Things They Don’t Tell You About Special Ed Kids: They’re Probably Being That “disruptive” Or

Things they don’t tell you about special ed kids: they’re probably being that “disruptive” or “reclusive” because the sped teachers literally abuse them and no one gives a fuck. (It’s literally legal for sped teachers to abuse their students because it’s considered part of the special ed therapy.)

When I was in middle school, I was in a special ed program called “Social Thinking”, which was supposedly for teaching social skills, but really what it taught was “You have to act like a normal (neurotypical) person and only ever do ‘expected behavior’, or everyone will hate you and think you’re annoying. You have to always keep up this facade no matter how exhausting it is. If you don’t do that and just be yourself, your friends would be happier without you.”

Some highlights from that special ed class:

The teacher told me, to my face, that all my teachers hated me and thought I was annoying and stupid, and that this was because I blurted out in class.

They literally went to my friends behind my back and told my friends to stop listening and walk away from me anytime I started “monologuing” aka rambling about the things I’m interested in. (My best friends decided not to do that, because they knew how awful the teachers were.)

 One of my best friends was also in that sped program, and one year she was in the same “class” for it as I was. I cried in that class a lot, but she cried even more than I did. She also had breakdowns (as did I) and was suicidal sometimes. I distinctly remember one time when she said “Just give me the scissors, I’ll do it right now!”. She was TWELVE at the time.

The teacher would frequently grab my chin and turn my head towards her, forcing me to make eye contact. She also told my parents to require me to make eye contact before allowing me to do fun things, and to force eye contact like that if I didn’t want to. (And, unfortunately, they did.) Even now, almost five years later, I still flinch when anyone comes close to touching my face.

I’m pretty sure I got some form of ptsd from all the horrible in that special ed therapy, but I can’t get it diagnosed because even the possibility of having to talk to any sort of therapist makes me have severe panic attacks. :^) lifes a bitch like that.

TLDR: special ed teachers were super abusive and no one gave a shit because it was supposedly part of the therapy.