School SUCKS

If you are a teenager with a disability or if you have a child with a disability, you know what a fight schooling can be.   I am in my last year of high school and then will be returning to do some upgrading.  I am starting second semester in about 2 weeks and today the battle starts all over again.  For my family and me, as I said we have always had to fight to get all the assistive technology and other support that I require in the classroom.  Due to my inability to print legibly and my visual difficulties, I require a laptop with many programs specific to things like Math for graphing and just doing equations as well as speech recognition software so I am able to work at a faster pace and take a break from typing. 

I have been having an issue with another student who is in a wheelchair and how has a brain injury . Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that a brain injury can cause issues with knowing what is and is not OK to say or do.  This person has continually said and done very rude things to me to the point where it gotten to be verbally/emotionally abusive.  One incident that sticks out to me is him telling me that I was never going to walk and at least he was. I don't care that I am not going to walk (I see it as an excuse to have a set of hot wheels :) , but that was probably one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever said to me simply because this person is in a wheelchair and was supposed to be my friend.  It got to the point where he was told (and so was I) that we were not supposed to interact in any form.  He continued texting me and Facebooking me, gave up for a while and started again.  He has been trying to talk to me at school and also stares at me during class.  My mom called the school because they are supposed to be monitoring the situation and she was promptly told this was a "perception" issue and that they did not see this being an issue, Um, OK.  My mom was also told there had been multiple situations in which I have had "perception" issues or "embellished" the situation. Whatever.  Needless to say that after final exams are over I will likely be moving to a new school.  I am excited but at the same time I am stressed, sad, and angry that it had to go this way.  I will be leaving behind friends from elementary school that I had really hoped to graduate with.  My mom and dad are not forcing me to go; they say I can do whatever feels rights and they will support it.  My heart is pulling me in two different directions.  I want to remain with friends but, I also want to be at school where I safe, comfortable, and supported.  I am not happy at school. My attendance has significantly been impacted due to this and that is not good.  This will mean a new support team.  This will mean a new challenge.  This will mean getting all my equipment transferred over within like 3 weeks (which will be difficult because the Special Education IT Support guy is swamped).  I have pretty much made up my mind and want to go.  My mom is calling to find out what the process is to make sure everything is dealt with and she will then schedule a tour of the school at which time mom, I, my dad, and my OT will go check things out accessibility wise. Normally, OT would not do this, but he says it should not be a problem.  He looked at my shoulder today because of some pretty severe (more than normal) pain and said that it's so tight the stretches he would normally do to fix the tightness will not be enough so he will soon be bringing in a Physical Therapist because it will take two people to get me on the mat and get the issue worked out.  The reason I bring this up is because the tightness will be made worse by stress which will equal more pain.  This is why he is going to try and come with us on the school tour is because he wants to make transition as easy and stress free as possible.  I know between him, my mom, my dad, and hopefully, my new support team, things will go OK but, I type this through tears because I am sad that the people who were supposed to be helping me were the ones who pushed me away and I told my OT today that this really isn't fair; I shouldn't have to move schools because people don't care enough to help me.  Yes, I know life is not fair.  I try to be positive. Tonight though, tonight I am allowing myself to mad, sad, and negative.

"He's not jaded or bitter, he's gonna leave the givin' up for the quitters."

J