My struggless with my learning disability + OCD and how it lead me towards creating a mental health awareness/learning/diability rights

Hi everyone!
So this past year, I (along with two friends) started a group at Hampshire called, the Mental Health Awareness/Learning Disability/Disability Rights group after a number of reasons. Both from personal experience, and to educate the community and the world about an issue that is not brought up enough
I have struggled with a learning disability all of my life. I was diagnosed with nonverbal learning disability in kindergarten, I was held back a year in school because of it. To this day, my parents still do not have concrete evidence as to why I was held back (besides the learning disability) and for several years greatly resented it. Several of my classmates would make fun of me because I was older than them. It was hard to make friends, since I was a year older than them, and was experiencing things that they had not. Whenever I struggled in school, my father would yell and give up all of his faith in me and say, "I don't care-- she can just go learn a trade." (Now having a trade or a vocation is not bad, but it would just mean doing the same repetitive things over and over again). My learning disability, dealt with a lot of developmental issues. I would pronounce words wrong and would need to see a speech pathologist, in which I would be embarrisginly pulled out of class. I don't understand why children with a learning disability should be taken out of class for speech therapy, since it only would hinder me more. The speech pathologist would takes notes on me and evaluate, and I never got to see them. I feel that children should be able to see the notes and evaluations written about them, even if they do not understand them.
But the only other alternative was seeing tutors after school, which I hated, since it took away from my free time. One thing that I would like to do is find a way in which learning disability specialists could somehow integrate their therapies + help for the children in class, so there would not be any embarressment leaving class.

Fastforward to high school. I am an honors student, taking mostly honors courses. I feel pressure to be like my older sister, who graduated number 5 in a class of 300, and got a perfect score of an 800 on the SATs. My goal is to go to a very prestigious college. I am hoping Smith College, Brown (since my father went there), or maybe Harvard if I am lucky. I have never worked so hard in school. I am placed in a special ed class for one period of the day, mostly with inner city students who were probably placed there for behavioral or racist reasons + were not receiving the help that they were getting (all the teachers were doing was "babysitting" them and then sending them to the principle's office-- where were all the psychologists and the real help that they needed?!) . When I ask my special ed teacher what I can do to get into a prestigous college, he keeps telling me "you're the only that does your work. you have nothing to worry about," is the redundant response that I would get from him (mind you half of the kids are making fun of me, calling me nerd and throwing spit balls on my head).
I wanted to go to a prestigous college, since I wanted to be a role model for other kids with learning disabilities, and prove to them that they could go to a good college as well. I was (and still am) hoping to create a learning disability support group/organization to help students with learning disabilities apply to colleges.
It really angered me how there were scholarships for people of minority groups, low income classes, international students, but NONE for people with Learning Disabilities. It angers me how the Disability Rights movement is the least known out of all of the Civil Rights movements. My goal is to get my current school, Hampshire College, to get a scholarship for students with learning disabilities.
Now college-- Hampshire College
School started out pretty well
I was in a wheelchair due to surgery on my left foot. I experienced discrimination first hand-- a lot of the buildings did not have ramps nor elevators. Even my own dorm did not have a ramp or elevator (I usally had to hop in or slide in).
I became vocal about my OCD to a man that I liked, and he found it weird, perceived me as a psycho that I had OCD.

Class-- (what all lead up to it).
My second semester of college, I took a course called "African Americans and the Media." One day we had a case asignment, in which we had to read the cases before class. I have trouble reading directions (it was sent via e-mail) which is apart of my learning disability. I thought that she would give us the cases in class. When I told her that I had trouble understanding the directions, she starts to laugh at me in front of whole class (around 20 some students) and exclaims "How can you not understand?!" I find this totally ironic comming from her mouth, a woman who claims that she is tolderant, and open towards fighting racism, discrimination and oppression, yet she had just done an act of discrimination against me!!!
It was ever since this event that I decided to create the Mental Health Awareness/Learning Disability/Disability Rights group. We are advocating for:
*more universal access
*teach people about learning disabilties and the history about it
*educate people about the disability rights movement
*stand up for those being discriminated because of their learning disability or mental illness

we hope to be doing this semester:


*Create a learning disability/physical disability peer mentorship group for
incomming first years and transfer students have a documented learning
disability or physical disability, and get peered up with an uperclassman who
has a similar disability. Smith College has a program like this, and I hope
that Hampshire can remodel a program like this too someday.

*Have a student/faculty panel on Learning Disability/Disability Rights 101--> I
just need to get the list serves for the SS, CS + HACU faculty + staff

**Bring in Disability Rights activist, Simi Linton. She wrote a book called "My
Body Politic." Here is her personal website:
http://www.similinton.com/

*Collaborate with BAAB, about bringing in mentalhealth/disability rights
activists concerning the condition of people with disabilities in prisons--> I
just e-mail Ada the signer-- I have not heard back from her, but here is the
name of the organization that I am interested in bringing in:
http://www.rippd.org/

Accessibility:

*Short Term goals-- to put all officces in the 1st floor of all buildings
*E-mail Joel about Summer assesment
*Fundraise to get an elevator in buildings that are not accessible to get to
(like the 2nd floor--ex: QCA, Women's Health Collaborative, Spiritual Life)),
such as a bake sale, yard sale, raffle (prizes to a local movie theater,
restaurant,etc) etc.

*Find out how much it costs to get an elevator!!!


Other
*Make Disability Services contain a description of all the different kinds of
learning disabilities and physical disabilities, so people know who is
elgible/leaves less ambiguity

So please come join us for our next meeting on Thursday, October 16th, @ 6:30pm in FPH 106!

Love,
Stephanie :)