I wasn’t sure if I should say anything here or not, I know how hard it is to speak out without being misread on internet posts. Just to say where I am coming from, I have been working with (as a TA, teacher, counselor, mom, friend, OT) children and adults on the spectrum or with sensory processing disorders for about 30 years. I have a lot of sensory problems myself and I believe that that has made it much easier for me to relate to what many of the kids around me are feeling. I have spent my time with kids who are severly autistic as well as those who are so high functioning that we often argue about whether or not they were disagnosed properly.
It is very hard to be misunderstood and very hard to live with people who don’t understand you. It is also very hard to have no real way to express yourself. I do understand that very well. I have seen kids struggle so hard to say something that it has brought me to tears. I must add tho, that as someone who does everything I can to make life good for these kids, it is very hard to hear them say we are trying to fix them and we don’t accept them for who they are. I think it may sound that way to you, but I don’t think that is what is always happening. I am not sure that people are so mean and unnaccepting, sometimes it may just feel that way. Yes, I know that I don’t live your life and I don’t know your friends, but speaking as someone who has heard those words myself I wanted to tell you that most people are doing the best they can. I think that it is hard to know what people really mean so it sounds like they are being hurtful but they may not be. For example, I think OURtorah’s post was very thoughtful and supportive, I am not sure why it made you so upset but it is possible that these types of misunderstandings happen often.
Without being able to understand how you look to other people, it is hard to know what their response is supposed to mean. That is one of the reasons I work with a group of kids to tell them what their words and behaviors look like to others. For instance, if you sometimes have outbursts, or stim, and want very basic information explained then an outsider might think of those things as little kid behaviors and they may think that speaking to you as a kid is being thoughtful. They don’t know what else to do with that information. Give them the benefit of the doubt, it is VERY hard to interpret many of things that spectrummy kids will do, or people with sensory problems, and the more you can explain the better.
I don’t think people are looking down on you, maybe they are but why would they? Maybe they just need help understanding you. You have to realize that if a kid drools, it is something people can learn to deal with. But when someone breaks the social barriers, acts in unpredictable ways or has unpredictable outbursts, it makes it very hard to “just act natural” around them. It doesn’t mean they aren’t respecting you, it just means that they may not understand what is going thru your head, and you may not understand what is going thru theirs.