Starting High School With Trauma And FASD

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 Found this in my drafts folder, a bit old but I will post it now.

Starting high school is scary for everybody but especially scarier for people that go through a disability like me with FASD. Because some people don't understand FASD and when those people don't understand me and know how to support my disability I tend to act out and then get labeled as the kid with behavior problems. We kids with FASD need extra support, we need help and accommodations to succeed in life but if people don't understand my disability how are any of us supposed to cope? People need to be educated about different disabilities that we can't be treated the same as other kids we need specialized help. 

That help in Ontario is starting, we are starting to get some support but so often you will be on a waiting list to get help to only find  they can't help you because they don't help kids with FASD yet. That leaves my parents running around trying to find any way to get me and my brother the extra help we need or like now where they are paying for private services. I have no idea how they are, managing to pay for these services, only my dad works, my mom quit work to stay home and help me and my brother after we were adopted 8 years ago. Of course I have only to look around our home and the vehicles we drive around in, they are really old but my parents say my brother and I are more important than new things. 

The weird thing with both me and my brother is when it comes to FASD and trauma it is always a question which is affecting us the most in school. With trauma you are always looking over your shoulder for danger, you are always a little scared but often don't understand why, you never really trust people much either, it takes a lot to open up and trust. Add to that FASD and my brother and I don't have the ability to think things out like our fears, FASD makes thinking and understanding really hard. Then add to that that people use the wrong strategies and both of us can become real upset real soon. Both my brother and I are doing quite a lot better. It has taken almost 4 1/2 years since my brother was removed from school on hospital leave for 1 1/2 years to settle from the trauma of being mistreated in school, but my brother no longer hides from the old school team that hurt him. His new school team tries but he is so far behind, but they are good to him, but I don't know he will ever recover from what was done to him. Me being in a new school really helps, the bad memories are not there like being in my old school, where I did not feel safe. That is the funny thing about FASD and trauma it is like each thing affects you fighting to see which one can mess up your life the most, but with proper help kids like me and my brother can have a good life. Yet that will take the supposed professional learning how to help kids like me and my brother, but till then I take any help I can get and thank those few folks who listen and learn how to help my FASD and trauma.


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