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Who else was bullied in high school?

illustrated.lady

I want to add a content warning here for bullying.

Hello!

I'm fairly newly diagnosed woman at the grand age of 32. When I was diagnosed the psychiatrist said that years ago I wouldn't have been diagnosed with our understanding of the autistic spectrum has changed over time. 

I keep thinking back to my time in school, I went to a girls school, it had a bad reputation locally and it was awful.

I have always had dreams about being back in school but they have become almost nightly since my diagnosis.

Academically, I did well in school, I thoroughly enjoyed some subjects - English, RE, Health and Social Care, Graphics. Socially, not so much although by the final two years I had settled into a friendship group with fellow nerdy kids. 

I always felt like an outcast, other girls made fun of me for every little thing, my frizzy hair, my body, my 'posh' ways of speaking, my geekiness, my online presence (these were the early days of social media), my interests.

I tried so desperately to fit in, I would listen to music I didn't like feign interest in things I didn't like and changed my ways of speaking. I couldn't recognize when people were being mean to me - that fake nice thing that girls would do that I still would not be able to recognize today!

I feel like I'm grieving for what could have been, my experience of school could have been so different in my autism was recognised and catered for. In Year 9, so at 13/14 years old I went through an awful stage of anxiety and school avoidance, I just didn't want to be there, I was just so overwhelmed and sitting in a class felt like punishment. 

It was actually only during therapy a few years ago in my late twenties that I had the sudden realization that I was bullied, that my experience wasn't typical. It wasn't normal for people to steal your belongings, to be pinched, to have your skirt pulled up, to be threatened, to have everything you do analyzed and criticized. 

My understanding now is that my experience is very common amongst autistic people. I am on the waiting list for therapy with the NHS as this is something I really need to be able to move on from.

Parents

  • Hi, your experience is very similar to mine. I managed the bullies in other way- I was gifted in some topics- geometry, languages especially the grammar, it also happened to me to help someone with physics so I started having a queue of my peers to help them with homework and preparation for exams. This way I traded with them - I will help you, but you stop bully me and let me move around with you. And it worked. Although I was still in a totally different world, but I earned myself bodyguards. The bullies did not dare to touch me anymore. This way I also learned, that I have to be a part of a group in order to not become a prey. I saw school as a jungle with wild predators hunting for me and other quiet little creatures that just sat minding own business and not harming anyone. I couldn’t understand why it was like this but I understood that it is what it is. I’m my case I laughed while being bullied, laughed at, called names, being pushed etc. it was an inappropriate reaction, It wasn’t funny or pleasant to me, I was sad but at the same time I couldn’t control my totally idiotic reaction. Now I found out from my therapist that it’s typical for autistic people. I often recognized much later that I was actually not liked, but bullied. Till now I recall these years as traumatic. I was also forcefully pushed by teachers to play with other kids. I cried and had a panic attack because of fear of the noise and chaos that the kids made. Breaks, school trips and PE felt like a hell. I could write a lot… but I think it’s enough from me now. Being bullied is very common autistic experience. 

  • in reply to Alien0n3arth
    Alien0n3arth said:
    I’m my case I laughed while being bullied, laughed at, called names, being pushed etc.

    Whoa me too. I never could figure out why I laughed when I got pushed several times into the lockers, but it actually made the bully uncomfortable and not want to keep pushing me. It feels weird that it’s something other people have dealt with!

  • in reply to profdanger

    They laughed at me even more then, saying that I’m psychically sick and then they finally left, because I guess there was nothing more left to do. Some girls followed me on my way home and from what I overheard I know they wanted to beat me. But I was lucky, that there was one almost two-meter-tall guy on my side. I earned him by helping him with geometry and also saw him kissing one girl from our class, they saw me too, and I didn’t spread the gossip. Since then he started saying ‘hi’ to me, which was shocking. And he saved me from being beaten. 

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  • in reply to profdanger

    They laughed at me even more then, saying that I’m psychically sick and then they finally left, because I guess there was nothing more left to do. Some girls followed me on my way home and from what I overheard I know they wanted to beat me. But I was lucky, that there was one almost two-meter-tall guy on my side. I earned him by helping him with geometry and also saw him kissing one girl from our class, they saw me too, and I didn’t spread the gossip. Since then he started saying ‘hi’ to me, which was shocking. And he saved me from being beaten. 

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