Through the Eye's of a Spectrum Living With Autism

Chapter 12: My Reasons For Being Nice

My sophomore year for high school had a lot more questions than answers in my eyes. But I know that this chapter will answer the question some people have asked me, which is "Why are you so nice to people even when they treat you badly sometimes." That will be answered later.

Going into my sophomore year felt like going into high school as a freshmen again, only now I knew my way around the school. The new class of freshmen came in that year as well and they were not a fun bunch. Seeing how they acted like immature middle school students, I can now why the higher classes of high school students really disliked them.

This year I was introduced to another person who would be a great friend to have, her name is Destinee. I think her family is military, which I believe was her dad that was a soldier. Anyway, her family got transferred to El Paso so she was attending Eastlake and she took the same bus as me, she even waited at the same stop as me. She was very funny and nice person, and I really loved to talk to her.

Her and Brittany however got along like a house on fire. I swear, there was not a day that went by that these two were treating each other like they've known each other their entire life it was crazy. It was still good to see them get along, because I really like to see my friends to get along with others who I considered friends.

Back to the school situation, I had to say my least favorite class that year would have to be my writing class that year. No, it wasn't cause of the teachers, or the students, it was because of the way the class was. You see we had to work in groups in the class, and as you already know, with my autism, that was a living nightmare.

When assigned into groups, I would have small mental panic attacks, which is something I rarely would get in my life. This is when I begin to panic but I cannot let it out cause I keep holding it in. This causes me to stare off into space or have a really big problem talking. I would kind of beg the teacher to let me work on my own, as I did not want to work with a group of people, which to this day is a real big problem for me.

She couldn't have me working on my own as the class required people to work, which of course was not something I wanted to hear, so the remainder of the class I had to try and suck it up with little to no success.

Now we head back into Theatre, which crazy enough where pretty much a lot of the story seems to take place in. I don't know why but a lot of interesting things happened in there more than anywhere else. From new people and new experiences.

In my new class I was introduced to new people I have never met in theatre, some I would become friends with and others I would hate to be around. Most of it was because the kids in the class were just there because they thought it was just a class they could slack off in.

But there was one person who would become a huge problem for me in theatre, with respect that I have for people despite them being rude I will be keeping her name alias, so we'll call her Nadia.

Not only was she in theatre she also took choir, and let's just say she did not have a good reputation with a lot of people. She was known to be very narcissistic and self centered, meaning she thought she did everything perfect. Always bringing down others and judging people's acting skills.

Ten percent of her friends were just like her in a way, not bad mind you, but you could see why they got along so well. The other ninety percent were a lot nicer than the others so thank goodness for that.

You might be thinking how she has any significance in this story, well lets just say day for the whole part of sophomore and senior year she caused me to feel bad about myself, nearly making me quit acting in general.

Senior year will come in later, so I'll show you how bad she was and you be the judge. During sophomore year, we had got a new theatre teacher, which meant we actually had shows and theatre exercises. Every person who performed their assignments you could clearly see in her facial expressions she was unimpressed, but when she performed she expected everyone to be impressed.

Not too mention she didn't even take compliments, I would tell her good job or that was good and her response would either be "whatever" or "be quiet". Yeah, crazy isn't it.

I don't know if she did this to me or to other people in general but she would never communicate when it came to rehearsing with plays.

Speaking of plays, I did get to perform in a play at that year. However, I was given an understudy position, possibly to ne having such low grades at the time. I was given the understudy of the scrooge's nephew.

Although I was an understudy, the understudies did get a day to perform and when that day came I never felt more alive than ever. Seeing the crowd and being a different person and bring able to put on a show for everyone, I felt like I really belonged on stage.

Despite all the good times and stuff, I was still being pushed around as a kid. Shocking twist, I was now trying to interact with this kids, and that's what got me made fun of. Apparently because they didn't know who I was I was some type of weirdo or freak. I know, pretty stupid right.

Kids were still giving me problems in my classes left and right but I still tried to be a nice guy the best I can. Which some of my real friends have asked me "Why do you try to be nice to people who don't deserve it?" And it was really quite simple.

I wanted to show these kids that even when they bring me down, I was not going to let them change who I was. But truth be told I was really breaking down on the inside. Ar the end of sophomore year I had already given up hope on ever being a nice person, I at the moment decided that only the people who were really my friends would receive kindness from me, while others who disrespected me would get nothing from me.

I did start my life vow at that moment in my life, it's gonna sound sad but my vow was: I would make sure that I'd give people the joy I didn't get to experience in high school. I know I did have good moments in high school here and there, but everyone else had fun days almost everyday, while I'd have my ups and downs constantly, I felt it wasn't fair for anyone to feel that way in their lives.

Sophomore year didn't have a lot of interesting things, but my last two years certainly did.