Things I have noticed about this forum

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Have you ever looked at the kind of language used on the "Can people automatically sense if you are on the spectrum?" thread?

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"Sniff out", "detect" "Game over if we're caught", to me it makes me imagine some kind of hunter tracking its prey, akin to a dog chasing a rabbit.

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https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=323496

Bullying is the ultimate in predator-prey; don't you agree?

Well, bullying is a complicated subject. As a society we like to imagine that there's a one size fits all solution, but there isn't. You grow up being told "Just ignore it, then it'll stop", but sometimes it doesn't, and it leaves you at a loss at what to do.

Sometimes you become the bully to try and avoid being bullied yourself, I know that happened to me, and it's an event that I've felt guilty about ever since. I was physically beat up frequently, but the teachers refused to do anything, and I became violent myself as I started to act out when I didn't mean to.

I've been bullied, but I've also been the bully. You try and find your own solutions because it seems like the authority figures that you thought you could trust have suddenly abandoned you, and now you're scared so you become numb to the World and sometimes you just lose control because all these feelings you kept bottled up pour out and just ruin everything.

I get what you mean. Self-defense. Many people become bullies as a result of being bullied.

The bullied is pretty much still the "prey," though.

There's often a cause behind why a bully acts the way they do, even when it's hard to see why at first glance. All those anti-bullying posters seem redundant to me, they all just stay stuff like "Hey, maybe don't bully people?", what kind of kid who is picking on someone looks at those posters and thinks "Huh, wow I did not think of that"?

I just...no. That's not how kids work. Sometimes when it's a simple thing such as someone throwing classroom equipment at you, then it's usually easy to sort out as teachers usually take that stuff seriously. But more intricate, psychological bullying is often pushed aside and ignored.

Sometimes it's not just the students either, teachers are capable of bullying too and at my old school they often did. That kind of bullying is particularly difficult to deal with as there is that power-dynamic between the two of you as the teacher holds all the control.

Over time I learnt how to deal with this, I corrected my teachers whenever possible, and tried my best not to let their ignorant comments get the best of me.

School also taught me that instead of ignoring your bullies, sometimes you got to make the insult they throw at you positive, if you identify as that insult then they can no longer use it against you. "Idiot!" "Why yes, I am an idiot, how perceptive of you", sometimes I would also turn the insult against them, such as; Them: "You're ugly". Me: "Despite common misconceptions, I do not function as a mirror, and I am not reflective of your personality either ".

I've done similar things to you.

When I was younger, though, I had no idea what to do. And I was a coward who didn't want physical confrontation. I was too unsophisticated to respond to "psychological bullying"---I was oblivious to it. I wasn't intelligent enough to know when it was happening. Maybe an "ignorance is bliss" sort of situation?

I am glad you were able to create strategies to deal with this, ultimately.

I have also been oblivious to psychological bullying at times - often not aware of what happened until after it had happened anyway. Maybe partly because I have a bit of a delay in processing situations sometimes, also because I have a tendency to zone out of situations. But I think it can also be naivite and innocence rather than a lack of intelligence - I am straightforward so I assume people are being straightforward with me. I just don't expect mind games because they're not something I would do.

There are some predatory people out there and I'm talking generally rather than about childhood bullies. I think my naiveté, insecurity and tendency to question myself is very obvious to such people and this has led to really bad situations. So whether I'm on the spectrum or not (still not sure), I can relate to a kind of prey like mentality, with vulnerabilities that are there to be detected and exploited. I have certainly felt like prey before and it's a difficult feeling to shake off once it has happened even though most people are not out to cause harm.

Sorry the authorities didn't help when you were bullied Lost Dragon. I was taunted for being quiet but it wasn't anything like what you went through. That's rough, sorry you had to go through that. I can certainly see how self defense and lashing out would be a coping mechanism. It's really sad when the authorities don't/can't do anything to help, especially in your case when it sounds like they were deliberately ignoring it.

I take it that I'm the "NT" you're speaking of? I was agreeing with the list because as I see it, those who don't believe in what is on that list are the real F'D UP ones. Don't forget, we NT's think the opposite.

And another thing, I used to turn all of those threads in and they would get shut down, but I guess this site has lowered its expectations on what is allowed to be posted. I thought it was a rule that groups could not be singled out, but I guess we NT's must not count as being important enough to qualify.

I agree with your sentiment and the principal. Luckily I have been fortunate enough to not realise the divide between NT's & ND's. The fact of the matter is I've seen just as many w*kers here as I have in real life , most people can be w*kers regardless of how their brain works , I know I can be real a prick as times.

There are times when psychological bullying can be hard to spot, especially if the individual in question is rather two faced.

I knew a girl that pretended to be my friend, and other times she acted as if she were my enemy. Yeah, it was quite frustrating, and at one point I just told her to make up her mind.

People exploit all kinds of vulnerabilities and areas, and over my time at school I was picked on for a multitude of reasons. I understand why the teachers were hesitant to help, sometimes it's not always an easy situation to remedy.

Back in Primary school I found it hard to concentrate on my work, because this boy who sat next to me would constantly kick my ankles throughout each lesson, non-stop. He never seemed to tire of kicking, so every minute spent in lesson was just constant kicking.

This made it hard to focus as it wasn't just gentle kicking either, it was quite painful, but I got used to it. I asked to move seats because I didn't want to be in pain anymore, but the teacher refused as apparently letting me move seats would make the other kids jealous, and she didn't want to be accused of favouritism. She told me that I'd just have to deal with the kicking, and the kid who kicked me all the time never got in trouble for his actions.

Each day I would watch the clock, listening to it tick away as the kicking continued. I'd count down to when we could finally leave, and I hated walking back because my legs ached with pain, as I had heavy purple bruises from all the kicking. Sometimes I'd ring for a lift instead, just so then I didn't have to walk with all the pain pulsing through my legs.

Whilst that was going on, there was a girl who deliberately ignored me, and sometimes pushed me into walls when she felt like it. My best friend at the time defended these two, often arguing that they were misunderstood and taking their side. I ended up taking my frustrations out on her at times, because I was just so frustrated and confused how she could back them up when they were treating me so terribly.

In a way, I became a bully to someone who was once my best friend, because as a child I didn't know how to properly communicate my frustrations...so I acted out physically. I always hated myself for it because we used to be such great friends, but my emotions just got the best of me.

Sometimes the bullying I experienced just seemed so random and without a cause, but other times it was because of homophobic and sexist reasons.

I have to agree with Mr Ferris about not seeing the divide between NT/ND's.
I experience people as being on the same spectrum but in a different place or with different nuances.
Having helped a lot of supposed NT's to work their way through life problems and mental health issues has allowed me to see how different the whole of society is and to experience the whole spectrum with all the richness and colour of a rainbow. I see no difference apart from what we create in our heads.
As said before, anyone can be an a***hole, me included.

I think I will always fail to get the NT designation the way it's used. You're a person and I'm a person and I see little difference between us as far as being person goes.

That's the attitude to have, I think. In all things.

That kid who kicked you had problems....but you still should have whacked him one.

As far as your “best friend”: she was a weird character. Good to be rid of her.

I guess I was lucky I really didn’t have friends in school lol

I know you’re glad you’re 18 and with people who don’t do all that kid crap.

That’s the way I felt when I turned 18.

The kid who used to kick me had ADHD, and possibly some sort of personality defiance disorder. So, the teachers often put his actions down to those two things. Occasionally, we would fight.

As for my best friend at the time, despite everything that had happened between us, we remained friends throughout Primary and Secondary school, even though we were two quite different people. She always prided herself on being a people person, and was ever optimistic about people even when reality disagreed.

I was more sceptical, less people oriented, and certainly at times was quite negative. She remained friends with the girl who picked on me until the last year of Secondary, when she remarked "You know, you were always right about that girl", to which I felt like replying "Finally!"

Yeah, I am glad that I'm 18 and I don't have to deal with that sort of nonsense anymore. When I turned 16 and left Secondary school to join College, I found it be a much calmer, less dramatic environment. For one thing, everyone who was there wanted to do that subject, so people were more co-operative and happier, because they were doing something that they actually enjoyed.

Also, like-minded individuals are often drawn to similar subjects, and plus you know that you at least have some common ground with the people there, because you all picked the same topic.

For some reason, whenever we'd get in the lift, the people from floor 3 would all pile in and continue arguing over what sounded like a rather unnecessarily complicated and catty situation. We were on floor 7, which seemed to hold quite a different vibe than the vibe I got from floor 3.

Maybe the more dramatic individuals were all drawn to that floor? Each floor was a different subject.

Floor 7 (aka the IT floor) at lunch time was just filled with people playing video games down the hall, others hanging out with friends, and discussions on whether Macs or PC's were better. I knew from fairly early on that I belonged, at school I always felt like a bit of an outsider, but I didn't feel that way at College.

I don't feel that way at University either.