When Did the Bullying Start?

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Kindergarten day one for me. I was five. I don't remember any further from that. And I didn't go to preschool. But once I started kindergarten I was the really weird kid, who didn't behave like the others.

Yeah, it's definitely related to how "normal" the person is. Kids will always ostracize those who are different, Older kids and teenagers will do it, but much worse. A slightly more normal AS person might be able to sneak under the radar for longer, until their differences become apparent.

As for the point about teachers, I can't ever remember a teacher *actively* bullying me, but I've certainly had teachers turn a blind eye to it, or play to the class's idea that I'm somehow different. I've had more misguided attempts to stop bullying then I can count on my fingers, however. The best thing a HFA/AS person can have is a teacher that actually cares about them and their progress, not simply seeing "stopping bullying" as part of their job description.


Actually, the worst of my bullying occurred in elementary school (where the class was very tight-knit,) and became less severe, eventually stopping in high school (where you are right, people moved from having a few close friends, to many acquaintances.) I don't think there is a link here, however (my social skills experienced a rapid improvement around the same time.) I can see how this can hold for others, however.

I never really got bullied. Picked on by friends and weird looks were about it

I think the worst was from teachers who probably meant well but made me feel really stupid

I say around age 4. I never fit in no matter what I did. But I still get bullied as an adult. Bullies grow up to become adult bullies. The post who mentioned about rock in milk carton. That is just downright horrible and you could have seriously been ill or worse. Stupid kids. Do you know where this bully is? I have no compassion towards bullies. Good riddance if they have passed on.

I also had a 3rd grade teacher tell the whole class that the only reason I got an A on a assignment was because dad did the work for me. I think by now she has passed on, but her comment was hurtful. I was only 8 at the time. I don't remember if I told my parents. I should have then maybe she would have left me alone. Autism, aspergers, LD doesn't mean we are dumb.

0-5 ,

When does it stop ?

I'm about to get of disability after having spent close to a 3 rd of my life on it !

I think I'll be OK now that I'm in my 30's and correctly medicated for co morbid conditions, am I being naive to the extreme it should be OK surely , please say yes.

My answer is 8-9.

I was generally a good kid until I was about seven. At that point my aberrant behavior began to surface. This happened right after my parents divorced, and my father attributed my bad behavior to my mother's leniency. In his opinion, I got into trouble around him because my mother let me get away with everything. (The funny part was, my father was apparently the same way during his childhood, and I highly suspect he was an Aspie as well.) In fact, just the opposite was true. My mother beat me mercilessly every time I did the smallest thing wrong at home. At least, that was the way it seemed to me. My mother had an anger problem throughout my childhood years.

I was an advanced student, especially in elementary school, and the officials there toyed with the idea of my skipping a grade. So, right in the middle of my third grade year, they transfered me to a combination third/fourth grade class, and gave me the fourth grade curriculum. If I worked out here, I would be in a fifth grade class the followiing year. If they had performed this transfer at the beginning of the school year, all would probably have been well. But since it was the middle of the year, I had missed out on the first half of the fourth grade, and I just couldn't pick up the new material.

During a particularly disastrous class in which I completely lost control because I wasn't able to learn what I was supposed to, I was moved -- still sitting at my desk, mind you -- from the fourth grade side of the classroom to the third grade side. I already had behavioral problems by this time, for which I was being sent to a resource room for an hour each day. But this humiliation in front of my classmates was the final straw. From that time on, I absolutely hated my teachers, and by the end of the third grade I was kept EVERY DAY after school as punishment for my open rebellion against the school staff and/or destruction of school property.

At this point the entire class knew there was something different about me, and they started bullying me from that day forward. Worse, they let their friends from other classes know, and within two months nearly everyone in the third and fourth grades were taking turns beating me up after school. (Yes, this included the girls.) By the end of the school year, the fifth and sixth grades had joined in the fun. When I came home with bumps, bruises, broken bones or black eyes, I would tell my mother I fell. If she had known I was in a fight, I would have been paddled and sent to bed without supper. It wouldn't have mattered who started it (always the other guy) or what damage I had done to my opponent (since I was usually held down by three or four of my classmates while others took their turns, it was difficult for me to do anything to them).

Since all of the teachers hated me because of my bad behavior, they did nothing to stop the nearly daily beatings that took place after school. (I usually didn't get beaten up on Fridays because the other kids wanted to get started on their weekends without delay.) It was poetic justice as far as they were concerned. My mother did nothing because she didn't know what was taking place. I never told her, and neither did the teachers or the principal. These beatings and the teachers' inaction did nothing to improve my behavior, of course.

Before long the beatings began to take place on the playground during recess and lunch periods. Since I was making so much trouble in school, I was always the one who was accused of instigating the scuffle, and I was hauled off to the principal's office to be punished. The kids who started it would be let off scot-free, of course. I would be given lines to write or menial tasks to perform, and I would be kept after school for as much as two hours, which would cause my mother to worry, and sure enough, she would be waiting with the paddle in her hand. I would often be sent home with notes about my behavior that my mother would have to sign. Strangely enough, though, I would never be beaten by my mother for any notes. In my mother's opinion, whatever happened at school was the school's problem, not hers. This infuriated the school staff even more, of course, for which they would single me out all the more for even the smallest misbehavior. - LJS

I started being bullied around 8 or 9, though some other kids would jump in to stop the bullying. A few of them ended up getting caught by a teacher too. There was a kid I didn't get along with when I was 6-7, but we ended up becoming friends we've lost contact with each other but I occasionally run into his mother.

It let up for a while, then started up again later in life. Including a kid that was in special-ed being put up to attacking me by other kids in the P.E. locker room (incident in 8th grade). Though that incident ended up with me actually decking the kid. Next day I was called to the principal's office, I got off with nothing more than a verbal warning about fighting (the other kid admitted to attacking me), he got In School Suspension.

There were other things that happened in high school my freshman year, but some seniors ended up stepping in finally. Additionally, I made some friends in my junior and senior years.

I wasn't bullied at all in college, and I'm not bullied at my parttime job.

It looks to me I actually was relatively lucky compared to other people.

Sure there were teasings, being made fun of, whatever, but that can happen to any kid. I will say though it is disconcerting that one kid I knew ended up killing another kid I knew by beating him to death. The killer was a kid that I didn't get along with and the kid that got killed was someone that I knew but he wasn't exactly a friend but he also wasn't an enemy either. Still it is kinda disconcerting knowing that someone you knew from elementary through high school killed someone in a drug induced rage.

I voted for 8-9. I remember being teased by the other children at the daycare center (age 3), but that was different. They used to call me, "snail eyes," because all of the other kids had brown eyes. The teasing because of my personality started around age 9. At least that's when I started noticing it.

Hmm. I joined the football team in 8th grade as well, and it only solved half the problem. Physical/Coordination awkwardness (and an inability to tackle others, despite being okay when being tackled) didn't really make me free from teasing. Previous bullies stopped, but a few new ones appeared, and prolonged the bullying - but at least "isolated" it, bullying outside of football virtually ended.

Although when it ended, even when I wasn't bullied, I was still kind of socially stranded. Not picked on, but still couldn't make any "friends" on my end.

For me, it was around seven years old. I was fortunate enough to be larger than the others in my class so I wasn't bullied physically but even the teachers would get in on verbally mocking me because of my differences. Unfortunately, once the mutated life-forms we called school children developed social networks, they were able to gang up on me and that's when the bullying really started.

Any social networks I was able to create centered around people who were like me. We were an uncoordinated lot known for our ability to create detailed mathematical theorems and logic statements. But social interaction outside our small group was not going to happen. Any attempts to do so were destined to end in disaster of getting bullied and/or beaten up.

Age 4. I had so many meltdowns, which the children found funny. I also couldn't do motor-control tasks expected of someone that age. I was scared of the toilet brush, and of kids kicking the toilet door when I was in it, and being in a huge dark cubicle, so I would pee myself as well. The teachers just thought I was spoiled, until I actually went into junior school and they realised I was fairly bright. It was ok between the ages of 5 and 8. When I turned 8, kids got more into gender roles, girls messing around with makeup and heels and talking about what boys they fancy. I went off into my own little world and got bullied as a result. People would try to drag me out of it by trying to make me have meltdown. I just wanted to be left alone to imagine I was wizard. I didn't want to play the whole stupid mind games and bitchy competitiveness that girls learn as young as 8.

I came out of my shell as a teenager, though it was at its worst between 12/13, because I tried to fit in, but just ended up giving all my pocket money away, getting spat on and having my hair singed. I changed school and learned a few bitchy comebacks, ones that actually hurt people's feelings. I got in trouble for saying things like that, because said bullies would always run to the teacher as soon as the class freak actually managed to insult them. Plus I learned to meltdown in a somewhat scary way. The bullies deserved it, and I have no sympathy. So it was okay between 14-16 for me, because I learned to stick up for myself. My hormones were terrible and I was always very very depressed, but I wasn't bullied as much.

Now I honestly don't care if people don't like me for something as trivial as being a bit nerdy and withdrawn. If people are going to judge me like that, they haven't grown up, so I don't care about their opinion. What the hell do bullies do for entertainment when they grow up, anyway?

It began at age 6, in Kindergarten.
I remember very little. Ptsd ?

When I was not yet paying full attention to my ears, the lips of other people, including those of full-grown adults, discussed being intimidated, as the intense center of my visual focus.

Bullying started just prior to kindergarten - as soon as I was exposed to other children older than toddlers.

I have always been conspicuously large and strong, not ungainly when I am fixated on movement, but not often fixated on movement.

I can abuse pedantics, expertly, but do not care to be engaged by much, social feedback.

I thought I was details-oriented. I have a photographic memory of many situations, as though looking at transparencies of the human figure in the back of an encyclopedia. I can recall, the specific, synesthetic sensations which guided me through an intelligent sequence of movements, sometimes vocally, but I struggle to remember specifically what i was responding to.

I have known many dangers, but not fear, except as an allergic, chemical response.

Maybe, the ultimate provocation was the situation of not being able retreat mentally.

When I'm as calm as a part of the scenery around me, even wild animals neither pursue nor flee from me. Are human beings less composed than animals?

I had a couple of good years between the ages of six and eight that weren't too bad. When my mother and father were together things were great and we had a lot of respect because he was in the military and overseas in a war. It was after a divorce, when my mother bought the house next to this dysfunctional family of creeps that the bullying got really bad. Sometimes all it takes is one kid to get others who don't normally bully to jump on the bandwagon. From the age of eight onward bullying was nearly constant. I became scared of my own shadow.

The worst bullying began in high school, but in Jr high, I was ignored mostly except by the occasional bully. There was one in particular that would ask me "questions" in front of other students alot of these questions were really insults wrapped in a question. Girls usually bully verbally while guys usually do so physically.
But in elementary school, I was bullied some, but most of the time I was too busy chasing people on all fours barking at them.
In daycare, I had weird friends. One friend liked to ground me when he disagreed with me...of course I had no idea what that meant but I knew it was not good so I cried, then there was this other girl who drew me a pretty picture and I was so delighted, but then she took a purple marker and scribbled all over it and said that was me. I then cried.
But I showed them all, when I was in daycare, I got chicken pox, but I only had one bump and mom thought I had a hive or something. Two weeks later, I went to daycare and no one was there. I asked where is everyone? The staff lady said they are at home, you gave them chicken pox. Be my luck they will all track me down and sue me for giving them shingles.

The first I remember is age 3 or 4, but prior to that I might just not have noticed. (Even at that age I lacked the ability to understand fully what was happening until I was older.) It was pretty instant, when I went to preschool. Just, any time I got around other kids, they picked on me. Not that I fully noticed what they were, or what they were doing. I just like... if I'd climb onto a play structure, a bunch of kids would shove me off it, the one girl who was nice to me eventually someone marched her up to me and told her to tell me she didn't like me (which she did), etc., if I drifted into one of the lines formed on the playground to play different games I'd be flatly refused when nobody else was, lots of things like that, it was like anywhere I went they'd shut me out even though I wasn't exactly trying to approach them or aware of the meaning of the words they used until later.

Apparently around the same age in preschool if any kid came up to me I'd shriek until they went away. I don't remember but my mother remembers being called in for that. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 14 (and wasn't diagnosed with AS, but orally autism/"idiot savant" and on paper PDD-NOS/"idiot savant qualities"/developmental disorder NOS/CNS disorder NOS, later changed to just autism/CNS disorder NOS. Mind you have no clue what my savant skill was supposed to be.) Of course when I was in preschool autism had barely entered the DSM so nobody much had heard of it yet, I think today I'd have been picked up before preschool due to language issues and unusual sensory processing and related behavior.