TGP Project Jan. 2013 | Page 8

Jahna's (standinherspotlight) Story

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(his was written sometime around Adaptability week)

My friend watched the Glee Project “casting special” episode before I did. When I mentioned to her that I was interested in watching the show this year (I only watched two episodes of last year’s Glee Project), she started raving about this guy she loved already just from watching the casting special. I went online and looked up this “Charlie” person she was going on about, and read that he had ADHD and autism. As someone with Asperger’s myself, this piqued my interest.

When I started watching the actual show, Charlie didn’t really stand out for me at first. I started out my Glee Project experience on #TeamAbraham (and I still am, it’s not like I abandoned him for Charlie or anything…) It wasn’t until Vulnerability week that my full-blown entrance into #TeamCharlie began.

That whole “stealing Mario’s cane” incident or whatever? Completely blown out of proportion. From what I understand about what happened that week, we can probably blame the editing for a lot of the negativity I saw online from fans of the show that week, as it doesn’t seem to have actually happened the way we saw it go down. As much as I hate it when my favorites hit bottom 3, I accept it as an opportunity to hear them absolutely kill it in their Last Chance Performances, and Charlie did not disappoint in that respect. Fix You is one of my favorite songs, and he absolutely friggin killed it.

Then last week as well. I was super proud of Charlie for winning the homework assignment, loved the music video to pieces, then he ended up in the bottom 3 again. But unlike so many of the others before him, Charlie never once defended himself. He owned up to his mistakes: when it would be terribly easy to blame his mistakes on his ADHD/autism, he didn’t. And I admire that, because, as someone with Asperger’s myself, I don’t know that I would be able to do the same thing. I always feel like I have to be on the defensive, to make people understand that yeah, you’re reprimanding me or whatever, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to automatically change or understand better next time. A lot of behaviors, for me, are situational, and what applies one time, might not apply the next. And it’s frustrating when people expect uniform adaptability from me. So I constantly feel the need to jump to my own defense in every situation. And I admire Charlie for being able to take the criticism without deflecting the blame.

What I can’t stand is what I saw when I came on Tumblr after last week’s episode. All of the negativity posted in Charlie’s tag, saying “he’s annoying and a douche, send him home” and the like. This is one of the situations where I’m frustrated at society. People who are different get treated horribly by some closed-minded people out there, without compassion or even any acknowledgement of what it is that makes them different. To these people, Charlie was “annoying and a douche” on purpose. I’ve dealt with people who’ve said awful things about me as well, and usually the things they accuse me of, it hurts to hear. Because I would never be standoffish or unfriendly or anything like that intentionally, it’s merely a side effect of the social deficiencies the Asperger’s gives me. Would I like to live a life where making friends was easy and effortless? Absolutely. Do I? No. If I was able to control it, don’t you think I would have by now? Everything I do, or have done, in my life, is done with only the purest and truest of intentions, and that’s why I was appalled by the things I saw people saying about Charlie. Because whose right is it to say he’s acting the way he is on purpose? Maybe he’s like me. Maybe he acts the way he deems appropriate in that moment, and regrets it later. I’m not trying to make excuses for him, because maybe he doesn’t. Everyone’s experiences are different, and I am in no way saying we’re the same person in any way. But closed-minded people that pass judgments like that need to understand that it is an option.

Having Charlie on the Glee Project this year is a learning experience. I hope the exposure of issues like his inspires people to do their research to better understand us as people that deserve the same respect as “normal” (I hate that word, to be honest) people. But it’s also been a learning experience for me as a person. Reading the comments that people leave about Charlie, however rude, disrespectful, and possibly wrong they are, and applying them to myself. Wondering if that’s how people think of me, and working to build my character as a person, to meet these people in the middle. If I want people to change their stereotypical judgments, I have to be willing to adapt to some things myself.

All that being said, though, Charlie is also phenomenally talented, which only helps his case and places me even more firmly on #TeamCharlie. I look forward to his performances every week, and as much as I hate seeing him hit bottom 3, it’s another chance to hear how fantastic he is, and I find myself oddly looking forward to it.

#TeamCharlie for life!