jag96 wrote:
Other kids tolerated me during grade school. They didn't particularly like me or try to include me, but they didn't go out of their way to be mean, either. All that changed in sixth grade. From day one, I was labeled "The Weird Kid" and treated accordingly. I spent the next seven years without a single friend. On a daily basis, I was called names, laughed at, insulted, and on occasion shoved, hit or kicked. The teachers pretended not to notice anything. On the few occasions when I complained about the bullying, I was told it was my fault that no one liked me, that I should "try to fit in."
While I know that anxiety and depression are common co-existing features of Asperger's, I strongly suspect that, in my case, they developed as a direct result of the bullying. It has been 23 years since I graduated from high school, and to date I have not attended any of my class reunions (I haven't received invitations to any of them, either, which is telling). I have no contact with anyone I went to school with, nor do I wish to have. I sometimes wonder if people would think twice about mistreating someone for being "different" if they could see the lifetime impact their actions would have on that person. Then again, maybe it wouldn't change anything.
Sounds like my story in a nutshell. It also started in sixth grade for me and before that, I wasn't liked but not exactly loathed either. In fact, kids were jealous of how smart I was and wished they could keep up with me. I also agree my anxiety and depression developed because of the bullying but so called "experts" just couldn't make the connection and back then, NOBODY could believe a 6'4" kid could be bullied (good luck fighting back against an angry mob) I should add I had a big, tough, hot tempered kid as a friend until halfway through six so that might be why I was never treated THAT badly.
I was also told by "experts" to "fit in" and was given scripts of how to act and that made things ten times worse. Everyone could see I had no idea how to "act normal" and it made me look even weirder. Worst advice I was ever given! School was like a prison yard except the guards er teachers practically encouraged bullying and intimidation tactics against those with an independent streak. Conspiracy theories aside, I now know this is no accident or coincidence.