Theo and I still sit in the Shalom Homeless center. We still got stuff to chew over about school. And we aren’t talking about bliss in school. 40 years later… in the homeless shelter. Part 2 of 4…
🚨Content note: profanity, brief mention of suicidality, profanity, opinionated…
You may remember Theo & me chatting about autistic education in Part 1…
So…
Theo and I still sit in the Shalom Homeless center. The crowd’s thinning around us. The staff pointedly start bussing the table next to us… But we still got stuff to chew over about school.
And we aren’t talking about bliss in school. 40 years later… in the homeless shelter.
We’re talking schoolyard bullies. Talking teachers…. who bully. And school systems with only two tracks. Counselors either shoehorned kids into college… and professional careers… or reassured us the world really needed more mechanics & beauticians.
Hold that thought, my neurodiverse friends and allies. I’m Johnny Profane, and you’re listening to AutisticAF Out Loud.
Today, Theo and I dive deep into the labyrinth of the educational system—where counselors can MIS-guide… teachers can bully.
If you ever felt lost in the maze, whether you’re autistic, a partner, family, or friend, this one’s for you.
Go ahead, click ‘share’ and send this episode to someone you KNOW could use a guiding light.
Theo shares that he was a wreck long before he hit grad school.
Grammar school, high school… so stressful he basically slept most of the time, recovering… when he wasn’t there.
“Later, jobs were the same.”
Theo gazes over at the dining room steamtable. All elbows and brushes. Every shift I ever worked, kitchen staff ALWAYS want clocked out… FIRST.
“I learn best on my own. No humans… teachers, bosses…”
That struck a chord. But…
I wasn’t sure what to share. My thoughts about school are pretty jumbled. I start, “By the time I washed out of my third graduate program… well, I started to have thoughts.”
“Oh?”
Theo puts a finger to his chin. Almost like a graphic-novel panel, captioned “He focused intently.”
“Yeah. School counselor after school counselor told me, I could do anything based on my test scores.” I look down at my empty plate. “They were wrong.”
Theo says nothing. He has gentle hands. Folds them in his lap. Gazes at me. Says… nothing.
My calm mask starts to slip. Motormouthing thoughts I’ve had over and over and over, I go,
“Maybe S.A.T’s, GREs? Maybe they have NOTHING to do with academic success. Multiple choice tests didn’t teach me how to write papers… to please an instructor. Make connections to open opportunities. Bond with a mentor…”
“Maybe…”
Theo is hesitant. He looks away. Speaks low and soft.
“Maybe school doesn’t teach genius. Maybe… it’s elsewhere…”
He looks around at the two other tables still occupied by our homeless peers. As the volunteer staff is eager to head out after breakfast. Two other tables engaged in excited, boisterous conversation.
What an odd comment. “Maybe… it’s *elsewhere…*?”
Honestly, that’s all I thought in the moment. Perhaps too caught up in my own shit, I dismissed it.
After a few moments, we finally take the hint, gather up our stuff, and head out the door.
I never saw Theo again. Ever.
“Maybe… it’s elsewhere…?”
I don’t know about you. Might be an autism thing. But SOME conversations… and CHARACTERS… stick with me. I replay them for years. Have lengthy, fantasy conversations with a childhood friend… or an adult I once bumped into on the street.
Theo lives on inside me, between my ears.. in my heart… in that way. A dozen years later. After a single encounter. Counted in minutes.
A few years back, about 2019, Fantasy Theo picked at a thread from that same conversation back in 2011. THAT conversation, straight from between my ears:
“I was on a PhD track. Now, I’m on the street.”
Theo pauses.
“That’s a lot of different people… and situations.”
Longer pause. It doesn’t seem like drama. More like sincere effort, thinking
“May be… there’s genius everywhere.”
Like a lightning strike. Behind my eyes. A crack of thunder. A straight-line wind of ideas…
There was a time when I thought I was the smartest guy in the room… pretty much every room I happened to be in. Cubicle. Speaker’s podium… Kitchen table.
High IQ. At least partial Ivy League education. High expectation was the oxygen I breathed…
But Age humbled me. Over time I realized I may have unusual talents… but also unusual deficits. A real spiky profile.
I’ve worked with billionaires… who invested in me. And I’ve lived on the street.
Genius *IS*… everywhere.
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And it seems to be present at all times. In nearly everyone.
What seems to vary is only my ability to perceive it. This is humbling. And, envigorating.
T.B.H… I battle internal ableism every day. Every moment. I have trouble remembering not everyone thinks as I do…
In that light, I have a story for ya…
Imagine a Title Screen: You’re Not That Smart
I’m headed out the door of Algebra. Mr. Connor gestures,
“C’mere.”
Yeah. I shuffled. Slumped shoulders. Attitude.
“What.”
“I’ve seen your records. Your test scores.”
He leaned in. Shifted his glasses to the top of his head. He meant business.
“I don’t believe em. You’re not that smart.”
Ouch. I don’t even like reading this to you…
I’m gonna give you a day in my high school life. Okay… not really one day. A mishmash of days. To make a story.
Here’s some background.
Kindergarten? Teachers… I had two. Cuz my dad got a job and we moved. Both told my mother I was unusually creative. Maybe smart.
First grade? I was that kid who always raised his hand first. That’s what my parents told me to do. It actually worked. For a while…
But by the end of 2nd, teachers weren’t digging the raised-hand thing so much.
I never sat still. I never stopped talking. And I was well on my way to becoming a class clown. I read all my textbooks during the first month. So… ya know, I got bored.
The first time I made a comment that cracked the class up? It was all over.
In other words, an average hyperlexic “A.U.D.H.D”childhood…
Then… the results of my first IQ test came in. Off the charts of Stanford-Binet.
There was shock. Parent-teacher meetings. But my parents fought me skipping grades. – It was a “philosophy” for them. And my poor Catholic parochial school had no other enrichment programs.
The end result? I got labeled a smart ass. Technical term. Honest… They showed me my permanent record…
By third grade, Mrs. Leonard was one of a long line of teachers who bullied me into submission…
Basically, that’s when I started to shut down. Long, long, before this day in high school…
I want to dash down the hall to beat the bell for algebra. I dodge two guys and a girl who think it’s funny to trip me. But tight-end Steve body-checks me. Shoulder-to-shoulder. My books go everywhere…
“Hey, what happened to your shirt?! HAhaHA”
An eruption of girlish giggles. Two periods ago, some 7th grader had screamed,
“Fairy loop! Fairy loop!”
and ripped the loop off the back of my Madras shirt. Left a big hole.
I say nothing. But my teeth are grinding. I feel nauseated. Again.
I make it into class. Maybe we were doing quadratics. I don’t remember. Cuz…
Within 5 minutes I’m fighting sleep.
I use all my usual tricks. I try staring at the sweeping, red second hand of the class clock. Yeah, seeing how long I could hold my breath. Nothing spectacular, mebbe a minute 50.
After about 10 minutes of trying to set a record, I switched to counting my heartbeats. See, I was reading yoga philosophy… Krishnamurti, Yogananda… I wanted to see if I could slow my heartbeat, ya know like yogis do. Seems like, I remember getting it from about 80 to 60.
That actually made the time fly for a while.
Then I’m doodling. I used to do these weird maze-like patterns of intricate, intersecting lines. Pages of em. My hand would cramp holding the Bic pen…
“Mister. Knapp.”
The whip cracked from the teacher’s desk.
I glance at the chalkboard.
“C squared.” I was right.
“What are you doing there.”
He doesn’t care that I’m right. Which never makes sense to me. Cuz it’s never about being right. Even when I’m “wrong.”
“I think better when I’m doodling.”
“Well, in MY class… learn to think without doodling.”
“Okay, Mr. Connor.”
So I go back to counting my breath…
On the way out, he corners me.
“You’re not so smart.”
My memory is a little hazy, but replaying the scene as an adult I believe he wanted to motivate me. My quizzes were sloppy. Lots of mistakes. He thought I was a lazy kid who wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. Turns out… mighta been right.
“You think things come easy to you.”
He glares a moment.
“You gotta drill.”
Old Man Connor? Big on drilling.
“Like any student. You actually gotta drill.”
He didn’t know it. But I was barely functioning. And all I heard was,
“You’re not smart.”
Content warning:
That evening was the first time I remember considering suicide. A few years later, I tried the first time at 17.
In 7th grade, I left a substandard parochial school in Minnesota. My father took yet ANOTHER promotion. So… we moved. Again. My fifth school system… which made me the “new kid” in a well-funded public system in a wealthy suburb of New York.
Just as the puberty hormones were hitting. And kids my age were splitting into cliques.
But me? A stranger. Weird. A loner. Awkward physically. And socially. Portrait of a young autist as “The Boy without a Clique.”
The peer bullying was horrific. For years.
When I say my previous school was “substandard”… I was 6 months to a year behind in coursework for my grade level when I transferred.
I was drowning in French… AND Math. Which freaked this supposed “smartest-kid-in-the-room” kid totally the fuck out. I was totally crashing.
HOW COULD THIS BE?
But I caught the eye of one science teacher. Mr. De Vraies really believed in me and fought for me to get bucked up to the honors track…
Which meant they had already covered all of 7th-grade math before I joined them, 2nd semester. So I had to learn all of 7th grade, and the first month of 8th… instantly.
They just handed me textbooks and told me to catch up. No tutors No review classes. Just read.
I was fucking overwhelmed. Who cares what my IQ was? So fuck Connor. He really popped my cork.
A rage meltdown. Days of recovery. Absent from school.
“Sick.” We used that a lot. I almost had to repeat 4th grade cuz I was “sick” so much.
After years of this… I graduated in the top 10 of my class. I aced every aptitude test. I went on to grad school. Many attempted careers…
Hold tight, my neurodiverse allies. You’re with Johnny Profane on AutisticAF Out Loud. If this episode hit home, click ‘share’ and send it to someone you KNOW will be moved. Stick around for Parts 3 and 4, where we’ll uncover the bliss of autistic learning and the dark side of educational abuse. And why the Stop the Shock movement MUST succeed.
But no one. I mean not one educator… thought I lived up to my potential…
Cuz not one of them knew I functioned at best a couple days of week.
In and out of incapacitating depressions. Frustrating bouts not being able to speak under stress, selective or situational mutism. Inability to meet deadlines, prioritize tasks, and on and on and on…
Between the natural differences of my autistic mind… and the effects of an abusive childhood… and frankly my social, sexual, and educational abuses in school…
This was all the potential I had left. – –
“My name is Theo. I rent space in Johnny’s head. And I approved this message.”
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