Runs in the Family - WARNING: outdated jargon ahead

A gradient rainbow infinity symbol with white text reading,
"Why light it up blue... When we have a whole spectrum?"

I mean, of course it does. Anyone who trusts the science (or even basic logic) over Google University/Random Influencers/Autism (but not Autistic) Moms/Geriatric Addict Lawyers Cosplaying Doctors knows this. It's genetic, not the result of Tylenol use or vaccines or diet or (God help us) Wi-Fi signals.

In any case, I have here in my hot little hands what my youngest daughter calls "Mom's Half an Autism Diagnosis." I have reread it several times in the last four-plus decades, but this is the first time I've actually perused the accompanying documents, like the denial of special education services (or even assessments!) from the school district, and the letters between my parents and the school district.

It makes me so sad for thirteen-year-old Jenn.

And it still makes my mother both sad and furious about how Things Could Have Been Better if the district had accommodated any of my needs. Even now, 44 years later. Forty-four years later when both my kids went through this same school district with (ultimately, though it took some support for Lizzy) positive outcomes (my oldest graduated in 2021, even with the Covid BS, and my youngest graduates officially in about two-and-a-half weeks), and this school district is even my employer, albeit in a non-academic role.

To be absolutely fair, this testing and exchange of letters was in 1982, when if you had anything other than high support needs, what we now call Level 2 or 3 autism, or if you had massive intellectual disabilities concurrent with autism or ADHD, they didn't really have a way to do that in public schools, especially for girls, since most of them thought it was a boy thing. The laws regarding started changing in 1975, but those of us with "insufficient handicapping conditions" (ugh, what a phrase! But I warned you in the blog post title) fell through the cracks in a lot of ways until the 90s, when the Education for All Handicapped Children (EHA) act was renamed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). There were contained classrooms, there was the alternative high school (but that was only for the "troublemakers" back then, and I wasn't hurting anyone or smoking or using drugs or getting pregnant or anything), and there was mainstream. 

Things are much, much better now. Which made my mom cry out of sheer relief when she attended Lizzy's IEPs with me after Laston's death. I tended to mist up as well, but I wasn't aware of all the ramifications when I was the student in question, so it didn't hit me quite as hard when it was my own child under discussion. And (as stated), it's a lot better now.

But the fact that they had a letter from a child psychologist saying I needed assessment and they refused to assess... well, to me that's just a dick move. I'm sure it had to do with money - everything in our society seems to - but how can you be in a special education profession and just basically say, "too bad, so sad, we think she's just being a drama queen because she's a teenager and her parents are divorced?"

So the psychologist said I had some learning issues, the schools refused to test me based on my grades (pretty solid B student through 7th grade, which they found "interesting" in that they thought I just acted out then, instead of coming to the logical (and true) conclusion that I hit algebra and my brain came to a screeching halt), so my dad took me to get a full neuropsychological workup. The results of this were basically that I was intelligent but hyperactive with learning disabilities, especially in sequencing and in more abstract math. My dad sent a letter to the district with these results (the letter is a thing of beauty; between this letter and my mom's ability to write super polite notes in which she (very sweetly) tells you to stick it, you can tell that I come by my writing skill honestly), and they agreed to assess me... but I don't really remember what happened after that, except that I had a tutor for math.

I have said before that my diagnosis is something like, "hyperactive with learning disabilities and sequencing deficits" but that if you put mine (from 1982) together with my daughter's "ASD Level one and ADHD Inattentive Type" (from 2017), they are close to identical, save for updated language.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to show that things have improved, are improving... even though in the frustrations of the moment that's kind of hard to see.

Because that's an important thing to remember... especially as we're all close to burnout near the end of any given school year.