Do you think slightly autistic people have backbone?

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I have been told for years I need to have tougher skin. Could you imagine my confusion. LOL! I would often get bullied and half the time I couldn't do anything. I had little friends. Most of my friends wouldn't last long. I want friends but I guess that will never happen. I do not think we have a backbone.

Ima coward

My backbone hasn't been consistent throughout my life. Seems I was born with a lot of backbone but it was socialized out of me in the first few years of school. By the time I was in highschool, I was terrified of showing any backbone. Naturally as a child I enjoyed to talk a lot and be very friendly, but due to school and social system, and being constantly misunderstood.. I rarely talk to anyone now and tend to avoid people in general. Also there was a time around the age of 2 or 3 where I went from being a child prodigy to having less than normal intelligence. I've always been idiot-savant, but as I grew older, the extremes got more evened out.

I went to college, studied sociology, and things gradually started to change for me. Not that I was able to be the real me, but that my backbone started to return. I continued to stay away from people and be unfriendly...that lesson was firmly ingrained in me during my formative years. But I began to be a great deal more assertive when I noticed unfairness. I had zero tolerance for unfairness towards myself or others. I would speak up and had absolutely no fear of the consequences.

Today I have more than average assertiveness and backbone when I am in any social situation, though I tend to be quiet. When I have to encounter people I have learned that they thrive on friendly undemanding people and this is what I try to be. I have clear boundaries and am capable of asserting myself should the occasion arise where I think it is necessary. Otherwise I keep to myself and hope everyone leaves me alone.

I think I had more of a backbone when I was more autistic as a child. When I was bullied, I didn't really stand up for myself at all. Instead of fighting for myself, I'd just freeze up, stop speaking and stim. Then if they kept it up I could get violent with them. I would kick, bite, scratch....so them eventually the bullies stopped. That wasn't really me standing up for myself, just reacting out of fear, like a provoked animal....but it made them scared to pick on me so it looked like I had a backbone.

When I got a bit older and better at mimicking neurotypical behavior, I just wanted to please everyone. I started making friends, although now that I look back at it....they weren't really friends at all. I stumbled upon the very bad habit of never being able to say "no."

I have a really hard time standing up for myself. This causes problems in relationships, problems with my family and problems at work. Say my fiance asks me what movie I want to watch. I can't ever just pick one. He has to give me a choices. He'll say about five movie titles and I'll pick one, he'll say he doesn't want to watch that one, so he picks another one, and even though I don't want to watch it, I'll say yes anyway.

Say it's my birthday and my family wants to go out to dinner. I can never pick the restaurant. If I do, my father will usually say, that's too far or too expensive, so he'll say something like Applebee's and I'll agree (even if I ate there the day before).

At work I still feel intimidated by my boss. I almost feel like I am bothering her every time I speak to her. I constantly let my coworkers push me around. I always have the feeling I am the least important person in my department. Whenever we are waiting for our boss to evaluate our work, I end up being the last one to approach her. She seems to want to evaluate everyone else's stuff but mine.....well that's how I feel anyway. Maybe she just thinks I'm more independent.....but really I'm just still intimidated.

I have this weekend job that I've had for about 10 years. I've tried to quit so many times, and they just call be back when there's work for me to do, and I always go back. I just can't say no.

I don't know about autistics but I too get reactive or scared in such a way that I either become passive to aggresive...depending.

Usually when someone puts me down, I get so sensative about it that it consumes my whole day. I've had people tell me don't let it get to you or tell me you know yourself more than others. So it's not always easy and I really don't know myself or how I come off to people. I have an inkling but ever since I was diagnosed with aspergers, I've become more and more sensative in how people potray me.

I think my problem isn't so much the reaction but asserting myself without getting angry. One major reason I have trouble in this area is I have trouble in wording or talking in such a sequential way that I get my point across. Verbal communication has always been an area of struggle with me. I also don't really know how to react depending on the situation for fear that I may overreact. So I usually come off as passive until I explode like a volcano and vent my anger in such a way that it makes no sense to anyone. It can sometimes come off on the wrong people.

My family history is full of inappropriate anger. My dad was one of those guys that would just explode if he was ticked off about something. My mom came off as the passive type. So I wonder if that has something to do with it. I was never raised in how to express my anger. My dad made it so hard for us to be honest with our feelings. We were so sort of raised with the attitude..."Do as I say not as I do." In other words, we weren't suppose to be angry, we were suppose to be greatful no matter what. So I think I took after my mom and dad when it came to reacting. Anything negative would scare me to the point that I'd try and be invisible just so I didn't have to experience that...which only made things worse.

I have taken anger management because of my inappropriate ways of reacting. It has helped me tremendously but it's still hard for me to try and communicate with the person who is coming off rude or nasty to me. The emotions run so high that it makes it difficult to think of witty words without coming off as nasty as them.

Like I said before on here... I'm not 100% that I have aspergers or PDD-NOS... but all of my friends think I do, and I can't deny it in the significant lack of social knowledge, understanding or reciprocation. With that, what I have learned to do after my lack of understanding of others ignorance and bravado in the start of middle school, is to almost always not do anything. I know when the situation is wrong and I do not deserve the criticism that I am being given, but I tolerate it and debate it slightly with logic that can't be refuted. At best I usually try to diffuse the situation. I am also far more likely to do this in aid of other people that are being unfairly treated by people who have the advantage of social rank, credibility, or strength in numbers.

I also have a sort of advantage, which I consider a disadvantage in everything else, in that I look very intimidating by a sort of default. That, and I am never really afraid when it comes to threats from peoples ignorance. I should also add that I also absolutely hate confrontation... and only have two public instances in the passed six years where I have ever showed real aggression. And both times, afterwords, I felt sick and almost tearful from the after effect and confusion. Which is one of my main reasons for being passive, especially in the public.


P.S. An example of trying to diffuse the situation is to make observations, like if the person is drunk, high, distressed, irrational, etc. Then from there just make obvious statements that their aggression isn't really justified. It's a delicate procedure, but I learned to do it quite well after hanging out with some real shady older people through out highschool.