some brief win

(also I'm up to my neck in spam comments, can anybody help me?)

On the last night of this session, I was walking back from the last activity with my cabin, which consisted of me, another counselor, and three campers. I was walking behind the others with one camper, and when we got into the cabin my co-counselor was telling another camper, who is 14 and has ASD, "Okay, I'll leave you alone, but if you want to talk to me, I'm here." The camper was lying on his bed with his face against the pillow. Apparently he had stopped talking altogether on the walk back, and had refused to answer questions about what was wrong.

Eventually he got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. I went into the bathroom and said, "Hi Edward."

"Hey," he said from a nearby stall.

"How's it going?"

"Okay."

"Are you mad at us?"

"...Maybe."

"Do you want to tell me why you're mad at us?"

I stood around and messed with my hair in the mirror for about three minutes. Finally he said, "The answer to your question is no."

"Well, if you don't tell us why, we might just keep doing the thing you're mad at us for. If you tell us what it is, we can stop doing it so you won't be mad anymore."

"It's more like I'm mad at my mom and dad for sending me to this camp."

"What's wrong with camp? Is it boring?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, I feel like we try to work hard and make things fun for you guys. I have fun. What don't you like about camp?"

"I'll tell you when we get back to the cabin."

"But there are other people in the cabin. There's no one here."

"I'll tell you in the cabin."

I left the bathroom and went back to the cabin. While I was talking to our other campers I wondered what the camper in the bathroom would say about why he didn't like camp. To be honest I had sort of wondered what he thought about being at this camp. He is a passing person, and he was the only camper this session who didn't have an intellectual disability, as well as the youngest camper and one of the few who was under eighteen. As far as I know, he had never been to a disability camp before; he mostly attends Christian camps. I had wondered if he knew that this was a disability camp before he got here.

I didn't know if he had spent much time around visibly disabled people, or disabled adults. I do feel incredibly positive about the fact that this is a camp for DD people of all ages and ability levels, because I think a lot of DD kids don't ever see DD adults in their daily lives. A lot of the time Edward seemed to be following the lead of counselors who would say positive things about older campers ("there goes Bruce, he's so awesome," and so on). But we had just spent a lot of time with older campers and I was wondering if Edward had suddenly become upset about being at "this kind of camp."

I figured I was more equipped to discuss this stuff than any other counselor, since I'm actually disabled, so I headed back to the bathroom and asked him again what he didn't like about camp.

He answered me at once, but very slowly: "Well, the thing is...sometimes I don't like to admit what I actually am thinking...So when I said that I don't like this camp, I actually meant that I do like this camp."

"You're mad because you feel sad about leaving tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

Never mind, apparently he enjoys being at "this kind of camp" very much. The next day he kept saying he didn't know if he was going to come back.

"How come?"

"Well, I don't know if my parents are going to sign me up for next year."

"Why not?"

"Because maybe they won't be sure about whether I liked it here or not."

"Well, you could tell them you like it here, you know."

"Yeah."

(By the time he got in his sister's car to go home, he informed us that he was coming back next year.)