It wasn't one thing. I keep coming back to that because it would almost be easier if it was — a single event, a clear before and after, something you could point to. What actually happened was slower than that. It was a buildup, over time, of the school treating me badly — and I was mute through almost all of it. There's a lot more than what's below, honestly, but I don't feel comfortable sharing all of it.
The buildup
The laptop being taken repeatedly, when it was supposed to be protected. The SEND breach I tried to report becoming an allegation against me instead. Being stopped from reaching my trusted adult. A teacher commenting on my quietness in front of the whole class during register. Being told an assessment plan existed when it didn't, and having that used against me until I proved otherwise. I was mute for every single one of these. Not because I decided to stay quiet — because I couldn't speak, and the school kept doing things to me anyway, regardless of whether I could push back.
The shared document
I'd been communicating with a friend through a shared document — the kind of thing you'd expect between friends. I got interrogated about it. And in the middle of that interrogation I was told they didn't know whether the police would be contacted over it. That's not a proportionate response to two kids using a shared doc to talk. That's a threat, delivered to a mute autistic kid who had no way to verbally push back on how disproportionate it was.
Banned for "password sharing"
On a separate occasion I was laptop banned — actually banned — for password sharing. My password had been changed without me being told. Nobody flagged it, nobody explained it, I just found out my access was gone. When I went to the head of IT about it, I was told off. Not helped. Told off. And then told, directly: "we will be monitoring you now."
The email that got me pulled from a lesson within 20 minutes
In the very next lesson after that, upset about what had just happened, I used my Hostinger webmail — my own personal email, nothing to do with the school system — to email my mum about it. Within twenty minutes I was taken out of the lesson by oncall staff. Pastoral and my head of year interrogated me in the oncall/detention room. My mum was called. And through the entire thing I was upset, worried, and mute — unable to explain any of it out loud while it was happening to me.
The three hours
I was already mute going into that room. Three hours, no lunch, everything taken from me — phone, laptop, mouse, headphones, chargers — and no real explanation of what was happening or why. I asked them to call my mum. They said they would. They didn't. I was sent home on the bus in tears at the end of it.
And then I just never went back. No dramatic decision, no big conversation. I went home that day and that was it.
What being mute through it was like
Every one of these things happened to someone who couldn't verbally push back in the moment it was happening. I couldn't argue when the laptop was taken. I couldn't explain myself when the breach became an allegation. I couldn't respond to the comment during register. I couldn't object out loud to the assessment plan that didn't exist. I couldn't push back when a shared doc between friends turned into a police threat. I couldn't defend myself when a changed password became a ban and then a warning that I was being watched. I couldn't explain, in real time, why I'd emailed my mum when I was upset. And I couldn't say anything in the three hours in that room. All of it happened to someone who had no verbal way to resist any of it, which is part of why it kept happening.
Where things are now
I talk in person to my mum, Claws, and three friends. That's the current reality. What I do know is that the situation causing all of it isn't the situation I'm in anymore. I'm not at that school. I'm home educated now, in a quieter environment, without the sustained mistreatment that built up over such a long stretch of time.
I'm writing this down because writing is available to me in a way speaking sometimes isn't, and because naming what happened feels more useful than not naming it.