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An example of when bullying pushes someone too far

UberScout said:
Yes...YES! This! This is what I dreamt of as a child! People who felt the same pain as me, coming together and rising up against the corruption! People who know what the better cause is and uniting as one to fight for it! I never got the chance to have this in school; it was me and me alone fighting the battles that chose me... And now, twelve years later, my wish is finally granted!

We cannot let this fire of justice burn out. Let us take a stand against any kind of naysayer or wrongdoer that dares to cross us with disbelief! Let's begin the uprising!

The Aspergers Uprising!
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I know how you feel and I'm glad you feel a fellowship here. Once I found how welcoming and understanding people are here, I stopped looking for other forums.

I don't know about an uprising, but would you be happy with an ever-increasing safe space?

My wife and I made our home a place where our children know they belong and know they are loved.

I taught my children that I will be more proud of how they treat others than of their grades. Each of my children has reached out and become a friend to someone who needs one at least once.

We made friends with our neighbors and now all the kids on our street play together. There have been instances of bullying, and we have intervened and worked it out with the parents.

My wife ran the PTO for several years. She also helped make junior high a safer place when my son got picked on.

Great changes can come step-by-step, a little at a time. The first step is to get yourself in a good place. Then, you can start helping others.
 
pjcnet said:
Autism is not a tribe, both NTs and people with autism should learn to accept and have tolerance of each other, threatening violence is not the best way forward, education, especially as children grow up is. Teachers and other adults should also be educated and should be there to step in when there's bullying and also be there for victims, this unfortunately seldom happened in my day.
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I don't know what's said in the US, but over here most Headteachers tend to bury their heads in the Sand on the issue of bullying, according to them it simply doesn't happen in THEIR school, when in the majority of cases they have a rather large problem with it.
 
Fridgemagnetman said:
I think his word was the abyss :
So paraphrase.
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Thanks. With the right keyword, I looked up the quote:

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” - Neitzsche

That's very good. That's I-need-to-think-about-this-for-a-long-time good.

In the context of this bullying discussion, it really emphasizes to me that getting myself in a good, peaceful place (mentally/emotionally/physically) is far better than getting back or getting even.
 
i was bullied, it stopped when i grew to 6.6 and joined the swim team and bulked up

there's no point focusing on the asholes in life it keeps you from enjoying the nice people
everything is a normal distribution

don't let a very small number of pricks ruin your view of the other 99.5% of people

people still largely act like animals, watch national geographic
if you are isolated, your (pre existing) vulnerability is escalated,
so find a herd of friends and predators will be less likely to attack
 
Rich Allen said:
I don't know what's said in the US, but over here most Headteachers tend to bury their heads in the Sand on the issue of bullying, according to them it simply doesn't happen in THEIR school, when in the majority of cases they have a rather large problem with it.
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That was definitely what it was like when I was at school in the UK, especially senior school, but a young girl actually committed suicide at my school, her mum found her hanging with a note saying that she couldn't take the bullying any more, I can't even imagine how awful that must have been for her, I remember it being announced in assembly with very strong words against bullying and how it would stop. I'm sure it taught some bullies a lesson for a while and I'm sure a few will feel terribly guilty for the rest of their lives for what they effectively caused, but before long everything what back to "normal" even after that and the bullying continued as much as ever, it seemed like a young life lost for absolutely nothing, a true tragedy, this was around the mid 1980s.
 
pjcnet said:
That was definitely what it was like when I was at school in the UK, especially senior school, but a young girl actually committed suicide at my school, her mum found her hanging with a note saying that she couldn't take the bullying any more, I can't even imagine how awful that must have been for her, I remember it being announced in assembly with very strong words against bullying and how it would stop. I'm sure it taught some bullies a lesson for a while and I'm sure a few will feel terribly guilty for the rest of their lives for what they effectively caused, but before long everything what back to "normal" even after that and the bullying continued as much as ever, it seemed like a young life lost for absolutely nothing, a true tragedy, this was around the mid 1980s.
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The Bullies basically sent her to her Grave and should therefore have been charged with manslaughter IMO.

OK she took her own life, but if not for their bullying she wouldn't have.
 
Bullying is a very complicated issue. I was bullied much of my childhood, up to around grade 7 (12 years old), at that point a number of girls took an interest in me and, in turn, the boys had a level of respect for me. I even, somehow, got voted class president.

The downside was that I was now surrounded by pricks; the very kids who had bullied me just a year previously. Of course, now there was a new target. I was terrified that I would be on the receiving end once again and was never as confident as I may appeared at that moment in time. As a result, I not only allowed it to continue but became, while not a ring leader, involved in it. As a group we caused a particular kid to cry quite commonly and to this day I still feel guilty about it and I felt guilty at the time. I still wonder if the others, whom never experienced the type of bullying I did, ever felt guilty. It still makes me think about what empathy actually is and what it means to have it. These kids seemed to have no regard whatsoever for this kid, while at the same time each one of us was important. Perhaps they were just as scared as me; if they were I couldn't tell.

By the time high school came, the novelty of being popular wore thin and I became quite distant from that group in a bigger school. This was an all boys school and I once again became the target of bullying; albeit never as extreme as my primary years.

I am not writing this without understanding the worst depths that bullying can get to. I mean I had entire classes, including the teacher, laughing and carrying on at my expense. To rectify one such situation the teacher placed me in the corner for bothering the other children. Seriously, 20 kids laughing and 1 and I was the problem. Literally, in grade 3, everyone else was in groups, while I had my own desk in the corner. There was no protection and no time of the day. All that, and I can still admit, that I became involved in bullying at the other end. I sincerely hope that everyone who has bullied carries guilt for it because it's a truly terrible thing. For me, being on the bullying side was worse as I will never get over it and I can only hope our victim has.
 
What date? What prom? When I finally made it to senior high school I left after a month because the verbal bullying practically sent me into a nervous breakdown, and I then went to a school for students with learning difficulties about a year after that.
 
I was severely bullied in school, really once I reached high school. Mainly because I was the "different" kid with geeky interests that preferred to read in study hall rather than gossip or goof around when the teacher wasn't looking. I had things thrown at me, I was spat upon, I was threatened with physical violence, etc. I didn't have many close friends (actually I had 1, & he went to a different school), I never had a girlfriend, and I was completely un-athletic so didn't play sports at all. The only relief I got was around my senior year in HS, when I adopted heavy metal music in a big way & people started to think I was on drugs or a Satanist due to my unsocial personality & penchant for wearing all black or extreme metal t-shirts. It wasn't quite an affectation ( I still love extreme metal, for reasons I won't get into here), but it was nonetheless a benefit. I never went to my prom, a single dance, or a single school related social activity.

The net result is that whatever self-esteem I had, already suffering from my awkwardness & feelings of social isolation, was completely destroyed. For a long time I felt worthless to people & especially women, I was ugly, etc. Took me a long time to escape from that. Bullying leaves scars that a person will live with for the rest of their life, terrible for anyone but perhaps even worse for someone on the spectrum IMHO.

Damon.
 
This was what I hated in school life, all the kids who were deemed "cool" ganged up on the less "cool" kids and bullied the crap out of them.

It happens on both sides of the big Pond as well, especially in American Colleges were "Fraternities" are a thing, if you're not in a certain Fraternity you're not "cool" it would seem, completely false and wrong on several levels IMO.
 
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