Can an Aspie be a bully?

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This reminds me of one of my autistic friends. He was a sub teacher once and he was told he would not like it and she was right. The students bullied him and picked on him and he got fired. He wasn't even allowed to complain about his students. Sub teachers are not allowed to go to the office and complain about the students. This was in high school.

When I was 13, a friend and I bullied another girl - who I now see was autistic or disabled in some way. I had been sexually molested two years before, didn't have many friends and was the follower in the bullying attacks. The victim looked a bit like me as well. We got sent to the principle's office after awhile and stopped. I feel terrible about it now and it was the only time I engaged in anything like it. But I do think an autistic person can bully. I don't know if your sister is autistic, but she is out of control and has some kind of serious mental condition. Nothing about what you described sounds normal or right. I hope she can get some kind of help and you can stay away from her until she does.

This is kind of like me. I can be a bully but it seems like I cycle through different modes. If I didn't know any better I'd think I had dissociative identity disorder. I've been in bully mode and completely forgotten all compassion. Normally I just can't watch somebody getting hurt and then I'll turn around and be the opposite. I do feel bad when the heat is over but I really do feel like a metaphorical werewolf.



In regards to the topic I know a whole group of bullies with asperger's syndrome. It's in a program at my school which is basically a collective pool of aspies with some support services. The program is in highschool so they make you take some tests before entering just to make sure you can perform satisfactorily in your courses. This doesn't automatically exclude people who might not be so high functioning but it stacks the odds and the HFA outnumber the LFA by quite a bit.

Currently the HFA bully the single LFA in the program. There is a notable divide and I'm at least guilty of avoiding him but in this case I'm not trying to be mean I just can't have a conversation with him.

The high functioning aspies bully each other as well and the social aspect of the program is brutal. Caroline is alienated by pretty much everyone and so is Nicole. Brendon alienates himself. Everyone can tell that he exaggerates his creepiness to make himself seem even more offputting just to get on people's nerves. It's obvious that he isn't oblivious when he tries to act like a stalker so nobody in the program likes to be around him. Julian gets made fun of because he's so full of energy. I have to admit I sing on the bus purposly just to get a squeelish reaction from him. I don't insult him and he actually laughs sometimes but I'm still trolling in a way. Other people call him pipsqueak and he is often a target of verbal insults referring to his size and energy level.

I see aspies bullying other aspies every time I go to school. Aspies really can be bullies and I think it is quite common. I've done it. I'm not proud of it. I've seen it and I live in the middle of it.

I've done enough things I regret to say I believe so.

I can't imagine how it's possible myself.

I'm sure any type of person can be a bully, but I can't ever imagine bullying someone myself.

On a different note, your sister sounds completely insane. Perhaps psychotic or sociopathic. Like someone said above, that doesn't sound like 'normal' behavior for an NT or an Aspie.

Aspies can be bullies, although I think we are more likely to be bullied. I also think its more likely that aspies 'bully' uninetentionally. I will tell you about my less fine moments: a girl in my old school had been hanging around in my group and making cruel remarks to, and about me. I decided to copy some others who were being mean to her to make her go away. Also, I think once I 'went along' with mass bullying when I was trying to be an NT. However this mainly what made me sick at the thought of being NT.

These are quite mild examples, both being very short and isolated events. They were also more or less unintentional, as I didn't seem to understand I was actually hurting the kid in the mass-bullying (verbal only, mass bullying is the term I use for when the majority of a school or class gangs up on someone, as opposed to a few).

On hundreds of separate times, I've been verbally bullied, and on a handful of times I've been physically bullied. This was all done by NTs. In short, aspie bullying occurs, but usually because the aspie in question doesn't consider the person they are bullying, and is after their own needs.

Well, I've engaged in mild bullying back in my childhood on rare occasions, but was like 25 times more bullied than I was a bully, and it was more severe. In adult life, I can only recall a couple of episodes of my bullying someone else - it was sales clerks, I nitpicked them and put them and their products down - felt like crap afterwards, and thought, this ain't for me.

A word of advice to any of my fellow Aspies who consider bullying: not worth it, especially since we have no many unintentional manifestations that put people off, so if you start pushing buttons intentionally, then the unintentional behaviours will become suspect. That might result in a retaliation or even physical reactions if the other person is short-fused; I suppose you could always tell them, apologetically, that the reason you behaved as such was due to Aspergers (give short explanation) but unless they've heard of Aspergers, it likely wouldn't get you too far - just labelled as an excuse-maker.

I've certainly been an a**/bully on a number of occassions. Which I've regretted. Unless it was bullying bullies.

But if I'm ever an a**/bully on these forums, somebody call me on it! Seriously! There's no excuse for it. So call me on it and I'll apologize and post less for a while. Then I'll forget and it'll start all over. Never ending cycle.

Really like y'all! These forums are awesome, and have a lof of awesome diverse individuals! Yea!

I think people on the spectrum can be passive aggressive if they feel misunderstood or perceived in the way they don't want to be. That could lead to them showing their emotions negatively or bullying another, a person on the spectrum could also end up being in a predatory group in the social hierarchy and going for targets of the group as a way to earn favor or to show they have power to the group they are in.

Can an Aspie be a bully? Absolutely NOT, What a horrible thing to ask.

Well, I've definitely done the passive-aggressive thing when people misunderstand me - not often, but has happened - like when I explain something to someone and they don't get it (b/c like many Aspies, I have difficulty expressing complex concepts in simple terms), then I just retort "It's very simple. You just (finish explanation)." or I tell them "Well, I don't know any other way to explain it (you're just going to have to figure it out)." It could be some misguided sense of payback since I've gotten these pat replies from other people when I tell them of certain struggles I have in reading between the lines of social situations. I certainly don't appreciate being told "it's very simple" or "obvious" or whatever.

I was being bullied throughout high school, and at the beginning of it I started bullying the few friends I had there. Not sure why I did that, and it was pretty stupid to do. I never did it consistently, I can only remember bullying them on 2 occasions.

I had no idea that was passive aggressive. I think people can be passive aggressive and not even know it. It also seems to be a spectrum.

Sometimes we don't even realize how we make other people feel or how we come off as until it happens to us or until we see it in others. I see that as a good thing because it means it can be something we can change or work on and sometimes it's heart breaking if it's something we cannot help such as taking things so literal. But we can learn what something means or what someone means when they say X and mean Y.

My little brothers aspie and a bully. He knows more about social cues and how to use them to pinpoint someone's issues and use them to bully people than I do. And apparently I'm a NT and he's a socially challenged helpless aspie who has little idea of the harm he revels in causing. >.> Not sure how that works, but yes, aspies are people, and any person can be a bully. Maybe they're less likely to be bullies, but I wouldn't know.