(Prepare yourselves, this could be long.) When I was in elementary school, it was obvious I was different than everyone else. I have autism, I'm very shy nowadays, but I used to be a very, very silly girl who pretended her hands were puppets and used to make them talk to people. I also said "MEEP" a lot for some reason, and altered my voice to sound high-pitched or deep as if I were pretending to be different people at once. I had a few great and funny friends, one girl I liked spending time with was my best friend back then, and she was as goofy as I was! Though, sometimes when we played around during recess, people would pull her away from me so she could play with them instead.

About the bullying, kids would tease me and make fun of me for my personality. I still remember their names, oddly, but since it's not allowed I won't say them. I remember, at lunch, these two boys picked on me, and I ran into the girls bathroom and cried. I think they were put in timeout for that, but nothing else was done. I remember I was embarrassed beyond belief when this other boy was paired with me in gym class, and we had to perform a dance together. He kept complaining and groaning, it felt like a punch to the chest and my self-esteem sank to the ground. A similar thing happened when we had to do this childish thing outside on the playground, which was also during gym class, and a bunch of other kids and I held hands and ran around in a circle for god knows what reason. The guy I was holding hands with kept saying "ew, ew, ew!" and afterwards wiped his hands on his pants as if I had rubbed off dirt on him. Everyone had been laughing their heads off, and I felt like complete crap.

There's another thing that happened, I could go on all day about my experiences. While I was in the bathroom, these two girls had kicked open the door to the stall and ran away laughing. When I came back to the class room, thoroughly annoyed, they immediately apologized, so I didn't tell on them. I should have though, because it was obvious they didn't mean their apology, they were just afraid they would get in trouble. There was also this time I was paired up with the two boys that kept being mean to me during math class in second grade. One of them was the new boy, he would've been okay with me if the other boys hadn't badmouthed me to him and ruined our chances of friendship. Anyway, we were moving from "station" to station around the classroom, which was just a bunch of problems and mathematical activities our teacher had set up for us to do. They wouldn't let me do ANYTHING! Instead of doing work like I wanted to, I had to sit and watch them complete it by themselves because they wouldn't allow me to participate. Then, they had the nerve to complain to the teacher that I wasn't helping them, and the teacher got annoyed with me and made me do the next math activities by myself while they chilled and lounged around in their seats with their legs propped up on the desk. What still angers me to this day is that they had these smug looks on their faces, and when other students were curious about me working alone they told them all about how I had been being lazy and that the teacher decided to punish me.