Scary weirdo

[Scarlett]

I actually fely threatened and scared today. I was on the bus and as soon as I got on, this man (who obviously has learning difficulties of some kind) STARED at me solidly and obviously, craning his neck, for the 10 minute journey into town. It was horroble. When we got to town, he got off, and I breathed a sigh of relief. BUT then he got back on 2 mins later, and carried on staring, but also thrashing his arm out at me with his hand in my face, but not touching. There was only one old lady on the bus. The driver was off having his fag. I was so freaked out that I got off and walked. My sister says I did the right thing- he probably had a knife or something.. But the thing is, I couldn't say "STOP STARING AT ME!" cos he obviously was a "care in the community" person. Yet he was clearly unstable and possibly dangerous. What should I have done??

[Scarlett]

Well, the adults I teach have Aspergers, and therefore I understand the symptoms and find them easy to deal with. People with Aspergers are pretty much normal, except the communication is slightly different. This man (you wanted details) has trouble walking and speaking. His head is a strange shape. He rolls his eyes and his head around all the time. he is slightly cross-eyed.His wrists are bent inwards. And he kept flinging his arm outwards with his hand retracted, as if trying to scare someone near to him- or as if he wanted to touch them but only got to the point of "nearly" doing so. That might also have been a tick.

This man was not in the least bit scary to me on every bus journey, until yesterday. When I got on the bus he suddenly swung round, fixed his staring eyes on me, and did not let up for a good ten minutes. He was staring in such a way that it was frightening, not curiousity. He looked angry. I'm sorry, but he WAS scary. I felt scared by him. I do not normally EVER feel scared by anything. But I felt genuinely threatened and did not understand why he was so fixated on me. The adults I teach are ENTIRELY different to this, and have never acted in a threatening way.

[Jennykins]

Man, Being scard like that just sucks eh Scarlett... Specially when you can feel it in your belly and you really start to get frightend.. AWE, Im sending you a hug because thats all I think of to say.. Hopefully you wont have to go through that again

Jen XXXX