Okay, so, I was in fourth grade, so that was like… 1979? I think? I was in the special education room because I was prone to meltdowns in school, some really violent ones, throwing things, screaming, that sort of thing. They’d given me an EI IEP… that stands for Emotionally Impaired. These days I probably would have been identified as Autistic. Properly, you know? But in those days Autism was a much narrower, more extreme diagnosis than it is these days. Which sucks, because instead I was treated as a … psycho, should I say psycho? That sounds wrong, like a word I’m not supposed to say, but still, that’s how I was treated and that’s how I felt. The other kids called me a spaz, which is also a word I feel like I’m not supposed to say, but hey, it feels like it belongs to people like me, you know? At least it’s better than what the other kids in the special education room were called, that’s a word I know I’m not supposed to use. And I never do. But I did back then, because I didn’t know better and everyone used it and it was just the thing that people said. I’d’ve been ashamed of myself if I knew, but I didn’t. I didn’t go to the special ed room every day. It was just for when I was feeling overwhelmed. To calm down, to get away from the other kids, especially the ones who were teasing me. They did that a lot, because of my explosions. They’d tease me and wind me up until I exploded and then they’d stand around and laugh. The other kids in the special ed room, the ones with the cognitive impairments–that’s CI in teacherspeak–were there pretty much all the time. There weren’t a lot of them, though. The thing is, though, two of them were older, like, sixth grade but too old for sixth grade, a boy and a girl, and they sort of bullied me, too, but it was in a different way. They would sneak off and hide in a closet in the back of the room and do things they weren’t supposed to be doing, and then they’d make me watch out for the teacher so they wouldn’t get in trouble. Then later they’d act like we were friends, and I didn’t know what to do about that because I didn’t want to get in trouble and I really didn’t think I could be friends with them anyway because, well, you know, I was really arrogant. At the same time, they were willing to at least pretend to be my friends, so. And honestly, I don’t think I ever even learned their names, or if I did, I’ve long forgotten them.