I just recently wrote an article about bullying in autism, and I think it’s not right if I didn’t write my personal experience in bullying as someone in the spectrum. I also mentioned some of my life experiences in my articles I’ve written recently, but this time I want to mention the challenges I’ve been through relating to bullying.
As mentioned in my last article I’ve written previously, people with autism are vulnerable to be targets of bullying, that includes me and other people out there that face similar problems. My introduction to bullying starts from my 1st exposure to school when I faced a senior bully named Eko.
I vividly remembered him mentioning me as autistic, and I personally never thought of myself as autistic back then since I didn’t have the same problems as other autistic people in my school with more severe symptoms. He also viewed people with autism as a joke and deserve to be bullied, made fun of, taken advantage of & be picked on, and he immediately viewed me as a perfect target for bullying.
At that time, I was in absolute denial that I was autistic since no one in my family mentioned the fact that I’m a person with special needs or I had AS at all, even when I went to therapies frequently as a kid. One of the therapies I remembered the most was speech therapy with Ms. Angela in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, that’s done every Wednesday afternoon at 5 PM. In my 2 nd half of my 1st grade, I had difficulties with studies & keeping up with my classmates, even worse than the 1st half, so my mom decided to hire a shadow teacher that accompanied me every weekday to school up until my 3rd grade, which helps me academically & socially.
With his help, my elementary school ran easier for me; even after he wasn’t accompanying me to school he still helped me with school subjects behind the scenes as well as with household chores such as folding my outfits & daily prayers. Despite that, I still feel socially awkward and had a hard time finding friends that are worth to befriend, aside from very few of my classmates. I still viewed some of my teammates that play outside during recess as bullies, friends in disguise, or allies of bullies, which gets worse as I got older.
In addition, I also felt jealous of my classmates that got friends very easily, be open to new classmates, went to school without aids or shadow teachers, not going through therapies like I did and very active outside, and that motivated me to prove myself that I can keep up with them and to mask later on.
Not just bullies or friends in disguise that I need to put up with, alongside my friends that I occasionally carpooled with, my ex-driver named Mr. Har that drove me to school and back everyday made it even worse. He constantly teased me, insulted me, picked on me, taunted me, & abused me that made every experience I had in my car a torture.
In addition, my ex-driver viewed me as someone that’s effeminate, sissy, & wimp that deserve the lowest of the low, and I didn’t have enough courage to speak up to any of my parents back then. Starting from 4th grade, when my sister went with me to the same school in my car, was a real challenge for my 1st year in school without the aid of my shadow teacher. My experience in school went well lesson-wise, but socially it got worse.
The social environment in school gotten more hostile, with some friends having exclusivist, clique-like mentality, which translated to me having tougher times at getting friends with similar interests, accepting me, opened up to me, supporting me with schoolwork, or providing me with someone I could talk to at school besides my parents (especially my mom). In school breaks, I also preferred to stay alone in the shadows, didn’t enjoy any outdoor activities and wasn’t interested in having a chat or playing with my classmates as they exclude me from their activities such as playing soccer, basketball or any other sports.
Also, the extracurricular activities or the additional school activities such as art, vocal or theater didn’t really help with school life since those activities didn’t really pick my interest at all, as well as having therapies & piano lessons (which I didn’t really enjoy) on weekdays after school.
Due to my desperation getting attention, acceptance & meaningful relationships from my classmates, I decided to mask & disguise myself as a jock-like persona to fit in with my friends at school and hide the fact that I’m autistic since I couldn’t really relate to them and they barely accepted me into their relationship circle, as well as disassociating me with the school’s LSD (Limited Support Department aka school support) that regularly aided the students with ASD, because being associated with students helped by ASD meant being a reject, inferior, second-rate student that doesn’t deserve any acceptance or any shining moments.
Due to this, my experience with friends wasn’t all that nice, just plain gloomy. In fact, only a few are open to me and accepted me of who I was as a friend, the rest aren’t as much. Fortunately, it got better with the introduction to Comic Club back in 7th grade and my suffering ended since my move to the US.
Written by :Ardhana Hariwidagdo
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