fuckin special needs schools

[fucking done]

oh my god so
i agreed to go to a special needs school after getting out of the hospital and its fucking terrible???????
im p sure they only put academy in their name just to make themselves seem like an actual good school
everybody there is a fuckin idiot aside from this one girl who did everything to finish her classes so she could get out (shes a senior), however if i finish my classes i will have to go with nothing to do because i have nowhere else to go.
there's this one girl, 14, who apparently has a boyfriend whos 20 and the day before yesterday she said he was in jail and then yesterday she just randomly said hes at work which leads me to believe she made him up and she cant even fuckin remember anything she said about him lmao
most of the work is done on computers which isnt that bad, but the work itself is ugggh
so at first, all my classes were on the middle school program, but that was literally a bunch of flash videos and everything was dumbed down so much i legitimately could not do the work it was soo fucking terrible and i already knew everything
so i asked to be put on the high school program, which was text based so even if everything was dumbed down at least i could read bc watching videos does nothing for me, and theyre like "well the highest level classes we will put you in is 8th grade and we dont know if they have any 8th grade classes on there"
they had an english and a math class which were still way too easy and they are doing nothing to get me in harder classes.
this sucks so bad omfg i just want something where im actually learning or where i can skip to 9th grade so i can get out quicker??
and to add onto that everybody there is either downs or really violent, the only person who had the same problems as me is the senior i mentioned before and again she isnt going anymore so i have nobody to talk to or relate to
and omg everybody is flipping out and trying to attack people and getting restrained and screaming all the time???????? like jfc just send them to a hospital again dont fucking keep them with the people who are more stable and trying to get their schoolwork done

[James Comey]

That doesn't sound too good.

I really don't know what to say. It seems that unfortunately, in this situation, you're going to have to "wait it out"; unless your parents are willing to send you to some kind of alternative school. This doesn't sound too good and I've heard how notoriously bad these "special needs" schools are.

[Gwedin]

Holy crap. I was talking to a friend of mine who started one of these schools yesterday (or today, IDK with all this timezone BS). I hope it isn't the same for her...

[xcriteria]

I suggest finding another school, if at all possible.

Why were you in the hospital? What are your problems... and, what are your interests? What do you like to do, and see yourself maybe doing in the future?

Also, what's your family like? Are they generally supportive... and might there be other schools (or options like online learning or unschooling) that could work for you?

[fucking done]

they're going to schedule a tour of a school thats public but has an emotional disturbances program to see if i like it better there but i really feel like they won't let me go there even if i want to bc my parents keep saying they want me to spend the rest of the year at the special needs school
i was in and out of psych hospitals for about 6 months for self harm, psychotic depression, and an anxiety disorder (for some reason i feel a need to mention that when i started getting sent to hospitals my anxiety got way worse)
i want to do lots of things in the future hehe, i want to be a mortician/funeral director and i also want to be a model and i want to do volunteer work with animals and i want to write books as well and i also want to do photography and i want to start a shop on etsy too
my family is supportive i guess, but they do not want to online school me because i did it in the past and then my depression got really bad and i was unable to do work and they think it was because i didnt have any friends

[James Comey]

Try to convince your parents by constructively telling them how bad your special needs school is. They might at least ponder about the idea.

Second, I'm wondering whether you can negotiate with the school on something personal. The fact that you went through so much (yikes) and such may still re-occur definitely does not mix well at school. Perhaps allowing you to leave when you feel the need to might be possible.

[xcriteria]

Interesting list of interests.

Having friends can certainly help, and most online schools don't provide friends... but is the special needs school the best way to make friends?

We're here to provide whatever help we can, though that's not the same as making in-person friends.

How are you doing these days, psychologically? Have you found some ways to manage all those problems, and/or are you still dealing with them?

Were the hospitals or any other psych professionals helpful at all?

[fucking done]

ive been doing ok i guess. im hallucinating sometimes and i still feel semi depressed and aside from having lots of anxiety im not as bad as i used to be.
the hospitals really scared me especially the acute ones and the long-term dorm on residential but when i got to the short-term dorm it was really fun and i liked it. the psychiatrists i had in the 2 acute hospitals i went to were not helpful at all and one even asked me the same questions every single time i saw him, he didnt remember anything about me and barely ever saw me and it made me feel really uncared for. the second one i had was decent but refused to take me off a medication i was having really bad side effects to. the one i have now and had in residential is really helpful and shes super nice too, thank god!!

[xcriteria]

It's good to hear you're doing better, and you have a helpful psychiatrist. Having people who don't help try to "help" can make everything a lot worse.

One way to fight depression is to find some things you enjoy doing and pursuing, like your many interests. It's not likely school will help much with that, so it's up to you to figure out what you can learn or do on your own. (Unless you can find a school based on learner interests!)

You might also look into CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, if you're not already familiar with it. CBT is helpful for a lot of people with depression and anxiety. Basically, there are steps you mostly take on your own, observing your thoughts and noting when you're having irrational thoughts.

(For example, if you're depressed you might have a thought like "I'll never be good at this," but you can learn to recognize statements like that might not be true. This can help push back on the negative feelings that drive some of those kinds of thoughts.)

This is one form of "metacognition," or learning to think about your thinking.

(One Article about CBT.)

That might be something to discuss with your psychiatrist and family.

Another approach that could help a lot is really to make sure your learning environment (including school) is working well for you. A lot of people on here feel that school makes their psych problems worse. This article summary by psychiatrist Ed Hallowell discusses how the right fit at school (or work) can make a big difference for people's well-being:

Managing Yourself: What Brain Science Tells Us About How to Excel

The more you can learn about your own mind and how to work with it, the better you're likely to do.

[xcriteria]

(02-06-2014 10:02 AM)Hansgrohe Wrote:  Try to convince your parents by constructively telling them how bad your special needs school is. They might at least ponder about the idea.

Agreed. I think part of the question, though, is whether the other school will work out or not.

Are there any other schools around there?

(02-06-2014 10:02 AM)Hansgrohe Wrote:  Second, I'm wondering whether you can negotiate with the school on something personal. The fact that you went through so much (yikes) and such may still re-occur definitely does not mix well at school. Perhaps allowing you to leave when you feel the need to might be possible.

Yeah... how much flexibility can you have within either the school you're in, or the public school?

Your psychiatrist might be able to help with that, along with a law called IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.) Basically, this is complicated, but it's a way to get an Individualized Education Plan that schools have to conform to.

Btw, who runs the special needs school? Is it part of the public school system, a private school, or something else?

[fucking done]

its a private school

[xcriteria]

It sounds like the public school, if you can get your parents to agree, would probably be a better place for you than where you're at, given how you described it.

Public school has its own problems, too (you can read all about it on here), but it might be better than the alternatives.

(02-05-2014 11:34 PM)vespertherat Wrote:  this sucks so bad omfg i just want something where im actually learning or where i can skip to 9th grade so i can get out quicker??

That's how I felt in 7th and 8th grade, too, even without all the problems you're describing. (And actually, also in high school, and even college. I wasn't learning enough, and wanted some way to speed up the process.)

I think the answer is that personalized learning is best, where your teacher(s) get to know your interests and adapt learning to your needs. Only some schools focus on that, but I think it's the future of learning.

But the school you're in sounds like it's not a good fit for you. Why do your parents want you to stay there?

[fucking done]

they dont think i would be safe at a regular school
anyways this girl omg shes already been there for like 3 years and she has to stay until she graduates??? what if that happens to me omg i would die

[Gwedin]

Legally I doubt they'd be able to keep you there until you graduate.

[James Comey]

Lol the OP got banned from this site years ago for gore