Friendships and problems at school

I went on to secondary at DGS when I was 11 and I have to say that I think they were less willing to deal with my cp then my primary school. They insisted that I had to use my wheelchair almost all the time – there were a lot of distances I couldn’t have coped with walking, but even when I only had to go a short distance I could’ve walked they wanted me to use my chair for the time it saved. I chose to go to DGS as opposed to another school with a special needs unit attached to it because although DGS didn’t have too much experience with disabilities with the other school it was a case of “our disabled students do this so Emma will do this…” and we felt I’d be more of an individual at DGS.

I had an LSA with me at all times when I was going between classes and in a lot of my classes there was someone there, not necessarily specifically for me as I had 2 friends who also have cp in my year and we were in several classes together.

Although I’m really good friends with Sarah and Kat now, at the time when we all went to DGS I only knew them slightly. Kat was in my tutor group so I got to know her very well quite quickly and we were soon best mates – once I got over being resentful.

I have absolutely no clue why but I really resented the fact that me and Kat always had to sit together in classes because we would both need help and it was easier for the LSA if we were together. I hated this and felt that we were being pushed into being friends and that maybe I wasn’t be given a chance to be the same as everyone else because I had to have some one to push me between classes and help me in a lot of classes and I almost always had to sit with Kat (or in later years, Sarah) in class. I think maybe this might have been something to do with the fact that there were a lot of other people in my class who I had already been at school with. But whatever the reason I just did not want to be friends with her (in fact you could even say that I hated her).

I can’t for the life of me pinpoint the turning point, although I know this only went on for maybe six weeks maximum before we were friends – and best friends at that. I do remember that everyone in my class was very huggy people and eventually I gradually got over being resentful and began to like Katherine a lot. One day after a lot of hassling from our classmates I was convinced to give her a hug – a sign of utter respect and affection in our little eleven year old eyes and it was taken that we were now friends and we have been friends ever since – and I’m glad to call her one of my best friends. Sure we have had our fights like any other friends and she can drive me crazy but again that’s just the way any friends are!

There was one time though that we were meant to have an extra German lesson at lunchtime for some reason and I’d waited for her before going and then got into trouble because of being late so of course I wasn’t too happy that she hadn’t told me she wasn’t coming. She never turned up in registration and when Rachael went to their next class she mentioned that I wasn’t happy with her. Kat was a bit upset and she had an LSA with her who wasn’t best pleased at what she saw as me being interfering and told my LSA who when she came to take me to my taxi home had a massive go at me because Kat had been upset and not done all the work she’d been supposed to do. So I go home in tears (I can’t cope with people being angry with me and almost always cry in that situation) and mum gets the story out of me and is not happy because of the interfering by the LSA’s.

In the meantime our form tutor, a very lovely lady I got on really well with had gotten involved because she’d seen Kat in tears. The next day my tutor pulled me aside and we had a chat explaining my side of the story and I’d not spoken to Kat all day because I was so angry over the shit with the LSA’s mostly but we had made it up literally five minutes before I spoke with our tutor and the chat with my tutor ended with me and kat being the best of friends again and me in tears once again. Foolishly I thought that was the end of the story. The LSA’s on hearing this decided that the way the argument had been sorted out was wrong and even tho they’d not been around when we’d made it up stuck their noses in once again having a go at me for not apologising enough and being as sorry about it as they thought I should be (bearing in mind that the majority of this all kicked off coz a well meaning friend told Kat I was upset when I’d not meant her to say anything)

Mum was LIVID when she heard this and in her next meeting with the head of special needs brought this up. Of course nothing got done but a few weeks following that was a meeting to discuss the possibility of me staying in the sixth form (this all happened when I was in year eleven). The subject of good communication between school and home was brought up by the head of special needs with the deputy head who was sitting in on the meeting agreeing it was very important “especially” says the special needs woman “to stop me being so confused and sometimes letting mum get the wrong end of the stick because I was telling her things that weren’t quite right” fucking bitch implying that I had lied about the whole incident over the argument and that the people who were coming to help me to classes weren’t frequently late and I didn’t have one day a week where my helper was so completely and utterly crap that I was almost guaranteed a panic attack because I’d get to my class and be sitting at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her to come help me up them and regularly still be there after 25 minutes in tears because it was my favourite class and I was convinced I’d been forgotten and that I was gonna get into trouble

But, anyway this was all when I was 16 so I suppose I should go back to when I first started at DGS and fill in the blanks a bit…

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