When I was in fourth grade, I was moved to another school and put in the Quest program, which is for gifted students. So I was in a class full of other "smart kids" like me. In a lot of ways I fit in better there, but one thing I quickly noticed was that in this class, in the Quest program, all the kids (especially the boys) said "that's retarded" about things they didn't like. They didn't use the word to describe people, it was mostly objects or ideas. That was all back in the days when I knew I was different, but didn't know the word autism. One day I used the word "retarded" the same way everyone else did, and a few boys were so surprised that I would use that word. Perhaps they thought of it as a little "naughty", a little "edgy", didn't expect a girl to use it, didn't expect me to use it. I don't know. Understanding these sorts of things is hard for me.
During those years my family would purchase a pool pass for the whole summer, and go swimming several times a week. One year, on certain days a bus would come to the park and to the pool with kids in some sort of special-ed summer program. One day I think one little boy from the special ed program lost a toy, or something like that, and we had to return it to him. I remember he was in the line for the water slide. He answered us with odd speech, muttering someone else's name. My mother whispered to me, "I think that kid might be a little bit retarded." I retorted, "That's not a nice thing to say!" She tried to explain that she didn't mean it as an insult, just a descriptive, clinical term. Part of me understood, but another part thought it still wasn't a good thing to say.
Middle school was extremely hard for me. I was still in the Quest program, but had some electives with the "normal" kids, and they didn't understand me as well. They were mean to me a lot, and generally said things I couldn't comprehend. Even the kids in my own class, especially the boys, started to be different. A few of them started talking about sex all the time, which made me extremely uncomfortable. It was very hard in a lot of ways. I started to rock and bang my head, and hit myself, and in lots of ways act more "autistic". A couple of boys in my Social Studies class would say extremely upsetting things to me, causing me to bang my head on the desk so hard i got bruises on my forehead. The teacher in that class kept leaving for long stretches, leaving us to do our work by ourselves. Worst was the school bus home. People would say very upsetting things to me, and seemed fascinated by my strange behavior. They spoke to each other, not to me, saying things like "Is she retarded?" They also used the word "crazy" a lot. How was I to know those were ableist slurs? I knew nothing. I just thought, "of course they think that, they don't know me. They don't know how good I am at math or that I'm first chair in clarinet". I didn't blame them, because I knew it must look to them like I was "crazy" or "retarded".
Now I have been home schooled for years, and know I am autistic, and lots of other things. Many things have happened to me, and in many ways I am almost a different person. And now I know that "retarded" is no longer a clinical term, that has been replaced with "intellectual disability". Now I know that calling someone "retarded" or "retard" is about as bad as calling a black person the n-word. And I think I can understand that people with intellectual disabilities are not less human than the rest of us. I have made a promise never to use that word again. And that, I think is good.
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