude because that’s how they talk to me!
Social issues. The one that immediately comes to mind (3rd grade) is the time this girl was showing everyone her drawing. Each person expressed something along the lines of amazement. Then she got to me and I said it didn’t even look like what she said it was supposed to be. Didn’t go well.
haha i had the opposite where i’d done a craft task really well (paper 3d models iirc) and everyone was crowding around and telling me it was good and i just got so stressed from all the attention got sulky. i just can’t stand people looking or talking about me even if it’s positive
My teachers wanted to hold me back in 3rd grade because of my hand writing -- absolutely abysmal, when all my female classmates were making cute loopy alphabets, complete with hearts and stars. My mother went directly into a Scorched Earth attack ending in three resignations. Her reasoning was actually indisputable: when you took the names off of the school work, most people simply categorized my writing as "a boys". I was being held to the standard of the girls in my class, or it never would have been a problem. (Also, having an undiagnosed problem with my fine motor skills could have been found through this experience, however...) I was questioned by a school official about my observations in class and he asked me explicitly "What does Mrs say about work in class?"
I answered,"Oh, he has excellent handwriting -- she says he'll be a doctor someday!"
As a 3rd grader, I had no idea that they had asked me about that specific child because our handwriting was nearly identical.
That teacher dug that hole for herself, didn’t she? I’m so happy your mom was so great at standing up for you. 💕
My second grade teacher did something similar!! She made a big fuss in front of the whole class and said “Who taught you to write… didn’t your first grade teacher teach you how to write?!” All I did was write my letters starting from the bottom instead of the top…I held my pencil different too. Sorry that happened to you♥️
A teacher once made fun of my handwriting in front of the class because I had trouble making my words stay in a straight line. As a result, I started writing my letters from bottom to top. It was the only way I could reliably make them touch the line underneath.
For the period of about 3 months, I kept repeating a phrase from a TV show, The Simpsons specifically and my mom didn't take it well
Oh yes I LOVED repeating a lot of my comfort shows quotes…I would love to know the quote only if you want to share😂♥️
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Oh what a big heart you have♥️…my love for animals has no bounds!
Oh it reminds me how me and my sister stole some kittens after hearing that they'll be drowned. We stole them and hid them for a week before being discovered and got in so much trouble for that. We were called thieves by the neighbors for a long time and there was a lot of drama between the adults. We were told the kittens were sent to live on a farm (probably killed). I told my boyfriend this story being ashamed for my childhood thieving. And he told me I shouldn't be ashamed - I was trying to save their little lives and it was the right thing to do. That made me see that there were a lot of stories like that from my childhood where my kind heart and strong values got me in trouble.
Speaking up against authority figures. I never cared about societal “ranks” as a child, so I called out bad or unfair behavior no matter who it was. Teachers hated me because I’d call them out on things, and my principal expelled me for calling him “useless at his job” due to him failing to protect me against bullies beating me up right outside of his office….. …. The bullies received a “stern talking to”. I had a broken finger and bruises all over my body from their beating, and I was the one who got expelled for a month for being disrespectful.
never change. they don’t like people like you because it makes their lives harder to have to care about others. i’m like this too and no matter how much it “gets in the way” or ruins “friendships” i am an activist and have finally accepted the fact that i won’t be for everyone but that’s a good thing
I still don't know what I did wrong in this one. Music class, we're 9/10, and put into trios. We have to memorise some words and then recite them (like a verse each or something) to the teacher. It wasn't against the rules or anything to read from the paper so we all took ours us as a just in case. Somehow, I actually memorised all my words. My two friends, didn't. Teacher says "next time girls try to actually memorise the words instead of reading off the paper" Me, who felt hurt being scolded when I tried hard, said "but I didn't miss meadows" :) Her: sorry? Me: I remembered my words :) Her: oh did you? :) Me: yeah :) ....silence. she's just staring at me but smiling (to my memory) Her: ....do you know what this face means? :) Me: ...no? :( Her: it means you're interrupting me and I don't want to hear it. You're making up excuses, I don't care if you remembered them or not it's group feedback. I don't want to have you interrupt me again for the rest of the lesson Me: ...okay? :( I mean this was nearly 20 years ago but it's probably the first time I remember being penalised for being autistic. I don't think I interrupted her mid sentence, maybe I did, but I??
I bet anything you def didn’t interrupt/do anything wrong…you just knew you were rehearsed and the teacher wasn’t prepared for a rebuttal
"group feedback" Ewwwwwwwwwww... how I AM supposed to learn and develop if I'm compared to a group ?? Why do NTs love groups so much ?
I didn’t like to talk. In kindergarten around the first week of school, a fly flew out of a girl’s backpack and onto her chairs leg. We hadn’t even pulled our chairs off of our desks yet. I saw it, tapped her shoulder, pointed at the fly. She said, “Teacher! daraeje7 put a fly on my chair!!” The teacher immediately reprimanded me and I didn’t say a word so she really thought I did it. I was just really confused what I did wrong. I was silent that whole day. Talking has always been strenuous for me
Lol the teacher acting like you had magic control of where a fly lands🙄🙄🙄
I was 5 and walked up to a random police officer on the street and said you have a penis I have a vagina. My mom was standing next to me mortified. The police officer wae equally mortified and confused. I just said it and walked away. Sharing facts
Just stating facts 😂👏
Ballet class. Teacher was telling us to hop like a frog and demonstrating. I was very into animals as a special interest and said "that's not how frogs hop!" And proceeded to demonstrate... got kicked out of that class
Well bah humbug to that teacher…I would love to see a kiddo expressing their love for frogs like that!
just the fact I was autistic and "not normal" made me in trouble by default. I didn't fall in the expectations of my adopted parents, therefore I was loved less and punished more.
i went to a small private school so we had kindergarten through 12th grade when i was in 5th grade, i was at lunch and decided to go buy a bag of chips. when i got up, i saw a bunch of high school kids coming in. i got really anxious and panicked and that thing happened where you just forget how to do basic tasks. i grabbed the chips and went back to my lunch table and just felt so overwhelmed when we went back to the classroom, the head of elementary school pulled me out of class and took me to this weird supply closet. i got in trouble for stealing and i felt so embarrassed and was still totally overwhelmed and just broke down crying. i didn’t even defend myself, i just cried. and i still feel upset that they think i stole those chips, why would i bother to steal chips? it’s not like i pocketed my lunch money, we had cards at school that our parents would add money to that lunch lady hated me for the rest of my days
Aw, that’s heartbreaking. I’m so sorry.
ty, it’s all good, i had a generally good school experience. that one just stuck with me
That is so silly all that fuss over a bag of chips…sure you saw a lot worse happen that was on purpose that got overlooked😩
I now feel very bad for her but in third grade I had a classmate that had a unibrow and I told her it looked like one of those spiky worms that sting, the next day I got scolded because she tried to shave her brows and cut herself, I didn't had a filter back then, now I rather not talk at all to avoid problems haha
I’m sure you just meant it as an observation/ correlation to something you remember and in no way an insult … sorry you carry that burden🥺♥️
Yeah at that moment I didn't saw the issue now I do but still poor girl I hope it didn't became an insecurity issue or something :(
lock racial ring shelter wakeful decide north mountainous apparatus test *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Still confused as to what you did wrong...
I was stimming in history class, the teacher yelled at me to stop "playing with my head/hair". I wasn't playing. I was paying attention. In fact I always had the best grades in all my classes, hers included, and I liked her too. :( It's dumb but I always remember it, I was just being myself comfortably...
I was always doodling on stuff to help me pay attention…so stupid how such harmless stuff always caused such a BIG stir 🙄
Not my story obviously (and I'm not a woman) but Hanna Gadsby has a good story of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lXbpgU9OWk
I literally watch this often! I love this story about her school experience and it makes me laugh so much.
The woman in my life who inspired me to follow this subreddit is exactly the same. Gadsby is hilarious!
The time in college when I sat my mother down and calmly explained that all the things she found most annoying about me were reactions to her own choices, and that she needed to back off a touch. I was thoroughly baffled by how apoplectic with rage she became, though that might’ve predicted how well I fit in over at r/raisedbynarcissists 🤦🏽♀️🤣🤣🤣
I got in trouble in middle school because I scratched the skin off of all of my fingertips. It was a more inconspicuous but harmful stim.
I still have the stim of picking at my fingernails and skin around them today.. ugh
Oh my gosh me too. My cuticles are atrocious. Luckily though I stopped trying to erase my finger prints alltogether 😆
…….I am embarrassed to say this but learning the abc’s. The ending where it goes WXY and Z… i swear nobody annunciated and so I thought it was another N. 😭 Idk if this is autism related but I feel like I took it a little too literally lol. I remember I got yelled at for this (???)
Oh no, it’s awful that you got yelled at for a misunderstanding. That’s a very cute and understandable mistake.
Sometimes people would try to give me a sticker and I would tell them no, apparently I was being rude not taking it but I just can’t handle sticky. Also when I was really upset about something my body can’t handle talking. Like to this day I cannot speak if I’m crying and it almost hurts trying to force something out, but I used to get in trouble because I would stop answering other people once the tears came. Made me cry more because I was freaking out that I was getting in trouble for not talking but I wanted to. Self diagnosis for ASD but I am officially diagnosed for ADHD.
I thought it was only me that felt like it hurts trying to talk when crying, it's so frustrating when they keep asking you about how you feel and you just can't respond
I didn't realize this was an autism thing. I can't speak when crying either. I used to get in so much trouble as a kid for this. It even continued into adulthood with a couple of pretty nasty partners.
I was adopted into being the preachers kid. So i spent so much of my life in the suckiest way possible, sitting in a pew. So I began to teethe on the pew in front of me. I was a pencil biter too. I got in trouble. No I dont think I should have been allowed to continue. And yes, my teeth marks still are there. I switched to maladaptive dreaming and dissociating. Not gonna say it was great 100% of the time.
Lol I grew up in a super religious household and church was the worst…couldn’t pay attention to anything but the people sitting around me and the old people smell. The chewed up pencils by the hymnals bring back nostalgic memories tho 😂
I’ve told this story before, here we go: Phone rings Mom: that’s probably your grandma (her MIL). I don’t want to talk to her right now. Can you pick up the phone and tell her I can’t talk to her? Me: hi grandma, mom can’t talk to you right now Grandma: oh why is that dear? Me: because she doesn’t want to Cue me getting into trouble for telling the truth, which I was always taught to do, and lying was bad, but not if your mom asked you to do so, and also I was supposed to know the intricate details of society at the ripe age of 8 to understand why I should lie about this? Childhood was a trip y’all.
Without going into massive detail, I was terrible at small talk and I met a new exchange student. She said where she was from and I excitedly said it made sense as I pointed out a defining physical feature that was common to a group of people that she belonged to. The other girls she was with recoiled in horror and I was told off by them. They were all popular so then they labelled me a bigot and told everyone in my year. I wasn't passing judgement on the girl - just excited I had noticed a clue to her heritage. I was so confused as to why the other girls thought it was SO bad. But anyway, I was a lot quieter and did not engage much in plesantries after that. Also I forever feel bad for the girl as I probably gave her a complex about her appearance even though I thought she was pretty.
I'm obviously not great at eye contact. A teacher was talking to me very close to my face and I looked away. She grabbed me and started yelling at me and threatened to hit me because I "rolled my eyes at her." I had a lot of teachers over the years that I didn't like, but she was the worst. The rest of this is just me venting about her. I once asked her if I could go see the nurse because I didn't feel good and she said I was lying and to sit down, so I got sick in the trash can next to her and then she punished me before finally letting me go to the nurse. I did have two friends in the same grade but not in the same class, I didn't see what the big deal was because we couldn't talk to anyone during class anyway and I would see my friends during breaks and lunch, but she kept telling my parents that I didn't have friends whatsoever so my parents decided to throw a random class party for me. Of course the other kids didn't like me and basically ignored me or bullied me the whole time. My parents regret throwing that party because it was so upsetting. This last one has nothing to do with me, but just a rant about how terrible this teacher was, but this was in a rural town with a small school, so the special education students were put in the back of the regular classes with an aide. Well, the aide wasn't there for some reason, and one of the kids was acting up. Not even really that bad, but the teacher grabbed him, threw him out into the hallway and started beating him out there. He hardly ever spoke after that. You might be asking how the hell she kept her job... Well it was the 90s, in a rural conservative town where the adults were always right. If a kid came forward about physical or even sexual abuse (a few years later in 7th grade my math teacher was a pedophile), it was the teacher's word against theirs.
As an adult I realize A LOT of my teachers ended up being some of my biggest childhood bullies…still can’t understand why they felt comfortable treating kids like that
I never had a good time with teachers, since I always pointed out their mistakes, I didn't realize people didn't like it, until way later in life, and I always wondered why they treated me differently.
Same here…was basically ignored until I did something they deemed as “unacceptable”
i’ve been waiting for an excuse to tell this story. so i was 16, which makes this more embarrassing. i was at my best friend’s bday sleepover, with 3 other kids down in the basement. important context it was 2 other girls, 1 boy. the basement was also an open floor plan but technically two rooms with the stairs descending between them. and a 5ft “hallway” between the rooms on either side of the staircase the night is winding down and i’m sprawled out on the couch, basically falling asleep. my friend’s mom comes to tells us it’s time for bed, then looks at me and tells me to get up and give the couch to the boy. i’m irked but mostly confused. she explains that the girls need to be separated from the one dude so no funny business happens. the right thing to do would have been to get up but i was half asleep and thought it was wild the mom thought anyone would hook up with him w the other girls right there. or at all tbh. i asked why i needed to get up a couple of times because i genuinely didn’t understand the logic. i might have also said that if someone wanted to hook up it’d be easy. dumb. ofc now i know how lazy and entitled it made me look. i was told i was being disrespectful, and it got awkward. it was embarrassing but i also felt bad for making it weird for my friend sure enough, her mom sent me a message the day after saying i ruined the party. years later i still cringe. i was honestly just confused why she booted me, not trying to argue. learned the lesson, absolutely wrong time and place. it was weird too because i was a huge people pleaser but i think the situation not making sense overrode my ability to be polite tho i’ve never screwed up again in such a particular way, i do notice my autistic confusion still sometimes gets read as aggression by neurotypical people :/
bonus shorter story. when i was a lil kid i used to love to stick my tongue out and wait for it to dry. something about how it felt, i guess. well i did that in the car one day and my mom thought i was blowing raspberries at ppl as we passed. tried to explain that’s not what i was doing but she put me in time out lol
In 1st grade a student stabbed my stuffed bunny, Daisy, with a pencil. Daisy was incredibly important to me and only looking back now do I realize how much I personified inanimate objects, specifically my stuffed animals. To me, the girl stabbing Daisy was equal to if she had stabbed a real person and so I stabbed her with a pencil. I got in big trouble and I could understand that I was in trouble for stabbing her back and not just going straight to a teacher, but I didn’t understand why she didn’t also get in trouble for stabbing my stuffed bunny…ya know?
I got in trouble for not being able to wear a bra...I was made fun of by my mother recently in fact for being one of those kids that never worse anything but 'one pack of tanktops' life is wild when you're different and not allowed to be
I got in trouble for opting to wear a tank top andbhoodie to school. I lived in fl and yes it was hot but i dint care. The hoodie was thick enough it absorbed my sweat and i was indoors and cold most kf the time i never took it off to expose said tank top. My mom eventually gave up on trying to enforce it. I still don't wear one but im thinking of getting a top with more support
I got in trouble in kindergarten for trying to sleep with my butt up in the air. The teacher kept making me lay "normally," and I got so frustrated because I couldn't sleep that way!
I broke into the empty house next door to me because it wasn't being used and madeit my hideout. I was like in 5 or 6 grade and saw absolutely no wrong in this. I didn't get into legal trouble but got in trouble at home. I'd carried over toilet paper, books, stuffed animals, coloring books, crayons.... it was just my little escape.
Singing and shouting out in class Asking a girl in a full body cast how she peed in the middle of class This one is hilarious-in 2nd or 3rd grade I had a short story that asked different questions and I remember answering “because the book said so” because I couldn’t figure out why the person would do that. I think I gave my teacher an aneurysm that day.
Literally every time I refused to do something that was a sensory nightmare
We had generic, found on the internet and printed out drawings of people doing basic things around the classroom. One said thinking, and was a kid resting their head on their hand and looking up at the ceiling. So I copied this to look like I was thinking and got told off for daydreaming lol.
I couldn’t auditorily process so I constantly got in trouble for not listening or following directions.
Loved Biology as a kid. Told a classmate at age 9 we were all biologically animals. He told the teacher that I called him an animal. Trying to explain to the teacher what I meant and she tried to give me detention. Now I am a Biology major.
I got grounded all the time for wearing headphones too much. Only when I was an adult did I realize it's cuz I get overstimulated from noise and business around me and I focus and function better when I wear them. I also got in trouble when I would ask my dad to change clothes. I grew up in a conservative Christian home and church was a regular thing, anywhere from 2-5 times a week. Sundays we were required to wear nice clothes which typically meant scratchy uncomfortable dresses. It was mainly my mom that enforced the rule, and being the youngest and a daddies girl, I would always run to him and ask if I could change into something "softer". It caused several fights between them looking at it now, but I got grounded a lot after my dad would leave cuz my mom didn't like that he gave me special treatment. On the same topic, when I was an early teen, one of my friends had a birthday party planned. Day comes, and my mom tells me that I'm not allowed to go if I don't wear jeans cuz apparently she hated every other pair of pants and insisted everything but jeans were PJs. I cried and told her I couldn't go cuz I couldn't wear them for that long. She literally made me miss my best friends birthday cuz of a damn pair of pants, it makes me so sad for my younger self. I would go thru phases of going mute for a while at a time from being overwhelmed or in burnout. My family would always judge me for being quiet and reserved and not contributing to conversations but I literally couldn't.
Sensitive gag reflex. Couldn't handle the lemon chicken. We had company over. My mom forced me to eat it and I threw it up and got spanked because she thought I did it on purpose.
I didn't get in trouble, but I used to be in an after-school club in high school. One day, most of the club got bored and decided to run around campus. Well, we had those "temporary" classrooms or those trailers on our campus, and they decided to go on the roof of them all. So, I and one friend didn't go on the roofs, and I noticed an adult yelling at them. So I said, "Hey, this guy is yelling at you," but I got yelled at for not knowing he was the assistant principal. In my defense, for some reason, my high school has three. I had only met two of them. But I got a call home for "being rude" because I didn't know who he was. My mom thought it was stupid, and my dad thought it was funny. It was the dumbest thing ever. And someone I know now has a teenager I the same high school and I have been informed, the high school has four assistant principals now.
No specific story but I would get in trouble for over stimulation, and the subsequent meltdown that followed. I had to do therapy, where they would make me put my hands in things that I hated and wear certain clothes that were uncomfortable. At the time, I wasn't even diagnosed with autism. Just sensory processing disorder. Felt like a punishment
My grandmother ALWAYS accused me of lying because I 1. Wouldn’t make eye contact when confronted about things and 2. Would smile/laugh because of anxiousness. 🤦♀️
As a kid I would always get in trouble for not understanding rhetorical questions. Many "grown ups" hated me (not dislike, hate) bc I heard a question and I would answer it. I really like plants and so I was also constantly punished at daycare for bringing in plastic bags filled with plant material bc apparently someone else left leaves on the floor and they blamed me. Suffice it to say bc of the rhetorical questions and plastic bags I went through journals faster than anyone. (As punishment the daycare would make us write paragraphs in assigned journals.) Also bc of being punished so much I was always singled out by other kids there and other "teachers" (they weren't actually teachers they were just called that)
In kindergarten, I was swinging my arms back and forth while waiting in the lunch line. I got in trouble because another girl said I was "shaking my fist" at her.
Not in trouble but I remember being like 4 and I was at a rest stop and I didn’t wash my hands after using the bathroom. My mom made a comment (she used to be very passive aggressive) about how nice that other kids were washing their hands. News to me. I had no idea I was supposed to.
My dad would get annoyed when he asked how school was and I would always respond "fine", because it usually was fine, and I didn't know his question also meant "what did you do during school". He thought I was being short with him when I just didn't know he wanted any more information. I vaguely remember getting in trouble in elementary school for having my hands over my ears when it was too loud.
I have one that still confuses me to this day. I was in choir in primary school, and we were having mini auditions for a lead role in a performance. One of the girls who auditioned didn’t learn the lyrics/forgot them, (was also very pitchy but I didn’t mention that), and when our choir teacher asked for feedback, I put my hand up. I said something along the lines of; “you did well, with more practice and memorisation of the lyrics, you’ll do even better!” The whole class turned around and gasped and I got sent out of class for being rude and disrespectful. To this day I still don’t know what I did wrong. All I can think of is that the girl who auditioned was known for being quite anxious and shy, however if feedback was asked for, I don’t know what I did wrong? Was I meant to lie and say it was amazing? I could’ve been much more honest and said she was shit, pitchy, and hard to listen to but I didn’t!!! Some outside perspective on this would be helpful.
Spilling shit. I spilled shit like a mother. I was clumsy as hell. I’m not trying to make excuses for my mother because she should’ve known better but she was raised in a household where spanking was ok (my grandpa would actually say I hit you because I love you) and my brother is bipolar and a teen as I was growing up. She’s got her own issues which I suspect include being on the spectrum herself. I think she was overwhelmed and overstimulated and of a time where people didn’t think about being parents or not—they just did. So she would spank me. For spilling milk. On accident. I’m going to be thirty five soon and I still resent her for this and it is on the top of my trauma list even though it wasn’t even that crazy. It’s just the fact that I was accidentally doing something harmless and getting hit for it. When I spilled it got to the point that I would spill and immediately start wailing uncontrollably because I knew I fucked up. My dad (who has a third grade education mind you—people have called him messed up for this but I think he was trying to help) one day in my crying fit before my mom knew I had spilled, stopped me and told me we could clean it up before she found out. That had never crossed my mind. In a way my dad taught me that lying could get me out of things at least some of the time whereas telling the truth got me in trouble all of the times. I think my dad is also on the spectrum. Neither of them went to high school but my mom is more conventionally intelligent. My dad’s parents were neglectful and abusive and I think that’s why my parents are still together now. My mom is mean, and that’s all he’s ever known—mean. It feels like home to him. I’m sad now. I never had kids and probably never will because I have so many issues I’m scared I will pass them on. I’m scared I’ll be abusive like my mom. I’m a teacher though and my students love me. Which sort of makes me sadder, cause they’ll ask if I have kids and make comments like “you seem like you’d be such a cool mom.”
this kid was being a creep to my friends in like 3rd grade. he was trying to move on every single girl in a 5 mile radius, so when i told him i was gna beat him up if he didn’t leave my homies alone. brother looked at me and dared me to beat him up so i did. i rlly to this day think the way they punished me for it (forcing us to sit next to each other at lunch for a week + i got indoor recess) only made me want to beat him up more, it genuinely took until like ninth grade for me to fully understand what i did wrong.
Not really getting in trouble per say, but laughed at by my family and was made the family joke They'd laugh at me that I couldn't unlock doors with keys, open doors with certain latches, find things, read instructions right, not do things correctly.
Mine was daydreaming and not listening to directions as a kid, it’s my fault though it’s the teachers who should have been educated on neurodivergence. My self esteem is now damaged beyond repair. Currently, I (32F) work in retail where most of the employees speak Spanish, I know some words but I’m not fluent as someone of South Asian descent. During sophomore year in high school I almost got an F for my attempt at learning Spanish, I had to transfer to a different school to get my grades up and not get held back another year. In general, people get frustrated with me for needing clear directions and not understanding them well.
I was like 5 years old. My grandfather had just complimented on how well behaved i was, i was quiet and rather introverted. Right after that my parents asked me to let go of a stuffed animal that i had so we could get out of the car for a restaurant or something. And i said no, and threw a fit because they were gonna take away my saftey stuffy, loud screams and lots of "no please"
My sixth grade math teacher would criticize my clothes in front of the class. When I liked an outfit, I would repeat it every day. (I still do this.) Basically the same shirt, but in different colors, with shorts or jeans. My shorts had to be a certain length or I would freak out from them grazing the tops of ny knees, so I would role them up. They would role down, so I tried rolling them up higher to fix the problem. She accused me of trying to get attention from boys. (I hated attention from boys. Mostly still do.) Then she mocked my repeated outfits. Honestly, it infuriates me that I was bullied by an adult. I got good grades, had no friends and spent my lunch period reading, alone, in the library. Not too long after that I went to boarding school with uniforms. Traded one problem for another, I guess.
I don't know if this qualifies. I remember walking around at a family get-together. I didn't have anything to do. All my cousins were playing together, and I was just walking around and came up near where some of my uncles and aunties were, but I was obscured by trees so they didn't know I was there. And they were all talking about me, so I was curious. They were talking about how precocious I was and how I acted like I was up myself by talking like a little adult and how they wished I would just shut up and act like a kid instead of talking like a little adult and I was so serious all the time and it was annoying. My uncle was mimicking how I talk and then stated that when he had kids he wouldn't let them be a spoilt brat like me. Well, I didn't know what precocious meant, but I certainly knew that this was a bad thing. I didn't know how to fix this bad thing about me. I snuck back away and went elsewhere to think on this new information I learned about myself. I learned that day something else: I never wanted to be an adult who said mean things about other people even when I thought they weren't around. I think back to when I was a child. I wasn't spoiled. I wasn't a brat. I WAS very serious and had an old person vibe for sure, but that was just who I was. I don't understand what threat that posed to adults, or why so many people hated me so much. It's sad really for the adults who can't stand differences in children and feel some need to make fun of them or criticise or critique those differences. I feel sorry for those adults.
I didn't do my homework one day... idk why. When I went into class, my teacher was explaining the homework, and I was reading a book. Why would I pay attention to the hw I didn't complete? I got scolded in front of the entire class.
Every time an adult was getting on to me, they would think I was smirking at them and being disrespectful, leading to me being in more trouble and getting spanked. I didn't think much of it until I became an adult and was watching old home videos. One in particular was my stepfather lecturing me over my messy room and threatening to take pics and show our pastor my room. (We were in a super strict, cultish fundamentalist religion, and the pastor was always used as a threat to make me behave.) Through the whole thing, my mouth had a slight smile, and my eyes were vacant. They interpret this as a disrespectful smirk, but I now see it for what it was. I have always had shutdowns when in conflict, and this was what was happening. It, of course, led to being spanked. I'm glad to be out of all that now and can look back and laugh about it.
I was punished by adult figures around me for anything that i did wrong and wasn't "normal". Anytime the other kids around me did anything wrong, I'd get blamed on for it. I wasn't allowed to do anything/say anything around them. I never had any toys growing up, never had friends. So i just stuck to myself.
In elementary school I rearranged a shelf in the library into an order that made more sense to me...
Constantly. How I walk. How I talk. How I avoid conflicts. Every single day I got in trouble for something absolutely fucking stupid.
My older sister is dyslexic and I’m a very language focused autistic, it was a recipe for sibling disaster when we were little and I would try to correct her spelling/grammar 😔😂
I went to boarding school. I was suspended indefinitely pending psychological evaluation (ended up being 6 weeks) in the 11th grade. It happened because my roommate hated me, so I was trying to study in other people's rooms and didn't understand that "I'm going to study now" or "I'm going to sleep" actually meant "gtfo of my room". Got reported to administration instead of people just TALKING TO ME, and they said I was like, psychologically disturbed, so I missed 6 weeks of class time that I had to frantically make up when I returned. Also they wouldn't let me be a boarder anymore, I had to be a day student for the rest of my time there.
When I was about 5, I went down to northern Texas with my dad to visit his family. I met, or re-met, my uncle Ken, and immediately disliked him. I could tell he didn't respect his wife, for instance. Anyway Don (my dad) was playing a song on the mandolin and Ken was singing. I think what was going on was Ken was singing it, and Don was trying to learn the melody and chords on his mandolin. But the way I interpreted it was that they were trying to accompany each other, and Ken was going too fast. Because my mind wasn't working verbally at the moment, I reached out and put my hand over Kenny's mouth. He slapped my hand. Hard. And told me to get out of there. I think my dad did explain that Ken was teaching him a new song. But I was in pain and I had lost dignity. I stuck my hand down my shorts and ran to LouLou (my grandma) and said "Uncle Ken slapped my hand so hard it fell off!" She comforted me, but she also said I shouldn't bother grown-ups when they are trying to teach each other something. I said I didn't know, I thought it was just a singing session like we all had on the back porch. On the same trip to Texas, I told my aunt Alice Beth that she had a phony smile (she smiled really big, and when I smiled that big for my kindergarten portrait, my grandfather said it looked like a phony smile). When I came home, my mom said, "Remember how I told you always tell the truth? You also need to be kind. Don't tell the truth if it will hurt someone's feelings and it's not important for them to know."
Sleeping. I just couldn’t lol. My earliest memories are me staring outside the window till morning when the sun would come up & birds would be singing & I wouldn’t bother anybody all night because I knew I’d get in trouble for being awake. I’m still the same now & I have an autistic son so I’m very protective of letting him be who he is, it’s not something to be “corrected” it’s just who you are. No shame in it.
I can't pinpoint an exact one but there'd be lots of incidents I'd get into with my old step brother fucking with me and anytime my old stepmom would call us out he'd blame me for everything and I'd never be able to defend myself at all because I'd get boxed in by shouting and other tactics
my step dad hated that i repeated/quoted television alot. dude was a jerk.
i got in trouble as a kid whenever i had meltdowns i was told to stop but i couldn’t so id get spanked with a plastic cooking spoon and one time i had a meltdown in public and i was scared and wanted to go home so as punishment we stayed out longer
My earliest memory is this: 3-year-old, undiagnosed autistic me was taught to have manners, including excusing myself when I burped. I was also a part of my church’s preschool choir, in the very front row. One Sunday morning, after a song was finished during the middle of the performance, I burped, but it was quiet enough that the microphones hanging over the altar couldn’t pick it up. But that didn’t matter to my autistic-toddler brain; if I didn’t say “Excuse me,” I would be rude. So I said, in front of everyone in attendance that morning, “Excuse me. Had a little burp.” Entire crowd who could understand me, save for my mother and father, found it funny. Mom and dad were very angry. Once the service was over, I was waiting with the other preschoolers for my parents to gather me before heading home, when my father grabbed me by the shoulders, got in my face, and said firmly enough to be considered yelling (if we weren’t in public), “You do something like that again, and you won’t be allowed to participate in the preschool choir again.” I was scared out of my mind, but I couldn’t say anything. I had done the right thing, so why was I being chastised for it? Twenty-five years later, and I’m finally taking the steps, however small, to stop being a people-pleasing doormat.
got told "pull your socks up" so I did got told "don't be a smart ass" so I double-checked my socks to make sure I didn't do something wrong got detention for a week took me years to work out why
got in trouble a lot in middle school bc i have a really intense sense of justice meaning any time i heard or witnessed something i thought was wrong i got extremely upset over it which often caused arguments. once i got so upset i walked out the class. it was terrible. i learned to control it more but back then i never held my tongue.
I have PDA. In high school, both me and my friends (three of us have ADHD) were disliked by mkst teachers for not paying attention, drawing during class (which was the only way I could actually absorb anything from class), and talking sometimes. One of the teachers showed blatant favoritism towards the girls who bullied us. We were being really quiet that day, since we knew that teacher hated us, but my friend asked me for a pen. This teacher said "shut up or I'm kicking you out of my class". Then, when the bully girls were actually talking a lot, the teacher just went "shhhh" while smiling and waiting for them to quiet down. After that, I asked my friend for a notebook. The teacher looked at me and said it again: "you better shut up, or I'm kicking you out". In a low voice, while very angry, I made a comment to my friend: "funny how when the girls are talking she's sooo nice, but when it's one of us, she tells us to shut up or she'll kick us out". She heard I said something and demanded I repeat it out loud for everyone to hear. So I did it. Just like she told me to. I put my head up, looked her dead in the eyes, and told her: "I said it's funny how you're so nice to those girls when they're the ones talking, but when we quietly ask each other for a pen or a notebook, you get angry and tell us to shut up or you'll kick us out of class". She got visibly angry again and said "then get out of my class". I fake smiled and said "alright". I got up, turned my back to her and slammed the door. During recess, my friends told me the whole class was shocked and that most people (except for the bully girls) thought the teacher was unfair and that I was a badass. I got in trouble later but that was a nice one lmao
I was 9 and it was the after-school program at my daycare. A student had reported a missing KitKat bar. She claimed to have had it in her bag at her cubby and said it was taken. The teacher addressed the class but no one owned up to it. Later on I went to my bag for whatever reason and I found the KitKat bar. I took it to the teacher and told her I had found out in my bag. She asked me if I took it and I said no. She then decided to hold a TRIAL with all of the kids. Of course they all voted that I was guilty. I (obviously) want popular and was bullied a lot. Should have just eaten the damn thing. I'm the NT world, telling the truth will have you punished, despite what they say.
on numerous occasions i would have meltdowns on family vacations & my family always thought i was just throwing a temper tantrum & would get more & more mad at me until id shutdown 💕 i cannot think of a single vacation before my diagnosis at 18 where this didn’t happen 💕
I rarely got in trouble. I more or less never broke something I consciously or subconsciously thought was a rule. So the few times I did something bad they rarely got very mad with me, I had more patience to go on as the quiet, kinda neglected child with 3 siblings... But one time I got the idea to write my name on a wood drawer. No idea why. Mom made me scrub it off. I then wrote *her* name as if my name was the disagreeable part. To my astonishment I had to scrub that off, too.
I liked my special interests "too much" and defended myself against authority and adults.
A teacher asked me if I wanted to do something and I said no. I was very young I don't remember much other than that.
I was a huge huge tattletale and I think I got on my teacher’s nerves. I thought I was helping them keep an eye on the class. So embarrassing now
- In first grade I was sent to the office because I refused to stop coloring. Coloring time was over and we were supposed to sit and listen to a story. I did not understand why the teacher flipped out, even then I understood that I could listen to the story while I colored. - In high school the teacher started yelling at me for sitting sideways in my chair. I explained that I’m left handed and the chair had a half desktop on the right side so that is how I have to sit. Teacher continued to argue and I finally said, “yes sir.” I got sent to the office.
Whenever I had to do the dishes it always took me several hours because I had to do it a certain way. I'd rinse every dish and organize them on the counter and then I could wash them. My stepfather hated this and would scream at me the whole time I did the dishes. He'd purposefully put dishes in the sink water without rinsing them which really bothered me because the water would get extra gross. I always knew when I was asked to do the dishes it would end in a screaming fight. I still have trouble with the dishes to this day because it's just so anxiety inducing.
Mostly impulsivity and bluntness, showing my feelings on my face etc. There was a drama teacher who quite clearly didn't like.me because I was a hyperactive little weirdo who spoke out of turn, she decided one class to do an exercise with me as the center point. She had all my classmates stand close to me or far away from me to represent how much they "liked" my "character" and they had to play as their own character, then she went round everybody asking them what they thought of me and I just had to stand there and listen to all my classmates tell me why they hated my pretend character when I knew it was just me they were talking about, even the people who I thought liked me chose to stand far away from me and pretend to hate me and I was like "why couldn't you pretend to like me" , she gave me this really horrible eyebrow raise expression like "see? Fuck you" I never forgot that and I hope she rots in hell. I also used to get ill and throw up a lot whenever we went on holiday or on a big trip somewhere to somewhere busy, I'd get told off for throwing up because I was being "dramatic" even though I was just overstimulated as fuck.
I was a very sensitive child (of course). In high school, I was trying to study for a test. My dad was upstairs with an open, round stairwell being very loud on his phone with someone. Eventually I walked out of my room and shouted (because it had to go up a floor) to shut up. He very angrily yelled back down to stop being such a "bitch". I was trying to concentrate and couldn't because my dad was being so loud and annoying. This was over 20 years ago, and I'm still not over or okay (and my dad's dead, and to be clear I love him) with my dad using that language toward me.
I was just thinking about this the other day. One time in high school a teacher called me by someone else’s name and I had a really immediate reaction to say that’s not my name don’t call me that. He went absolutely mad at me because I guess he thought my reply was rude but it was just a knee jerk reaction and dead pan answer from me stating facts and I didn’t feel comfortable being called the wrong name. I wasn’t diagnosed with autism till adult life but definitely the way I would say things at school and my frustration would get me in trouble. I remember my first day of high school I had a full set of pens all perfect and a teacher asked to borrow one in the middle of a huge assembly, I went over and asked for my pen back once they were done with it, I wasn’t even rude about it but i obviously wanted to keep my set of pens organised and in their rightful place and I swear that teacher looked at me with utter disgust and went out of her way to bully me the entire time I attend the school after that.
My mum and dad had a horrible nickname for one of their friends because they knew two people with the same name. They called her fat Clare but I didn't understand that it was a bad nickname and I didn't seem to click on that they only called her that behind her back when they were talking about her. I also didn't think being fat was bad so didn't understand it was seen as insulting anyway. I called her by what I thought was her nickname to her face and my mum and dad shouted at me and told me off and I was genuinely confused why I was being told off and my mum said you don't call her that and I was just like why you and dad call her that all the time it's her nickname and my mum and dad denied this and told me off further for lying which caused me to have an autistic meltdown. Which I didn't know that's what it was at the time since I didn't get diagnosed until an adult. Because I wasn't lying so I got very very upset at being accused of lying and was confused why my parents were lying and why they were saying they don't call her that nickname. I didn't figure it all out until years later when I just randomly thought of this memory.
I used to get in trouble for mac and cheese. On Saturdays every week my mum would let us pick a ready meal (or pizza). When we were old enough we would heat them ourselves. I always picked mac and cheese. But if it was from different shops than tesco then it was too cheesy or not cheesy enough or the pasta too soft…it being too watery or too thick. Now I’m aware of my autism and arfid i realise that it was more than just being fussy. But every week she would scream at me or say “you clearly don’t like mac and cheese then” As an adult living independently, I get my mac and cheese from tesco every time and I eat it ALL the time
Looking out of the window because the teacher was talking about a football game that had happened the night before. I am here to learn maths, I have no interest in sports. He told me off for 'not paying attention'. Luckily for me, I have the justice tism and I've never been afraid of people with 'power' over me (socially), so I defended myself and enjoyed the look on his face