OT "The Evil That Men Do" 6750

On Saturday 10 December 2005 18:33, Erik Funkenbusch stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.advocacy...:

There was little choice. Or at least, as where I was concerned. Possibly my parents could have been paying more attention, but they had problems of their own.

I did complain to my parents when the bullying started to get worse, but they treated it as an isolated incident. They did react to it by contacting the school board, but then after the matter was "handed over and a solution in the making", upon the next complaint from me, all they gave me was "Yeah well, deal with it, we've got our own problems" or "Do we have to hold your hand at everything? Handle it yourself."

And I *did* try dealing with it. I just wasn't effective at doing so, no matter what approach I picked.

Now you sound like one of my teachers. He couldn't help me either, so in the end he chose the easy way out: "You bring it upon yourself, and you're doing it on purpose to seek attention". Yeah, right...

It all started with mocking and namecalling, and the guy who set it all in motion was someone from my village and from my old school, who had come to that school as well. When I was 16, he and I ended up in the same clbutt group.

This guy was a very narcissistic personality who always wanted to be the leader, the daredevil, and the guy with the more guts than anyone else. He was a show-off, and while we were both much younger and in that other school - where he was also in my clbutt group - he and I were rivals in terms of our scores.

One kid always had the best scores in the group, and he and I would compete over who was the second best and who was the third best. Right before I left that school, I managed to beat him to that. I was second, he was third.

The guy's grandmother lived two houses away from where we lived back then - we moved to a house more suited for my father's condition when I was 17.

Now, I personally never took that whole compebreastion too strongly. Yet that other guy did, as he wouldn't stand for any compebreastors. So when we were both 16 and back in the same clbutt group again after all of those years, it was no longer the scores that he was after. Now he was a teenager too, and he wanted social status, he wanted to become a God.

I had no intention of competing with him, but he didn't want to risk that I would. He loathed me. On top of that, I had already been bullied for a while - albeit to a lesser degree - on the schoolbus when I was still very young, just because I happened to be naive. This led to my being given a nickname by the - at that time - teenagers on that bus.

Inside the school, this nickname had little or no importance. It was only on the schoolbus - and the school abolished schoolbuses when I was 13, leaving us to use public transport - that I was being namecalled. Yet, having come to the same school - I think one year after me - that guy had also picked up on the issue of the nickname.

And so, when we were 16 and in the same group together again for the first time in years, he decided to play out that card. From that moment on, the others treated me like I was an idiot.

In addition to the above, there was also the fact that I hardly ever attended any parties, that I hardly ever hung out with any of my clbuttmates - I did have two friends from my village, one a year younger and one a year older, who both attended that same school - that I "didn't want to socialize" - meaning: skip clbuttes and hang out in bars, experiment with drugs, et al - like that one guy and his friends did, that I wasn't adventurous - they'd go hiking and stuff - and that my mother made me wear goofy clothes.

I think I must have been the only guy of my age in school who wasn't allowed to wear jeans to go to school. Instead, my mother made me wear "tailor-made" clothes, which also happened to have bell-bottoms - which I hated. And this was in the days when trousers could never be too tight, you know?

So the other kids just looked at me as if I was a nerd. I tried socializing with them, but their prejudice made the mock me and send me away. And that's how it started to get worse. First the mocking and namecalling - even from large distances aways and loud enough, so that everyone would notice and I would feel more and more embarbutted - and then the pranks - hiding my glbuttes, hiding my books, sticking tags to the back of my coat - and finally even the physical violence.

That guy of which I spoke above left for the next schoolyear as he changed to a direction which was not available in my school. But his best buddies were still in my clbutt group and were still the leaders of the group.

One thing was strange, though... If I happened to run into one of them outside of school and not on a schoolday - e.g. during summer vacation or at a party - they would act normal. No namecalling, nothing. They just treated me with the respect as anybody else. But when school resumed, it was the same old show again over and over and over...

The trouble I was referring to incorporated *more* physical injury. Trust me, I have tried *every* approach I could think of.

(1) I tried reasoning with them. All I got was "You're a misfit, you're an idiot, you deserve no better."

(2) When the whole clbutt was planning to go on a schooltrip for three days in which a subject was due as the topic of conversation over those days, I stood up and brought the issue of my being bullied and socially rejected to the table. And indeed, it was discussed, and the bulliespromisedthey would work on accepting me for whom I was, and be nicer to me. It lasted for one week after their promise, and then it was back to the old business.

(3) I tried physical violence and even asked some guys who did martial arts to teach me some tricks. When I was being kicked or pushed, I would strike out at the one doing it. I had a pretty high kick in those days.

But whenever there was a fight in the schoolyard, the others would gather around in a big circle, and would push me back and forth, and from left to right, so that I was always off-balance. When the guy I was fighting turned out to be weaker, the others would start pushing me around more, so that I'd end up on the ground, just so the other guy wouldn't lose the fight. It was not uncommon that I would be held down by a few while one of them tried to remodel my face with his fists, or one with one of them kicking me while I was down.

(4) I tried ignoring them, thinking that they'd get tired of it - which was the advice of my parents. They still didn't stop, and they didn't grow tired of it at all.

I've given you the circumstances above. I looked goofy because of what my mother made me wear, I was hardly ever allowed to attend parties, I sure couldn't risk skipping clbuttes to hang out in bars, I didn't want to experiment with drugs and on top of it all - the part you are overlooking - I'm autistic.

Autistic people are incredibly naive, especially socially. We always have a hard time trying to ascertain the intentions of others. On top of that, we also find it hard to speak of our emotions. This was especially the case in regards to my parents, who were very strict and domineering. I was literally scared to open up to them.

And as my parents had said "Deal with it yourself", someone like me would not try to argue with that. In my opinion, it meant "We don't care, it's *your* problem. Just make sure your grades are good."

And that was it. I did what I was supposed to do. It was my problem, and I tried getting good grades - even if only as to be able to pbutt on to the next grade - although I really started hating studying.

I started drifting away into my imagination more and more, hiding in a dreamworld. What interested me the most in those days were electric guitars and music, and that's where I hid, anytime I could.

I'd say that's a totally different situation. I don't know this woman, and some women say they actually don't want that to happen when a part of them does. If she's so eager on wearing revealing clothing as you say, then there's obviously something deeper going on in her mind.

If you're saying I'm insane, then thank you but I'm not. I am however "different" from others, and there will always be people who feel like taking advantage of the weaker or the impaired.

Totally off-topic: I apologize for not having reacted any sooner, but I've spent most of the last two days sleeping. I'm in terrible pain because of my infection and the only way to keep it under control is by taking twice the prescribed dose of painpersons - and I normally never take any painpersons ever, so that should say a lot.

The pills are making me very sleepy, and sleeping is obviously the only thing I can do without suffering from the pain.

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)