Ever did anything really bad, just to fit in at school?

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I was told to be aware once my daughter hits middle school, she will be bullied at school, and would be used as a "mule" . That teenagers with As or Aspies will do ANYTHING just to be part of a group. Is this true? Someone also suggested to castare my daughter once she becomes a teenager.OMG !

Yes and no. This is my personal experience, don't know how typical it is:

Really bad, no nothing I would call really bad.
But I did try what I could to be accepted. They let me hang around the edges, only to make plans and purposly exclude me, and laugh at me for the slightest thing.
But no matter what I tried, it made no difference, they wouldn't accept me.
So then I tried hanging out with the least popular kid, who didn't want to hang with me because she was trying to fit in as well.

I did develop one "friend" who would hang with me as long as I did whatever she wanted. If I didn't she'd dig her (sharpened) fingernails into my forearm. I have a pretty high pain tolerence so I didn't mind much, but almost always had Y-shaped scabs on my arm. (Y-shaped because she used both hands.)

But I was in private school because my parents thought it would be "better" for me, when I got older and dropped out to go to public school, I had no problems. More diversity meant I could at least semi-fit in. Fot the record, I was undiagnosed back then.

As for "Almost Anything" for the group, no, I was extremely suspicious because they'd set me up so they could laugh at me.


It's all about personal experience. Sure you want to keep her safe, but what if she does all right and some people do accept her? Will you warn her way from them, just in case?

Don't worry so much about what someone tells you. Try to keep comunication open with her, and things should work out along the way. We all get there eventually, maybe not where we thought we wanted to be, but that's okay.

Everybody's different.

All teh aspies I know personally, myself included, were about as far from being mules as you could be. The main problems we had resulted from not willing to do things solely to fit in. Aspies like being their own person, not a carbon copy of everyone else

Breath ! Thank you for your replies, I was thinking about private school, but then thought twice and will leave her in public school.
I just found out about her Diagnose in January so yes! I believe everyone right now.I really love this page .

I don't know what I would do with out ya !

Ever do something REALLY bad?


Yes....but to negate a situation and to keep something sacriligious from happening.

I normally walked alone and in the early morning hours I came upon a group of (I suppose they were from my school or neighborhood-not sure) kids surrounding a dead cat. I was invited somewhat unwillingly to their conversation and not seeing a way out.......

They were deciding who was going to cut off it's head. Who's got a knife, ect.

So I said, well I'm not going to cut off it's head, but I'll take it's tail. And so, as instance would have it, I cut off the tail of a dead frozen kitten because 'the group' was debating and daring each other to cut off its head; and I couldn't let that happen-because that's just fricken wrong.

However,
Whereas I didn't think it was wise to stand by and watch something like that unfold; at the same time, broached with that odd of a situation I didn't think it was wise to oppose the group and make myself target...so I just volunteered real fast and got it over with.

I pretended it didn't bother me (and having worked in animal carcass disposal for some prior years, it did) and sawed through it as fast as possible, negating that it was like a rabbits foot.

Worst - Started smoking
Really bad - burglary
bad - shoplifting, petty theft

In order of how much I regret doing these.

Most of the burglary and theft was done while I was befriended by a rather predatory chap who got me involved in many criminal scams. Guess who carried the can when we were caught

To a certain extent handling the stress and anxiety of such activities along with developing the deception skills required are much parts of growing up. I am very glad my teenage years were away at a boarding school where my parents never found out the things I got up to.

The worst I ever did to please someone else was to attend Bible readings.

Otherwise, I agree with Triangular_Trees - it simply never occurred to me in school to make myself popular with the other kids. I mean, they were kids, for crying out loud, so by definition immature, uninformed creatures! I always tried to make myself popular with the teachers.

Bad= was so stressed out and anxious that I made myself sick and didn't go to school and ended up on Independent Study. Other than that, no behavioral issues, no crime waves were wrought upon my small town by aspies desperate to fit in.

I was desperate to fit in, but I knew I could not. So I really stopped trying and threw myself into my hobbies and interests and family.

I can't say about your daughter, but my son has a very rigid sense of right and wrong. He won't consider doing something "wrong" unless either the carrott dangling is worth a small fortune to him, or he is upset and unable to control himself. While he is probably naive enough to be tricked into doing something foolish, I can't imagine he would ever do it to "fit in." That isn't the largest carrot in his world, and by and large he truly sticks to his personal code of what is important and what is not, no matter what the other kids say and do (and, um, no matter what I say or do, either, lol).

So ... I see the best defense as making sure your child knows all the possible scenarios and why they are "wrong."

It's my NT daughter I worry about more. Fitting in is everything to her, and her sense of right and wrong can be very relative.

I would never do anything bad in order to fit in. I have way too strong morals. Also, the thought that fitting in was something to strive for never occurred to me. I only feel like I fit in when I am with people that don’t require me to do anything to fit in. I still dislike the thought of doing any special efforts for fitting in, even if it’s donating money for charity.

As far as I can tell, it seems that NT’s are much more concerned about fitting in. But then I haven’t really met other aspies, so it could be that it’s just a personal trait of mine.

Thank you so much for your replies, it really calms me down. I will try to teach her the difference between right and wrong. Or at least to be happy with her hobbies and family. And to always try to make good choices.

I used to deliberately underachieve in school, in order to be more like everybody else. I knew that the most popular people in class didn't get the best grades. So being naive as I was, I thought that if I got bad grades, I'd be popular too. So I put wrong answers on tests, made intentional mistakes on reports, and threw out instead of turning in homework assignments. Needless to say, my parents were very angry when the report cards came. As a result, I was put into a dilemma: be less popular in school and avoid punishments at home, or be more popular and get punished. Obviously, the underachieving didn't get me any results, although I used to honestly believe that it would make me more popular.

Something like this happened to me in middle school . I was so desperate to fit in.

The very worst thing I did in school to fit in and put a stop to the bullying was the same as Jason Bourne did when he "became" Bourne, that is reject and suppress my real self, to the point that I forgot who I was, so that 10-15 years later , reawakened by accident ( hit by low flying ideas by Andrea Dworkin in my case! ), I had to spend several years of agony and painful searching to find myself again, find out who i really was.

I think that was the worst thing.