Bully Victims

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I'm a prime example of an aspie who was bullied in middle school. There was verbal abuse, and a lot of social exclusion, which some research is classifying as bullying as well. Below is a quote from an article (along with the link) that I read a few years before my AS diagnosis. It was the first time I ever read a description of my problem in such a condensed manner. I had known most of my life that my problem was not soley "shyness," nor soley "low self-esteem," etc. I never knew exactly how to define it, until I read this article.

"Children are more likely to BE bullied if they have low self-esteem, tend to be shy and non-assertive, tend to be anxious or depressed, tend to cry or over-react when teased, have few or no friends. Many of these children have difficulty reading social cues and have deficits in social skills. It is NOT because of different physical characteristics such as red hair, eyeglasses, an unusual dialect, or being over-weight."
http://faculty.ashrosary.org/faculty/co ... easing.htm

My impression is there are some folks that fit the description above who do not have AS, as well as many people with AS who do not fit the description above. I also bet there is a huge overlap of Aspies who do fit the description above, including myself.

How many of you out there fit the description above when you were in middle, or even now? How many do not?

I was bullied a lot, often horribly so. By two of my cousins as a small kid and also by classmates in elementary school. Middle school was when the bullying was the most violent and downright terrifying, pretty much every day. In high school I wasn't bullied too often; just ostracized, but I didn't usually mind that too much because I didn't want to be "normal", I was glad enough to just be left alone. I still have trauma from what I was put through as a kid, though. A lot of kids are cruel, heartless little s**ts!

EDIT: I think I was vulnerable to the bullying because my behavior was seen as odd, I was quiet, I got upset easily, I wasn't into trends or sports, I didn't have many friends, and though my intelligence level was considered to be very high, my difficulty with understanding some things often led to me being called "stupid" or "ret*d".

Last edited by Xeno on 11 May 2011, 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was bullied in middle school - teasing, verbal abuse, physical assault and two of my worst bullying experiences were in middle school; 1. had my shoes stolen so I had to walk home in the snow barefoot, and 2. had my face forced into mud and made to walk round like that all lunch because I was 'too ugly' for anyone to bare looking at. Although high school was generally worse as there was more viscous bullying, the social rules change and bullying becomes more subtle, particularly amongst girls.

I had meltdowns CONSTANTLY in middle school - every other lesson I'd cry like a baby and so teachers hated me too thus didn't protect me, I also sucked my thumb, didn't groom myself correctly so had very knotted hair, wore cheap or second-hand clothing, I had few friends and what one close friend I did have was hated by everyone (I hated her too, but had no choice but to hang round with her) plus she loved making sure she was my only friend, my mother was overprotective, I barked like a dog, I had no idea of social queues etc. etc.

So, I fitted in with that description well, and certainly was bullied for it.

That definitely sounds like me in elementary and most of middle school. Someone threw my backpack in the trash (grade school), people would follow me around to give me a hard time...you get the idea.

By high school I had pretty much decided "f**k it, I don't care what anyone thinks of me anymore--they're all a bunch of a****les anyway." That coincided with my being ignored for the most part (which was fine by me) and having a few people to hang out with occasionally (mostly guys).

I was treated like crap from kindergarten to graduation, and it was only in my Sophomore year of high school that I really had any place I came near fitting in. I was so different that by 5th grade I'd had another student (a boy), say to my face, "Why don't you go die, no one gives a s**t about you." Being told things like this were commonplace for me until the end of middle school. Other students, both girls and guys, would tip my chair back in the cafeteria, to the point where, often enough, my chair would tip over backward; I knocked the back of my head on the floor so many times, I'm incredibly surprised I didn't have a concussion. Even if this was done directly in front of an adult - once even a principal - nothing was ever done to the perpetrators, and the few times I retaliated verbally, I was the one punished.

High School was mostly exclusion, but at that point, I had ceased to really care about how I was treated. Several times during my senior year, however, I had freshmen who I'd never seen before come up to me and say an old elementary school taunt, then go back to someone from my class and get $5 in return.

My entire school career I had very low self esteem and even lower self worth, though part of it was due to the constant bullying. I still have incredibly low self esteem, and I probably always will.

yep, it describes my life up to my mid 20s.

Bullied as well, from kindergarden to highschool. Horrible times.

Edit; I fit the description mostly. Passive person, no friends, quiet and intelligent. I also never fought back.

Yeah, I was bullied too. The worst being physically attacked by a boy.

This totally fits me as a child and adolescent and I can relate very well to the treatment described in all the previous posts! I was bullied practically from birth by my older brother and it followed me into public school and all the way through high school (Jr high/middle school was the most open but high school got quite nasty behind my back), not so much a problem in college where it was mostly ostracizing, but I was also bullied in the workplace and by lovers for years beyond.

I coped in jr high and high school with the "f-k it" attitude. It probably made things worse, because I sneered at "normal" people, rejecting them right back. If monsters like that were considered "normal", then I didn't want anything to do with that BS.

After a few years in the work force, I finally had an epiphany at work with my Prime Bully. He had just dumped all over me first thing on a Monday morning and I could see the dark toxic cloud of depression slowly spreading to demoralize my entire week, right before my eyes, helpless to stop it. It took a lot of courage to do it but I decided I didn't care about keeping the peace any more at the expense of my daily happiness. I went back to his office, stood up for myself and called him on all his crap. I did it as professionally and politely as I could manage, seeing how I was so mad I could have spit red hot coals, but also honestly and directly. (The memory of the look on his face when I finally broke down crying is pretty classic. It wasn't fun at the time, but I can see now how he felt really bad "for making a girl cry")

He was forever nice to me after that and spoke most highly of me, eventually, when called for job references in later years. He wasn't a bad guy. In this particular case I think he truly had no idea how hurtful his behavior was to me. That is usually not the case with bullies, in my experience, but the result is often similar in that they stop pushing once they come up against solid resistance. It's the tendency to withdraw, to avoid that seems to egg them on to still more intrusive behavior.

Lesson? Stand up to a Bully. The more you give in, the worse it gets as they begin to explore just how far they can push you, seemingly out of morbid curiosity. Standing up stops them, even if you have to move on to another place afterwards.

This tactic served me well at another job as well and won me the respect of coworkers who saw what was going on. I worked in construction management and was seen as smart, capable and tough, with no time for "social games" and therefore able to get things done. My superintendents and subcontractors all loved me and Owners clients like Toyota, Lexus, Home Depot and Office Depot always commented to The Boss how impressed they were with me. Working as a woman in what is typically considered "a man's job" I got on very well and gained admiration and respect for my accomplishments.

It was the office politics and the chicks that messed it all up. =( One gossipy b***h who slimed her way to office manager managed to ruin my stellar reputation with upper management in little over a year. Where I was perfectly capable of managing the mechanics of jobsite interactions and getting stuff done on-time and under-budget, I was flat-footed and completely out of my league negotiating the complexities of office politics. I could stand up to the open, front-on, in-your-face bully at this office, but the subtle, thin-blade-between-the-ribs of social-entendre-sparring was beyond me. The two of them working together on the Big Boss's ear and harassing me daily in various increasingly overt ways finally resulted in my quitting in disgust.

Ironically, they were bullying me to try and control me, not get me to leave. It seems that I was too unconventional, individualistic, too incomprehensible to them and that I generally made them uneasy, despite my stellar performance and positive client reviews. They needed to feel like they could control me down to the last keystoke in order to feel comfortable, despite the actual- you know - evidence to the contrary. Typical NT problem.

When I left, it really hurt the company, so I guess it was still a passive-aggressive "win" at the time. It felt good at the time, after all the crap I'd suffered under those two for over a year, but it's not about "winning" or "losing". There is simply no reason to stay with a lost cause if a workplace becomes unbearably toxic to you. Your health & happiness is not worth it!

I tend to agree with the assessment - I was non-assertive and just wanted to be left alone. I never understood why other kids wouldn't just leave me alone, since I didn't try to initiate anything with them. I think communications impairments play a role too. I remember a teacher one time said to me if someone bothered me, I should "knock his block off" but I had no idea what that actually meant. By the time I understood it meant to respond with aggression, it was a moot point. Someone like a teacher can say something to an autistic/AS kid, but that doesn't mean the kid actually understands it.

For me, and I think in general, "middle school" (we called it junior high) is the worst of the bullying phase. By the time I got to high school, everyone was living their own lives and just ignored me. As kids get older, they're too busy to really bully like they did in the early teens.

I hope no-one gets upset by me, sort of, bragging.
You see, I was a kid that most certainly could have been bullied a lot.
But even in kindergarten I made the bullies disappointed.

For my first years, I grew up with my grand parents, where I had no play mates but plenty of adult women in whose company I got a language that surely came to seem precocious during all of my school years. I had interests that I didn't share with anyone of my own age, and although fairly intelligent still a lot of weak school subjects: My handwriting was the worst among my class mates, it wasn't until the 7th grade until I slowly started to spell correctly, sports and crafts were just blind spots for me, etc, etc.

But I was from the very beginning well prepared by both of my grand parents, and a lot of other adults too. There was nothing wrong with my self-esteem (except beeing somewhat too good, maybe) and I felt very loved and appreciated by my relatives and their friends. From very early on, both of my grand parents told me stories about those of their siblings who had been strange, one way or another, clearly making the point that "comrades in school and in adulthood may be unfriendly, but that is no use taking that too seriously."

My grand father repeatedly made the point that cross dressers (as his brother) have extra advantages in life, rather than the other way around, and that people have too many prejudices, and cares far too much about things that aren't their business. One of my grand father's (too) frequently repeated tales was about how he, as a naval officer, many times chose to go and fetch members of his crew at harbour restaurants instead of having to risk them being too drunk, or even left behind, when the ship departed. Since some of these places were that kind of joints his fellow officers considered below their dignity to get connected with, and since he occasionally returned with drunk crew members from bars for homosexuals, my grand father stressed particularly that one has to make choices in life, and one's reputation among one's peers may be less important than the coherence between one's own standards and actions.

So, when school mates attempted and tried to bully me, they failed. At worst I hid myself, but mostly I just considered them stupid, morally inferior and/or immature. I wasn't interested in their company or the rules of their groups, so I wasn't harmed by their attempts of social punishments.

I believe firmly that the most important reason why I do not remember to have been bullied is that I was indifferent. For them, it was no fun attempting to bullying me, since I didn't react in a way that stimulated the leaders nor the led group members. Hence they never tried very hard.

I surely could not handle groups. But I didn't try either. I just avoided them. I made company with one person at a time, or with no-one (i.e. myself).

(I was unlucky in one respect, though. During a long series of years, I came to have one friend a year. Unfortunately it happened too many years to me, that my friend's parents had to move to another city, so that those friendships we'd built up, they were repeatedly broken due to reasons outside of our control. I can not say whether these experience in the long run affected me negatively, but during my school years they no doubt contributed to me being less and less interested in getting to know mates of my own age.)

Manganus - Thanks for sharing your story! You clearly had an amazing family!!

I am raising two kids of my own and stories like this help show a little bit of how to avoid the pitfalls I suffered myself.

BTW- now I'm really curious, what kind of advantages are there for a male cross dresser? Is it the dual identity thing? (I'm totally down with that, BTW...)

I think that I could have got bullied, and people even tried, but my dad pretty much forced me to fight a kid that was bullying me once when I was about 5 and from then on I stopped being the easiest target. I suppose that it still happened to some degree but being willing to stick up for myself ( that one time really changed the way i saw things) afforded me at least a little respect from the other kids.


My personal opinion on why we make easy targets:


It's not so much what we're not but what we are. We're independent, we think for ourselves, we do our own thing. We don't ask that other people follow us.

We have the mentality to want to work things out for ourselves and forge our own way but we don't want to lead nor be lead so we don't develop our group social skills. Other people hate that! "You don't spend every moment trying to be part of our group? You don't make your own group? ". We're just natural outsiders.

No doubt!
And thank you very much for your friendly response!



It's less a question of cross dressers per se having particular advantages, than the importance of using one's own "less normal traits" to the advantage of one self, one's friends & family.

I'm not prepared to go into details, at least not for the moment.
This particular great uncle of mine had as an adult to pay an unexpectedly high price for trying to fit in, mutilating his own personality.

Telling about him, in terms of a happy boy and young man, and an unhappy adult man, was a lecture of great importance for both me and my grand father.

I'm in college and my neighbors tried bullying me by throwing ice in my door. I acted as if I was going to kick their ass (I would never enter a fight, because I don't believe in violence), I came out and stood up for myself and acted like an irrational animal, the guy (a jock) came and apologized and they don't mess with me anymore. It made me feel powerful and good, just don't take dog mess from anyone.

It is my hope that whatever my children's orientations and self-identified genders may be, that I can raise them to be happy, healthy adults. Much of the bullying I experienced in school involved accusations and perjoratives regarding my perceived sexual orientation. Even though I self-identify as "straight" I have had a first hand experience of the persecution that homosexuals face on a daily basis and how inhumane and horrible that can be, regardless of gender identification and orientation. Ideally, IMO, there should be no difference in how people are treated in that regards, but good self image and self esteem go a long way to help that equation reach a positive outcome. It is really great to hear stories of other generations having positive family acknowledgement and experiences growing up.