I have recieved bullying in the past for allegedly having autism, and because i am going to a new school i would like to see what to hide in order to avoid bullying
One common symptom of autism is extreme intense focus on one thing. I once read about an autistic boy who would play rewind on one scene of the Disney 101 Dalmatians movie hundreds or thousands of times just to watch the scene of Cruella de Vil screeching up the streets in her purple coupe car. The boy didn’t care about the rest of the movie, he just wanted to watch that ten-second scene over and over again.
Now you are probably, of course, past that phase, but sadly, even if you’re in high school, you may need to try to mask showing too much of an interest in any one particular subject.
First let me say, I am so sorry this happened to you. It really is incredibly unfair, and nobody has the right to make you feel unsafe in your school.
That said, I applaud your wish to figure out what you need to do differently. It’s just hard for people who don’t know you to guess what particular signs you might have given off - if any. It’s perfectly possible that this is just a label your peers learned and decided to throw at you randomly.
My best advice would be to google “social skills for neurodivergents” and read what you find. See if the shoe fits, or if you learn anything that feels valuable.
What you are proposing to do is called “masking” and it can take up a lot of your energy. So choose carefully the things that feel important enough to do, and the people who feel important enough to do it for.
Don’t just give up your whole personality, or how can you find your people? And that really is the strongest approach to this problem; look around for the people you like. Get involved in activities that appeal to you. Introduce yourself to people who seem to like the same things you do. That’s how you find your tribe.
I hope some of this is helpful. Good luck!
Autism as presently defined is a very large and wooly diagnosis. There are many many different behaviors, blessings, and limitations that fall within that broad category. There is in fact some controversy among experts that they’ve widened the definition of autism past the point where it’s useful.
Point being that autism presents as many different thought patterns and behaviors, many of which are quite ordinary, but just turned up to 11. e.g. If there’s a 20 item questionnaire of “Do you do X?”, damn near everyone does one or two of those things some. OTOH if you do a couple of them severely or a lot of them most of the time, you more likely fit the diagnosis.
Anyhow, if more quality reading on autism gets you to believing you probably have some autistic traits, you probably ought to approach your parent(s) and the health people, counselors, etc., at your school about your concerns and try to get them to arrange a professional evaluation.
The only thing less helpful than diagnosed autism is undiagnosed autism.
I don’t have an answer to this sadly. As someone who has his own neurodivergence (not autistic though) the social alienation and rejection is very traumatic. I know some people enroll their autistic children in social skills training programs to help them function.
You can take the RAADS-R test as a screening tool to see if you may have autism so you can take that score to a professional for further diagnostics. A score of 65+ can imply autism.
Endorsed.
Issue one is that you are being bullied, identified, in your previous school at least, as someone who is different in some way.
Many of us here, many of us now as old as you grandparents possibly, had been similarly bullied at your age. For whatever reason we didn’t fit in. Many of us in one way or the other were the weird kid.
Good news. For most of us the bits that made us identified as weird have also delivered us good things over time. Most of us have found our people, even if it wasn’t in High School. There are many different ways to be normal even if the apparent dominant group in your school fails to appreciate the fact.
I get the desire to fit in better. And some things may be learning some skills that might not come as naturally to you as others. Some can be learned if so. Some harder. Social space. Always wanting to talk about one subject. Rigidity. Not getting jokes or just having a different sense of humor. Or not.
If your new school is decent sized the odds are there is some club or group that interests you and/or may contain some of your people. Try some. The first group might not be the right fit. The second might not be. But they are very likely there.
Having been recently diagnosed as Level 1 ASD (high functioning autistic), and therefore going through the first 64 years of my life as an undiagnosed autistic, I can offer my experiences.
- Much of the time I felt as though I didn’t “fit”. In a way, it was as though I understood what was functionally happening, and I knew the words, while I wasn’t “getting” what was really happening:
- To me it feels as though I am “on the outside looking in”;
- The typical “locker room banter”, or when a bunch of guys are “chucking shit” at each other, when directed at me, felt like an attack or an direct, serious insult. Whereas a group of guys can be playing a team sport and shouting at their team-mates for the missed shot or whatever, and then go out after and have a great time over some beers, I can’t. I avoided team sports to the greatest extent possible because, for me, they were always stressful and unfun;
- My love life (such as it was, and I’m a guy btw) is one of my biggest regrets. I always felt that woman simply didn’t like me and/or would often friendzone me . Post-diagnosis, I realized that that was self-inflicted.
After my diagnosis I checked out the symptoms of autism. Difficulty in interpreting social cues and black-and-white thinking, and a tendency to take things literally are the ones that apply to me the most. These have affected me personally and professionally, though I did alright professionally (I didn’t thrive) to the extent that I was a naval officer for thirty years and worked in related civilian industry for ten years after that.
However, as a naval officer, I retired as a naval lieutenant while many of my contemporaries retired as admirals, captains, and commanders. Fortunately I am sufficiently high-functioning that I didn’t end up job hopping and going from paycheck to paycheck; I was extremely, extremely fortunate.
It’s my personal life (particularly my love life) for which I have the most regrets. And I will have those regrets until the end as I am in a damaged, less than ideal marriage (all of which is the result of my then-undiagnosed autistic behaviour).
So, if the above bullet points feel familiar to you, and you have the means to get a diagnosis, you might want to pursue it. It sounds as though you are relatively young and, if you can get some definite answers, you will really benefit from it.
One thing to keep in mind is that pretty much everyone is bullied for something or another in school. Don’t worry so much about not being bullied. What other people think of you isn’t all that important. I know that it can seem like those other opinions matter and you should conform to them, but they are just random thoughts from people that don’t matter. Find people that you enjoy being around and you have fun with. Get into activities you enjoy without worrying what other people think of them. For instance, if you enjoy tabletop games, join the tabletop gaming club even if the cool kids think it’s nerdy.
Consider talking with the counselors at your school. They are trained to help students with these kinds of issues. They can help you work through any issues you are having and get you into classes and activities that will fit with your personality.
The cause of the bullying is not you or anything about you. The cause of the bullying is the bullies. And the things they call you have essentially no relation to their actual perceptions of you.
“I wish I had said that.” “You will, Oscar, you will.”
Can expand on this a bit please?
Do you mean that schoolmates are calling you “autistic” as an insult based on how you behave?
Or that you have been given that label by evaluation and you are being bullied about that?
What are the circumstances where the bullying occurs?
Do you think that the label fits you? What does the label mean to you?
I agree that bullies choose labels to be mean without any real connection to who they bully. It’s just the label de jure of insults most of the time.
That said, I haven’t been diagnosed, but I did have a psychologist suggest I get evaluated for it.
I was bullied a lot in school, elementary through college to some degree or other. I have come to understand the things that got me bullied for and the ways I was bullied weren’t connected necessarily. Examining my past, my behaviors and experiences, I have now realized I did have some annoying behaviors that drew the negative attention.
The sensitivity to kidding and not understanding social dynamics is a big part of what I struggled with. I forever felt like an outsider. Wanting to contribute made me come off as a know-it-all. Being smart made it seem like I was a show-off.
Some things you may not be able to mask. Some things you can learn to do differently.
Try to learn how to navigate teasing and joking. Not overreacting and being able to give back is better than taking it personally and getting angry and hurt.
Find the people who share interests and accept you. That’s ultimately the skill I had to learn.
There are behaviors of (some) neurodiverse people that are neutral and don’t warrant intervention. These would be things like avoiding eye contact, stimming, being hyperfixated on one specific interest.
But there are also behaviors that are more likely to result in serious interpersonal problems and it would behoove anyone with these problems to figure out what’s appropriate and try to do that. These would include interrupting other people, refusing to participate in social niceties, belittling others, etc.
Neither type of behavior deserves bullying. But people who struggle a lot with the second category would do well, for themselves and for others, to learn how to compensate for their social limitations and treat other people with respect, however most people would define it.
If I could just get this through to my kid… He’s only six, but he thinks if a rule doesn’t make sense, he shouldn’t have to follow it. No actually sometimes you need to follow the rules even if they don’t make sense to you, because your understanding of what makes “sense” socially is limited. Trust us when we tell you this is a problem, even if you can’t see it. You may never see it! Be nice anyhow!
Parenting!