OK I am new at posting and will try to stop posting so many new topics soon.
When I was at school I used to get bullied all the time by many different groups. It was hell. I didn't do a lot about it. Part of the reason was social ineptness about how I was supposed to react. I am also hyposensitive and very physically resilient. Which meant I could take a beating well without showing too much pain or distress. That wasn't as bad as the trauma it had on my emotive state or self-confidence.
I was also very short and skinny as a child (I was up to my mothers shoulder in height for my first day of high school and she was only 4'11"!)
The one problem I couldn't get around was control. Control of myself, my behaviour and my environment was and still is paramount to how I live my life as a high functioning autistic.
On the odd occasions I "snapped" and fought back physically - yes I acheived my objective by scaring hell out of that or those bullies, and yeah they backed of a described me to others as a "psycho" best left alone. But I was left feeling a huge sense of humiliation, embarrassment and shame at letting my tightly held control loose. Does this make sense?
At work recently, (I work at an abbatoir as a cleaner) one of the maintenance guys started picking on me. Here I am 35 and feeling like high school all over again. He is a tall (6'1-6'2) fit looking guy (to my 5'8" - 145lbs) and started with name calling jokes and giving me a hard time in general around his workmates. I spoke to one of the maintenace guys there who I get on with and told him that if Dave didn't stop it I would have to "go him". At which he replied "Not my mate." and "You're not the only one". So long story short. I caught Dave by himself away from others and said, "Dave over here a second mate. Look that s**t you went on about in there today I don't want to hear about again" He started justifying himself. I said "Yeah cool whatever. I don't care. You been on my case for a while now and I don't care but if you pull your head in I'll knock the f****g thing off. Are we cool?" He just said "fair enough" and walked off. I just wanted him to stop but now he and the others in maintenance won't talk to me and actively try and avoid (hide from) me. Which wasn't what I was after. Like high school again. I feel bad but to apologise won't work (one reason is because I was dinkum, I would have gone him - I can be a little fiery when I lose my temper) and to ignore it is impossible. Why don't they just not bully in the first place?
There is no good answer to this. I feel bad when I let loose some of my "scary bitchy" attitude at a student who has been insolent to me first. Even if the provocation was happening repeatedly.
I use a present example as I never managed to "fight back" in school, and plus the bullying I got was mainly verbal/emotional, never physical. So, if you're not very clever at talking in real-time, you don't really have much to fight back with in those situations.
It's always worse for those with a conscience, or who are thinking about what they are doing and don't really want to "sink to the level" of the person provoking. Not to say that our "opponents" are not thinking and having pangs of conscience about stuff they did to us or others. They may, either now or later. I find it really hard to tell. Sometimes people do something just as ugly out of guilt as what they originally did out of misunderstanding. And some people are just being evil and don't stop.
Sorry, I think I have more muddied the waters than anything else...
Well yeah, you have to do something, even if it's not always apparent what. I'm sure sometimes physical force is the only practical possibility. It would be nice if there were always civil ways to get around things, though, and if people would just bahave reasonably...
In school I often got bullied but never retaliated physically for fear of getting into trouble myself. These days I do receive the odd problem from people and my attitude to self-defence is to ignore the attacker and escape. It is a rare circumstance where your life is actually in danger and the use of excessive force is justified. For schoolyard bullies my advice to anyone is to simply ignore and defend. Do not show any emotion near them and only use physical force to escape or if necessary incapacitate them. Pressuring the school into taking action (go up through the hiearchy, threatening at each stage to up a level) can sometimes give results, and if the bullying constitutes harrassment and/or assault then taking legal action is a good idea too.
Thanks fellas. Looks like autistics pretty much have a target on their back when it comes to bullies. So you fellas got bullied too. Did any of you feel bad though when you do finally snap and strike back? Or am I the only one who has fought back? Or the only one who did and then felt bad afterwards. Please note I don't feel bad for the bully rather for losing control of myself, if that makes sense. I feel humiliated and embarrassed in myself when I do.
Thanks fellas. Looks like autistics pretty much have a target on their back when it comes to bullies. So you fellas got bullied too. Did any of you feel bad though when you do finally snap and strike back? Or am I the only one who has fought back? Or the only one who did and then felt bad afterwards. Please note I don't feel bad for the bully rather for losing control of myself, if that makes sense. I feel humiliated and embarrassed in myself when I do.
Was subject to physical and emotional bullying from about age 4 onwards. As I was a female, I was taught it wasn't "ladylike" to get angry and retaliate and I soon found that telling the teacher was useless.
So I sat on the anger for years and it started coming out in nasty ways when I grew up eg. depression, self-harm and later on, outbursts.
I would have really liked to thump some of these kids so they wouldn't have seen me as a pushover any more and would also have liked to do something to those teachers who didn't care enough to pull the bullies into gear.
But, the worst bullies were when I was an adult and I don't think using physical force would have made me feel any better. Seeing them humilate themselves and get themselves into trouble by their own stupidity would have made me feel better though.
Do I feel guilty? - not really. If I didn't start the fight, no.
I will ignore most verbal abuse or those passive aggressive pranks although I will report to a supervisor these incidents as harrassment and document them.
When I was in school, my parents told me to ignore the verbal taunts or make a humourous comment. Any physical assault was to be dealt with immediately. I would never start a fight but if some kid hit me first, I would strike back fast and twice as hard. That kid would be beat up so bad they would never touch me again. It helped that I was at least a foot taller than most other kids. I would also protect other children who were smaller than me. I didn't like bullies.
I wouldn't have felt guilty for thumping a bully, even if they were bullying another more vulnerable child instead of me.
Violet-Yoshi, my 15 year old daughter is like that. She has threatened to injure boys who torment her. She has had boys pushed into her by other boys being stupid and some boys have called her "a lesbian" because she doesn't go all ga-ga over them.
She will talk to boys who are sensible and mature but she doesn't suffer fools gladly. She also has a freezing blue stare and an extensive line in sarcasm.
I agree that your teacher is a traitor to her sex and if this boy makes rude jokes about your pads, it is all her fault. If she were doing her job properly, she would have made him return your backpack before you kicked him in the 'nads.
Thanks heaps for all the replies. I obviously have not been the only one running afoul of bullies when I was younger.
I am the only one who seems to feel bad in fighting back though. I do it regardless and don't feel guilty or bad for the bully - they deserve that and more!
I feel bad about losing control and feel embarrassed and humiliated. I think it stems from my being socially inept and trying to be in control 24/7 to mask my autism and control my emotions and behaviours.
.......OR maybe I'm a little bit weird (LOL)
Droopy, I hope this online bully you had trouble with wasn't someone from here. He might have been making it up about being a woman beater, but in any case he sounds like a complete loser.
Perhaps I should investigate learning a martial art as long as they have patience with the fact that I'm quite unfit and more than a bit clumsy if nervous. It could really help with the confidence.
I have the most trouble with social bullies too.
Ladies excuse me here if I sound like a sexist, but..........I reckon it must be harder for females with female - female bullying rather than male - male. It took me many years to accept it was ok to hit back under certain circumstances and to have the skills and build to make this a decent option. So of course at that stage if anyone gave me too much hassels I could always say " OK mate let's both go outside and sort this problem out". Regardless of what happens in the next 10 minutes, the problem is normally sorted. (If you are male). With female - female bullying though, there isn't that way of dealing with the situation or easy resolution. I don't know how I would respond to social bullying. I think women probably can be worse to deal with in a bullying situation. Sorry if I sounded sexist. I am not, but I am observant and a little too honest and tactless for my own good
I can imagine. I have no real defence for that. I don't read body language. I don't easily get sarcasm and as for "known"(?) social rules...forget it.
I have a tendency too to "take on bosses" if they "have a go at me". Not physically. The kind of arguements that point out blatant hypocriscied in their treatment of things and people, the shortfall between procedural theories and practices, the company "vision" versus reality of company practices and the faulty logic in their verbal attacks at me. Has it worked. Kind of. They are usually made to look stupid in from of their staff an fail in belittling me or my workmanship. Of course the downside is I have by neccessity had to find new employment. Office politics....hate it, hate it, hate it.
My job I have at the moment though is the first job I have had that the company employed me knowing i had a disability. This is great because I don't think any of them understands what high-functioning autism is and they just see me doing a great job and don't interfer any request they make to me is almost asking my permission if their request is ok. I think they think I might be mentally unbalanced (through lack of knowledge of what HFA is) or just not wanting to lose me. Works well for me.
Unfortunately have to move to Canberra next year ands lose this job....Aaaaarrrrggghhh!
I can't handle changes to my routine and lifestyles. Trying not to think of it.
My little boy is also autistic and nine years old. I am very over-protective of him. He had a couple of "incidences" a couple of years ago, but he took care of them. He is about 5'2" and solidly built, very strong with a temper. I think there may be a time when the sort of bullying I spoke about earlier or that you spoke about may occur. I would have no hestitation reading the riot act to the headmaster. I did that once when he upset my ex-wife over his attitude to Connor. Barring that I would not think twice about lobbing over the house of the bully and introducing myself to his parents and discussing the issue there and then. If bullies are found out and disiplined or made to fear a severe repercussion they will normally stop. It is not worth it for them.
AS to the exclusion thing. It happens. To me and my boy. Don't know solutions there. We just stopped inviting his "friends" to his birthday parties when we realised after a few years we had not had that reciprocated by any of them. Oh Well.