Another Kid I Knew in High School

Originally I was going to title this one, "My Experience with Intellectual Disabilities" but than I realized that I would be making a huge assumption about something I wasn't sure about because I can't say for sure that the person I want to talk about had an Intellectual Disability - only that with reading about them it seems like she might have.

My grade had one student who fell on the autism scale, but "low" enough that he still participated in most classes and only spent a couple of hours each day with our special education program.

My sister's grade, however, had one student with a much more prominent and, seemingly, severe disorder - M.

I don't remember ever really being told what M's condition was or the extent of her disability, but maybe that was because I wasn't in her grade. Maybe because I wasn't in her grade? Maybe my sister and her classmates had been informed, maybe given some sort of understanding of their classmate, but I doubt it given what my school system was like. The extent of M's disability from what I remember, though, was that she was chair-bound, seemingly unable to control even her neck because I remember her head was always tilted in a way I noticed, and frequently let out noises that I could never tell if they were involuntary or the result of an attempt to communicate. I also remember that M was never without her mother or a teacher.

I wish someone had taken the time to explain to us a bit more what M's disability was and how we could communicate with her or interact with her. Not because I think I'm entitled to that information, but because I remember that even more so than with J - with M I always felt a profound discomfort that went further than just the anxiety that came with J's lack of understanding of social cues and a deep sense of pity. I didn't understand what her life was like enough to feel anything other than pity, because all I could think about was all of the things M seemingly couldn't do that I could. And I think that maybe if someone had explained some of what M could do to me, maybe I wouldn't have felt like she was pitiable? Especially because I know that every single person I knew who spent time with M and her mother thought that she was an incredibly sweet girl and said that they were both exceptionally good people. Maybe if I'd known what was going on, or had known what to look up, I would have understood more about M's life and what she could do rather than only seeing what she couldn't do.