This is where having a twin worked for me. Until they fucking split us up like assholes! (It helped though, at least for me. I had a friend in elementary)

When I was in first grade, the teacher called everyone by name to line up for recess. Somehow she missed my name. I didn't say anything I just sat because I wasn't called. Then they all went to recess. A little while later the teacher noticed me missing and came back to the classroom to find me crying in my seat.

I pretty much just sat at my desk, spaced out, and disassociated through most of grade school. In first grade I got detention for having a snowball fight, except I never did fight, and I was just picking up the snow to eat it (I was obsessed with eating snow as a kid). I was so confused and after that I felt like I couldn't play or engage with anything, so I began to disengage as well.

It's only recently that I've realized disassociating and disengaging have made me very lonely and are no longer helpful to me and I've started trying to put more effort into socializing, but I'm also not that great at it.

You forgot the part where the other kids pelt you with wood chips

Thankfully no. My school had lot of non asshole kids (I think kids are usually trained to be selfish assholes) who were kind and patient enough to socialize with weirdos (aka undiag autistic kids) like me. They were the reason I developed somewhat functional (though absolutely not 'normal') social life in adulthood. We are still friends, unfortunately we are spread all over the world nowadays cause life.

I think culture matters too, autistic spectrum friends of mine who went to US schools tend so say having very different experience. Opposite anecdotes were from kids in asia.

Guess I got lucky. Our primary school library was open at break times and even though the librarian was a bit cranky she let me read all the Asterix and Tintin books I wanted.

My primary school had bolted some tractor tyres on their sides to springs and placed them in the play area.

They were nice and warm in the sunshine so I would curl up inside them and rest.

I was somewhat of a loner.

You fucks are making me think I'm autistic

i would walk around in big circles, which coincided with the walking pattern of the surveillants (or whatvere you call the in english), so we started talking.

this did not help beating the "teacher's pet" allegations.

i read Wikipedia.

so

much

wikipedia

my grandma used to call me "el wikipedio" sbsbahb lol.

Altough i was diagnosed.

"Why aren't you out playing sports???"

I heard it many times.

Or just any unpopular kid

At school? How about now?

There are several peer-reviewed studies that show neurotypicals rate even just the TRANSCRIPT of autistic people's speech as 30% less favorable across all social classes and segments.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5286449/

And worst of all: the subjects couldn't even tell why they did it, they literally hate us instinctively.

It got better as you figured out how to mask. But it never got all the way better because you didn’t know why you had to act differently than you felt.

Also as the undiagnosed suicidally depressed kid.

It was a lot better when they opened up a PC club and I could start installing Linux on things.

Nice pair of jeans, though..

I just sat under tree. Just waiting. My God i hated the waiting.

Fully

You had swings?!

Hey, btw did that one random kid who showed up and tried to be friends with you help? I have an autistic sister and knew other autistic kids as well growing up and i always tried to include everyone in my recess activities and friend group so nobody would feel left out. Hope others also had friends like this or were the friends themselves. At least i know i made some peoples days better. Its a long road to get people to tolerate each other but a worthwhile one.

Didn't have any friends until I was about 9 and moved school, so until then I'd usually spend yard time playing with the skipping ropes in the corner, got pretty good at it

eventually i just read in a bathroom stall until i heard them coming in and slipped back into the flow

I had one friend and we’d basically impromptu improvise live action anime fanfic… so yeah…