During drama class, I was working well with a group whose members liked me. We were preparing a piece about the sandwiched generation. I had a topic to work on and people with whom I could work.
Then the teacher told me to leave that group.
I was to join another group with an autistic friend and an artist who missed about half the classes. Instead of continuing with the sandwiched generation, we were to perform a skit about autism.
Why I did not want to move
I knew my friend was very particular about how autism should be presented and would not accept compromises. An autism skit was therefore not a neutral subject for us to work on together. It brought his strong expectations about representation directly into the assignment.
I was very reluctant. The teacher kept insisting, and eventually I agreed.
There had been no need to find a group that would accept me. I already had one. I was being taken out of an arrangement that was working and put into one I had good reason to be concerned about.
What happened with the skit
I did not do what my friend wanted. He shoved me violently, nearly causing me to fall, then ran off to cool down from his meltdown.
The teacher ran after him. The class was interrupted.
I had lost the original group and topic. In the new arrangement, I had been shoved and the class had been disrupted. The imposed change had not made my participation more workable.
Was I completing the "problem" group?
Looking back, I suspect the teacher was trying to "quarantine" the students she regarded as problematic by putting them together. Since I had identified as autistic, that label may have made me an obvious extra member to complete the group, regardless of how well I was already working elsewhere.
That is my interpretation of the arrangement, not an explanation she gave me. What I do know is that my successful participation in the original group did not protect it from being dismantled.
From my side, it felt less like being included than being sorted. A diagnosis seemed to count for more than the relationships and work already taking place in front of her.
I was already included
Two students being autistic does not establish that they have compatible ways of working or the same views about autism. In this case, I knew something about my friend’s expectations that made me reluctant to work with him on that particular subject.
The teacher’s insistence did not make that difficulty disappear. My eventual agreement did not mean the new arrangement was what I wanted.
I also did not need my participation to revolve around autism. I had been working on another human concern: the sandwiched generation. Being autistic did not make that topic less suitable for me, or an autism skit automatically more suitable.
Whether the intention was inclusion or keeping perceived problems in one group, the intervention changed the group, the subject and the conditions under which I was participating. It displaced something that was already working.
I was not waiting outside a group for someone to include me. I was already inside one. The intervention took me out.