Adult bullying

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I have been reading the previous posts with interest. I was looking for a common theme. Mostly it seems that if we are quiet or polite people then we are bullied or if we are slow to understand that things are not going well then others see that.

I live in a lovely area overall but have several neighbours who have mental health problems and most of them are bullies in one way or another. Several neighbours including myself have had to put up their intimidation and one neighbour was even stabbed and his children beaten up in the local park.

One of my close neighbours is sociopathic or has narcissistic personality disorder an expert told me and has no qualms about stealing things from people, telling outrageous lies, letting their ugly dog foul the pavement right beside the cafe where people sit outside to have coffee etc etc etc.

When I first got bullied by a few of these people I wondered what I had done wrong until I saw that they will bully anyone for the smallest of reasons. Some of these reasons are because they are delusional and believe that people are doing things to them. My neighbour thought I was trying to drown her because I had a leak and it went into her place! Very strange person

Some of these badly behaved people have been evicted over the years but there are still some left who manage to con their way out of any issues and so they go on and on.

When I was being very badly bullied I told my GP and the autism centre about it and both people sent letters to the relevant people and explained how bad it was and asked them to help sort it out for me.

Any autistic person who is being bullied should try to get help from their autism centre or any other place they are connected with who may be able to help.

As an adult I will use three examples of bullying in different forms

1. I lived with a childhood friend and her mother for a little while at the age of 20. It was when I was living there that my so-called friend and her mother who would pick at me for being to skinny. This was every time we sat down to eat. They also made comments about how I should have gained X amount of weight by 20. Believe me, these two are very pathological.

2. I shared a house with a roommate that had bad anger issues and an obsessive compulsive personality. She was also very manipulative and dishonest. Anyway, there was one time where she got mad at me for not being responsible enough and then started making a big deal about not being over 21. She basically wanted me to either stay out of the house or be in my room when I was there. She lied and manipulated me about having a big birthday party one time that was to be weekend and that I needed to keep everything clean and stay off the couches before then. Even further, I was not invited to her party. :"Are you going to be here? There is going to be lots of drinking and people sleeping on the couches. Only people 21 and over are invited."

3. I worked with a girl who acted like a friend to my face and I even did things with her. She even called me her best friend. Then when a different co-worker got hired, I suddenly got dumped gradually. Then I came to find that she was acting like a friend to my face and then twisting things about my that were not true behind my back.

Here's the thing I learned about bullies and living in that world. When I was younger that whole "ball busting" thing didn't seem to hurt others but it hurt me really bad, and it was hard to tell the difference between them trying to hurt you, or just trying to be playful. So I decided to not care and consider it all playful. I'm all about Occam's Razor (if that's spelled right) the simplest is likely the answer...and it seems to be more likely that the person is just joking around rather than this big thing that they are being mean and out to get you. So I faked it until I made it.
Then suddenly after a while you find that you simply don't care what they say anyway, then you notice that it becomes a real and true thing in your life. You don't care and they stopped those kinds of jokes because they no longer hold power, if they were trying to bully you at all. It's amazing how you can change your own personality over time simply by "faking it" until you make it.

I have been bullied as an adult at work. I am not sure if it is me or if it is my profession. Nurses (esp labor and delivery nurses) seem to think they are super-special and make you prove yourself before you're invited into their little club. The type of bullying I have experienced has been direct: "We didn't ask to train you!" "We didn't ask for you to work with US" to indirect: talking about me behind my back, sitting in a semi-circle with their backs to me, excluding me from their party plans, etc.

I was severely bullied in elementary school, jr. high, and part of high school because I was not only different (unable to tell when someone was being mean to me), but I was also super smart. For a long time it made me ashamed of being smart but now I see my intelligence as one of my strengths. I still have a hard time feeling accepted. I always think they are luring me in so they can ridicule me. (Remnants from my childhood bullying days)

I know I am a good nurse. I am good at what I do and my patients and their families praise me. I care about my patients. I'm always reading. Always researching. I have survived 39 years without having these bullies as my friends. I can survive another 39 without them too. I'm not saying it doesn't bother me at all. It can make work very lonely. Usually after a while, they realize I am a good nurse and then I am accepted. Part of me forever resents them though - for making me go through some kind of stupid initiation of snubbing. For once, I wish someone would be my advocate and welcome me into a group without always having to prove myself.

They don't realize it, but it takes a *lot* of energy for me to pretend to enjoy interacting socially with my coworkers. I could care less about the dress they are buying on eBay, the "adult" party they went to and the new vibrator they bought. It drains me to have to pretend to be interested in their petty crap that I think shouldn't be discussed at the nurse's station anyway. One girl shared in-depth details of how she remained a virgin until her wedding night and how they made love for the first time. She then went on to describe how she swallows during oral sex and likes it. All I could think was "attention whore" but everyone else seemed so pleased at her over-dramaticized monologue. I always feel like I am the only one who doesn't seem to enjoy hearing every detail of every person's life. I could care less that your baby made a cute face. I don't want to see 200 pictures of your child's bday party. I can fake it for a short while, but there are only so many oohs and ahhhs I can give before I'm just done.

I'm often conscious of being bullied, or more often just subtly disrespected by people whom I consider beneath respect, themselves. I get very, very angry and the anger comes back whenever I think about it, but in the moment I'm always too anxious or clueless to say anything.

Sometimes I'd love to just challenge them to a fist-fight, but I'm afraid of getting killed by his buddies and/or family, and of jail. Not to mention the possibility of an assault charge. I just can't think of another way to set boundaries other than just cursing them, and that just lets them know they made me mad.

the ill-bathed yahoos that i have to live with out in the sticks, are to a person all bullies. the only saving grace is that we're all widely separated physically. but not widely enough for me.

I'd always thought that I was some kind of pariah by destiny. Eveyrone I meet seems to take delight in screwing me to the sticking post. Even my lecturer basically destroyed my first year of uni by forcing me to retake.
That year i'd been having emotional dificulties which I provided evidence for (i'd been hospitalised) all the same i'd completed all the coursework. The lecturer promised me that i'd be able to work from home submiting my coursework via email. He knew all along that no such thing was possible however so he basically lied to me and ensured that I failed the year.

This year im top of every single one of the classes I go to and I score 80% + on every single assignment. All that I can do is get my revenge through success. Clearly he wants me to fail miserably.

^^^
welcome to our cool club Thundrathird

Cheers Ive basically been looking for this place since I started uni!

What I learned from interacting with non malignant bullying are several things.

One of the main ones is to cut off any form of contact with the person who is latching themselves onto you all while trying to make fun of and give others a bad impression of you. This includes not talking to them and just having as little interaction as possible unless you have to communicate on relevant matters or be in the same room such as in the work place or in a class. Otherwise, it is best to also just stay away from them. This eventually can shut the person down from trying to hurt you anymore while realizing that there will be a time when the bully will be removed from your life permanently.

I have had difficulties with bullies from the time I entered the workforce 20 years ago. I have lost several jobs for being "disruptive" or "not a team player" despite being the employee who does the most work in the most timely and efficient manner.

The position that I held until late October was one where I faced the most bullying. I had a supervisor who told me to my face that she would see to it that I would not work there for much longer. She cited my "know-it-all, smart assed attitude" and accused me of thinking that I was better than everyone else. She also repeatedly told me that my money was wasted on my education (I now have an AS, BS, and MBA) because there was no one in the world who would let me work for them for long. She also accused me of being incompetent and ignorant, despite the fact that I was the only one who bothered to keep the detailed records required by federal regulations. She repeatedly talked trash about me to anyone who would listen, and if there were ever any problems or errors in our department, I was the only one who would be blamed (including one incident that happened while I was out for medical reasons for several weeks). I had been written up several times, and my supervisor's supervisor told me that if I was the only one he was hearing problems about, then it must be that I am the problem. I was the victim of dozens of vicious rumors, having little or no actual factual basis, including that I was a violent sociopath who was on anti-psychotics to keep me from killing anyone, and that I was released from a mental institution and was only hired to meet diversity requirements (neither of which had any base in reality).

I have (recently) discovered that the best way to minimize this is to force myself to keep silent when other people make mistakes or make statements that I know are innacurate, and to accept the blame (and apologize - even if I feel that I have done nothing wrong) for any social errors that I make.
I have also been keeping entirely silent around new people while watching their every move and listening to their every word until I can find patterns in their behavior and speech. While this also has the tendency to make me seem "creepy" or "weird," it minimizes the people who misinterpret my words and actions as arrogant, insulting, impolite, and inflammatory.

I have recently gotten a job as a health physicist, which I highly recommend to an aspie/ASD who likes mathematical calculations and stacks of rules and regulations. It has the excellent upside of having less social interaction in the workplace, and the emphasis in this field is on accuracy and efficiency, not social nicety. If you work in Radiation Safety (as I do), you have the added bonus of detailed federal regulations to back you up.

That's exactly what's happening to me at work at the moment. Half the people at work don't even greet me. Those people complain about my work. Their complaints are focused on me and exaggerated. Everyone has some flaws and if you want to complain, you can do so about everyone. They don't complain about other people because they want to protect one another. So it makes it look as if I'm the bad worker. My boss doesn't even try to listen to my side of the story. Further, someone has been actually sabotaging my work to cause trouble to me. The way it is done is so sneaky. I know who is doing it, but I can't provide any evidence that that person is doing it. When I spoke to my boss about it, he actually accused me of being the trouble as if I were imagining it or as if I were to blame for causing someone to sabotage my work. I really don't know what to do.

^^^
THAT is why i am an unemployed hermit out in the woods. nobody wants me for anything good.