Bullying at School/Work

[Gerald Wilgus]

I was seldomly directly bullied. While I was different I think my intelligence was protective in a wierd way. Rather, being inexperienced socially and sexually I was treated to a lot of unwanted and unsavory details of my peers sex lives. That had the effect of damaging my self concept and body image. Never bullied in my work. Rather, I was the go to guy for engineers who needed process regulatory assistance. That felt good with engineering wanting me on project teams.

 

[Au Naturel]

The bully is usually a very unhappy person.

It was always a handful of people that bullied me. Never the majority. Most were afraid, and stayed clear for fear they would become targets.

Never the majority, for most people do not come from the families these children come from.

My mother explained this to me. She said the segment of the population that become bullies, often come from dysfunctional homes. These children that bully, are brought up in households where they have been either intimidated emotionally/emotionally abused, made to feel helpless and/or even physically abused.

It's a rather subconscious act when a person becomes a bully. They enter school and quickly figure out that they can finally be powerful, unlike at home. This makes them feel powerful. They are no longer the victim, but the person holding that power over another. They enlist friends who either come from that environment, or enlist other students to follow suit and bully alongside of them via fear.

And yes, the best targets are those who appear helpless, weak, shy or different. Even better if those targets do not have friends to back them up when approached.

Damaged goods she called them. People to be pitied. Together, she and I worked around tactics to deal with that population.

I met one of them (an ex-bully from grade school) on the FaceBook format, 40 years later. I had simply been posting new puppy videos. Nothing better than a dog video! As you can imagine is quite the joyful time in our lives.

I had been encouraged to 'friend' this person, via a grade school classmate/acquaintance. I said ok Bonnie yeah ok sure. What the H... FB means little to me eh. Next thing I know, the ex-bully person messaged me on her birthday and to be polite I said oh it's your birthday.. HB so and so.

She flies down my throat and says Happy???? Oh yeah, you have that happy life of yours. What do you know of my miserable life!

Just goes to show, yeah all that is true. The bullies are miserable, often abused unhappy people. Truly damaged goods as my mom would explain. You wouldn't want their lives.

Or sometimes the bully just wants your lunch money and nobody in authority has the will to do anything about it.

 

[Aspychata]

Yes. I agree. The minute you show any critical thinking skills or empathy, you might as well spray paint a target on your back.

 

[Gift2humanity]

In high school (secondary school), I was physically bullied. Please reply to this thread.

1. Have you ever been bullied at school or work?

2. Why do bullies target us autistics?

3. Why are we autistics often bullied at school and at work?

1. Have you ever been bullied at school or work?
Both. Because of the way I acted and the things I said.
2. Why do bullies target us autistics?
It depends on the individual, I know some autistics who don't get bullied. Not to blame the bullied persons though.
3. Why are we autistics often bullied at school and at work?
Just my personal opinion, I think it depends on the individual autistic, although some of us have visual traits that can attract mockery, like my rocking-back-and-forth and meltdown scars on right forearm.

 

[Outdated]

I was treated very shamefully throughout my school life, by students and by some of the teachers. School was by far the most traumatic experience of my life. When I started work I was treated very well and it was only then that I started to learn the social skills that I needed to survive in society.

The difference was chalk and cheese, I never let anyone take away my self respect after that. There's been quite a few people try to bully me in work places over the years, sometimes even the employer, they discovered that I'm no longer an easy conquest. I don't ask other people to sort my problems for me, I tend to sort them very quickly and decisively.

This carried through to outside of work too, bullies really upset me and I'm very quick to let them know this in a rather militant fashion.

 

[ShaunG]

I have a situation at my work right now with neurotypicals. Sometimes, for whatever reason, neurotypicals will freak out when I'm talking to them and get upset at what I said. I never understand what I said that upsets them. Well, I was talking to a supervisor the other day about taking a friends dog to the vet, and she did this. Since this happened, she has been passive aggressive and condescending towards me. I am a mental health case manager in a clinical setting. She has also started a whispering campaign against me. I am contemplating suing the agency I work for, and the large regional hospital that runs the clinic we are located at. But first I will go to my direct supervisor and give them one chance to explain themselves.

Historically, I have stopped things like this by nipping them in the bud and documenting things as they unfold.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

1. Have you ever been bullied at school or work?

yes


2. Why do bullies target us autistics?

because they know we are open, curious, and vulnerable. we lack the social awareness to avoid them.


3. Why are we autistics often bullied at school and at work?

because mean people suck

 

[Tony Ramirez]

Or ignored that's a big one too.

 

[bajariitz37]

In high school (secondary school), I was physically bullied. Please reply to this thread.

1. Have you ever been bullied at school or work?

2. Why do bullies target us autistics?

3. Why are we autistics often bullied at school and at work?

1. In school yes, around ages 13-16 in upper elementary school. Not so much in working life, though I have sensed a strong dislike from some former coworkers because I lacked the skills for small talk and was sometimes considered weird.

2. We stick out like a sore thumb so it is easy to get others to join in on making fun of the "weird" kid. For me some of the bullying was committed in a way that for example the bully is asking me questions about something I like or about me in a sarcastic tone pretending to be friendly (it was hard for me to read social cues so I did not know if they were sincere or no) and then others would snicker at my answers, I think this could be implemented mostly on autistic people because of the lack of the social awareness. This kind of trauma really messes up your head though, because it can bring this weird paranoia in to your life where you think everybody who is interested in you or talks to you is secretly making fun of you, quite traumatic.

I was almost never physically bullied, mostly the bullies would just spread rumors about me and intimidate me with threats of what they were going to do, now that I look back it would have been better to stand my ground but it might have been almost impossible, because some of the bullies were popular kids so the teachers would have probably me as the bad guy . This happened to me also few times, some of my teachers would show strong dislike towards me probably because of the "weirdness", but some of the teachers absolutely adored me , weird love/hate split there.

3. lack of social awareness, stimming can be considered weird by others, I was sometimes called stupid by others for failing to keep up with the teaching (I process information more slowly, especially in situations where a whole group is given instructions and we have to complete the task at the same time, I was almost always the last to finish it), but weirdly I was on top of my class in grades when I could just learn things at my pace by myself.