Getting back at people

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I don't know if this is a coincidence but I have noticed something in us aspies



I have an aspie friend in Ohio who likes getting back at people who mess with him. He does black mailing and when he gets a chain letter in the mail, he refuses to move on, instead he wants to get even at the person who sent it so he gets information about the person because he has friends who works for the gov. He even black mailed his doctor who diagnosed him because he "insulted his intelligence" by asking him stupid questions.

I have another aspie friend who had a teacher who was a b***h and she gave her a unfair grade by giving her an F. She wants to beat the s**t out of the teacher.

Then there is me who always got back at people. I used to get back at my brothers for when they touch my stuff or mess up my doll house or play house or my mud cake I make outside. I also used to get back at other kids at school if they pissed me off, I did something back to them. There was someone online I didn't like (he did something to me I didn't like) so I spammed his board and had other people spam it and I said some lies and then the forum crashed. I didn't mean to make it crash but cool. Also when people piss me off, I just like to drive them crazy or look forward to pissing them off again. I told a story here a while back about a guy at work getting mad at me for a pair of gloves being thrown on the ground by me so he called me stupid and f****d in the head and I wanted to piss him off again and throw gloves on the ground to see him get mad. But sadly making people mad at work wasn't allowed so I couldn't. Instead of getting upset, turn it into a game.

My ex who was aspie liked making people mad. When he was having troubles with his apartment manager, she was getting impatient about the rent and it was over due and he told her he will give it to her when he gets paid. She decides to send him a eviction letter saying if he doesn't pay the rent by a certain date, he is out of there and when he finally got his paycheck, he decides to pay the rent on that date to make her mad because she wanted it NOW.


One of my aspie friends thinks this is an aspie thing simply because we have been pushed around too much so we decide "enough" and fight back. Even my shrink I saw when I was 16-18 blamed me getting back at my brothers on AS and then he went onto saying it was sibling behavior after I argued with him I didn't ever read anywhere about AS where it said aspies have to get back at people. But of course my aspie friend said people off the spectrum do this too but it's an aspie thing because we do it more and it's more common.


Anyone else like pissing people off when they deserve it or getting back at people? Have you ever known any people off the spectrum who did this too?

Last edited by Spokane_Girl on 03 Jan 2010, 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Lots of humans do this. I find it heartless, plebeian, and it only exacerbates any issues. I get the urges, and I hate it. I rarely act on them.

I never forget......I can be retributive. wish I could say otherwise. I can also fixate on those who have harmed me.

I was terribly harmed and hoodwinked by someone on an ASD forum....completely manipulated, swindled, done over and hurt. I shall never forget.......

often I have just walked away when I should speak up. and often i have spoken up when I should have walked away. when to do so and not do so has always been terribly confusing for me.



as for just purely "getting back at those who have harmed me..." I try to watch this tendency in myself, but it is definitely there in all its less than savoury and sometimes savoury and even magnificent glory.....
mwa ha ha ha haaaaaaaa..............

I really don't do retributive behavior except when it's done for humorous purposes. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

my experience is that I take things to heart much more than most people. I think it may be an aspie thing. I am too 'sensitive'. It took me almost til I was 40 to understand the meaning of 'don't take it personally'. Seriously, I obsessed over that one for years and years. I would ask people to explain that to me, what it means, how can you take something 'impersonally', and no one could adequately make sense of it for me. I think we are strange in that way. We don't seem to be able to grasp how intrinsically flawed other people and their motives/drives can be, and get deeply wounded by things. I almost think we relate from our core being much more than most 'normal' people. We live a skinless existenence, almost. So if some people choose to go for the jugular in return, I guess it makes sense. I am not like that, I am not vengeful, or scheming. Even if someone hurts me, if I once cared for them, I probably always will. But then I believe in fate, and that the universe can use jerks to put me where I need to be to receive my greatest good. It can look like a really bad thing, but end up being beneficial. Plus if you get to good from being wronged, you get the benefit and the person that wronged you now has karmic debt. There is schadenfreude (sp?) in that.

When someone really hurts me I'm very direct about it and express it fairly immediately and then I'm over it. I do know of people though who are vindictive and hold grudges and will only use your sensitivities and vulnerabilities against you. It's really best to stay away from these sorts of people. Easier said than done though when they are also incredibly charming and manipulative and know how to take advantage of you that way. It's amazing what one or two people can do to change your whole view of the human race.

As for changing my whole view of the human race, I guess it wasn't just one or two people, either!

Last edited by Meadow on 03 Jan 2010, 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When i was younger (HS years) I often wanted to get back. I couldn't in most cases, so I got mad. But to be honest, I have only held one grudge for more then a week. That one lasted maybe 10 years. The one day I just let go and felt so much better.

Your friend who blackmails people because they "insult his intelligence" sounds like a petty scum bag. He needs to grow up.

I personally enjoy arguments. Mostly. I do enjoy instigation. I liked to push buttons and test limits. Or at least I used to. Really looking back, it was all petty s**t that was unnecessary.

Because I was bullied for year I had pent up rage like you would not believe (enough to commit a rather violent act). So, in 10th grade, when I found myself in a classroom were I was top of the chain (so to speak), and there was another kid who I did not like, I ripped on him. Badly, to the point of him crying several times. I viewed it as his fault. He opened himself up constantly to comments and had no "mental" shield. I am ashamed of what I did. I poured 10 years of anger and wanting revenge into this one kid who could not stick up for himself, and had nobody else to do it. Now I am on friendly terms with him surprisingly.

The point is I wanted revenge, and I got it. But it was not worth it. Since then I rather sad by why I did, and I am sad to see people feeling the need for revenge all the time.

It can be hard to be the bigger person, so to speak. But the cycle continues until somebody is.

I absolutely agree.
And at the ripe old age of 47, I would like to say I "don't do retributive behaviour," but the stark fact is that I do, and I have. I think when i was younger, I wouldn't have even been able to sift through the complexities of what retributive action can actually entail. As the eyars have gone by and as i have gained insight into my own and others behaviours, and caught up emotionally with others a little, I have witnessed it in myself time and time again. I don't necessarily like it.
In fact in truth, i don't like it at all and wish I could always sublimate it for 'higher good."

I do know however, that I am very fair in many ways. I NEVER go out of my way to hurt people intentionally and for no reason, and I NEVER instigate nastiness or meanness. I loathe group hierarchies and i loathe bullying.

I even recently left involvement in facebook based ASD group stuff because of power plays and bullyish and then consequent underhand behaviour. It made me sick, and i was upset to see how people behaved - even people I had initially respected and whose behaviour i had initially thought highly of. (And i do not think highly of their behaviour anymore.)
Funnily enough, I was less upset with the outwardly bulllyish ones in the end, (who i could actually read easier , and distance myself from with a knowledge grounded in what I was able to discern clearly and very apparently,) than the ones whose behaviour was unclear and savvily politicised and indirect...all nice on the surface but strategising silently and sneakily without being transparent and up front about true motives and their own issues. That was the worst. I don;t even know where those ASD people learned those skills and carried them out so effectively whilst still being supposedly aspie. LOL. it is way beyond me. I was clumsy and too blunt and clueless with all of that stuff.

Talk about seasoned political behaviour.

I like to deal with my issues in a direct way and of course in a civil manner. I'm not capable of anything more complicated than that. I think some people tend to read too much into things and that's typically where trouble begins and grows into all sorts of nonsense.

It depends what they do to me... if it is bad and the person used to be a good friend then there would be a time when i used to try sabotage them to make them feel as upset as I would of been... I don't really do that anymore now but I just refuse to talk to the person who have deeply hurt my feelings and try to avoid them.

But if it was somebody saying words, because im a funny person at times (which that is pretty hidden), I could make a funny comment back at the person and sometimes they weirdly think im cool and want to be friends.

How comes? that doesn't seem to make sense to me

--------------------
Vengeance, n. (Webster)
The infliction of pain on another, in return for an injury or offense. Such infliction, when it proceeds from malice or more resentment ... is revenge, and a most heinous crime.
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Vigilante, n. (Merriam-Webster Online)
broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice
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It usually felt good at the time, but for me that feeling was actually short-lived and self-harmfully addictive.

I used to have fantasies about getting back at people, but I'd never act on them. Why would I do that? What would have been the point of doing so? I would have gotten into more trouble and I would have felt worse, in the long run. I don't have such urges, anymore.

Yup about the same, but don't think it only exacerbates the issue, at least has long has it stay on verbal level at maximum and on the moment of the offense by the other, most people bullying don't know what to do when people stand their ground against them.


It funny how my boss calmed himself after coming yelling into my office, seeing I was leaving job for him coming in yelling at me for illogical reason (work in a library, so earlier in the day I had a argument with him but didn't see the door in the corridor was open so scowled me for speaking too loud (since I thought door was close I didn't pay extra attention to my voice volume and my normal loud voice just came out) and the moment he came in yelling was because I asked other employee had open the door to close it cause I had something to ask him and didn't want to be scowl again if I happened to speak loud.

Since that day my boss is extra calm with me. I just stand my ground when I have too, but I will not go out of my way to come back at a person, if I have to it is on the moment of the offense and if later it is because it is a person I can have a diplomatic talk with to make sure it don't happen again in the future.

I have endured my share of bullying and hurtful actions and while the desire may be within me for revenge, I usually quell it with the realization that the person on whom I am seeking revenge isn't important to me and that acting out against them would make them think I care about them or their actions.

"To be angry is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves". The people who wish to hurt me aren't worth being upset over and being angry and acting out in anger would only serve to give them satisfaction at having produced a response to their actions.

Only people I care about can hurt me and if I care about them I wouldn't want to cause them pain.

I just answered this elsewhere.. lol

I will say that I can be incredibly vindictive. I am not proud of this trait. Though, as I said in my reply to this on the other site, retaliation isn't just something we do. NTs can be vengeful as well.

I think hitting back is pretty normal, and I don't believe in turning the other cheek. If an individual is doing harm, I don't see it as particularly wrong to try a little Pavlovian conditioning, as long as the punishment fits the crime. To me, revenge, retribution and justice are all much the same thing, so without revenge there would be no justice. If the police and courts served us perfectly, there would be no need for individuals to do the job for them.

Of course it can get out of hand - individuals can get obsessional about their revenge, or they might go after the wrong target. The State may frame people just to make it look like they're doing their job, and some laws are not for the benefit of the people as a whole but for the benefit of a powerful few who have vested interests.

Personally I find revenge a heavy responsibility and I rarely try to punish anybody, because there's nearly always doubt about their culpability, and because I don't want to get into trouble with the law (they take a very dim view of people trying to take the law into their own hands). But I often feel sorely tempted to hit back, and I don't feel ashamed of those feelings - it's part of being human, and when applied with due diligence, it helps to make the world a better place.