Aspergers and bullying in the workplace | Patrons Choice

I can't stand bullies. The worst part about them is many bullies pose as good people but when they meet someone who is a little different or someone is struggling they turn into a very horrible person around us. The older I am getting I am starting to see that people who think of themselves as ''normal everyday folks'' are some of the worst folks living among us. ''Normal'' people shun others, discriminate, and gossip and act like jerks. I am so glad I am not a ''normal'' person.

Aspys seem to attract bullies. Since we are so direct, and we point out the obvious with good intentions to fix things, it's threatening. Once a boss or coworker feels threatened, they get defensive and start negative behaviors like bullying. With so many bad bosses, this can lead to a terrible cycle.

I was actually bullied so bad I had to quit my job because HR wouldn’t do anything about it and I was verbally threatened several times by several people. I was even called worthless by a coworker right in front of the boss and nothing was done about it. I finally had no choice but to leave the job I loved. I loved the job itself, but I absolutely hated my coworkers. I finally have found a job with a fun and friendly atmosphere.

Bullies always act so innocent when things get real, but come comfort and they're back to bullying with no shame.

The worst part of being bullied is being told its your fault for another persons sadism. I don't know how to respond appropriately so I either stay quiet or going too far in retaliation. People just don't understand I'm physically incapable of finding the socially appropriate middle ground. I lose either way, when I just want to be left alone. Expecting me to respond in just the right way is like telling a fish to run a mile, if I could do that I wouldn't be in this situation.

I recently learned that I am an Aspie... I have been bullied on most every job... and also was bullied in school... I never knew why... But learning about Asperger's has helped me understand why I feel so different. Thank you for this video

I've been bullied my entire life in school. I was completely powerless and it still haunt's me to this day.

One of my managers at my last jobs would tell me to do impossible tasks, and because I can't understand when people are pulling my leg, I would try and do them (and feel extremely stressed about it). He would let me get the the point where I was realizing I couldn't do what he'd asked, and then declare that it was obviously a joke and criticize me for being gullible. It was so stressful.

I had a customer stand up for me on several occasions. He came into my line later and asked if I was okay and to stand up for myself more. Im such a emotional wreck all the time his sympathy, his ability to see what was going on when no one else seemed to pick up on it was really touching.

Oh, my God. This exact thing happened to me and I was never able to explain it to anyone else. My dad got me a temp job at a warehouse he worked at. It started pretty well as I worked on the first project under one supervisor. When that project was finished a month in, I was moved to the section where the rest of the temps were and.... yeah, I was completely ignored by the three supervisors in that section and by the rest of the team. No matter how much I asked, no one showed me how to do the project. They wouldn't even chat with me. I started doing sorting and picking instead, because they weren't being done but after someone accused me of doing something unsafe, I was pulled off those tasks and left with absolutely nothing to do. People started actively avoiding me at that point and I spent the last two months of my 6-month contract literally just going to an untrafficked corner and sleeping. And when the contract ended, my dad accused me of humiliating him. I write this while sitting here sobbing from the relief of trauma explained and validated, a feeling I think most of us encounter regularly when we start to hear from other autistics. Thank you.

You were effectively given the silent treatment and sidelined for 6 months! That’s horrifying. Like solitary confinement but in the midst of people. I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. We’re taught to minimize our traumas for other people’s comfort. You endured what other people couldn’t. Well done for surviving that.

All these years, I didn’t even know those NTs are bullying me. I just knew I felt bad, whatever they did left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t know to properly label what had happened. That is how gullible and vulnerable people on the spectrum are.

I used to work at a print shop where my supervisor was a bully. I had a friend in the company who understood how I felt because she bullied him too, but he was afraid to make waves. I finally told the boss about how she was acting, but he didn't care because she knew the printing industry even more than he did, so he relied on her a lot. He only cared about making money, so I left, but I told him he's going to spend a lot of money training new people, only for them to leave when she bullies them. It's a damn shame what a dog-eat-dog world it is.

Ive been bullied my whole life and i have no friends because people are so cruel and i cannot connect with anyone. I hate people now.

the world is a cruel place, or rather people can be cruel. We had a guy at work, who didnt last long, who had deep needs and was very hard work. Most people in the workplace dont want anything to do with caring for someone. Very sad.

I was bullied out of my last job. I’d been there for eight years and got on well with ppl, but my manager was the bully. People at my new place are so nice so I’m happy.

I've been bullied in the same passive-aggressive way, and I actually started to make friends with a couple of other people in another team who were far less judgmental and happy to accept me for who I am. As such, I was able to show my team that it wasn't ME, but rather how THEY were reacting towards me. Over time I was actually able to wrangle a new job out of it, and was most humble when they wanted to organise a farewell lunch for me. I just said, no that's fine, I'm not really one for a massive send-off, a simple quick morning-tea will do. I walked away that day and never looked back at them. I would run into the old team in the lifts whilst conversing with my new colleagues, all of whom were FAR more accepting of me, so they could see that I was actually not some 'weirdo' who doesn't belong, but it was THEY who were the judgemental ones, who made ME feel like I didn't belong. Being in that team was torture though...it really was.

I have Asperger’s. I used to be in the workforce from 1982 to 2002. At the end, I had an emotional breakdown and went on disability. Almost in all of my jobs, I had to deal with workplace bullies whether they would be my coworkers or my desk supervisor. During my time in the workforce, I worked for two brokerage firms, one in New York in the 80s for four years and one in Phoenix in the 90s for three years and I left both employers badly beaten and emotionally broken. The sticking point was not only my job performance but also how I interacted with my coworkers and my desk supervisors and it seemed every time I spoke with them it always brought out their aggression against me. As a child, I had learning disabilities, so I was also a slow learner. I learned that just because humans may come off as nice with most people, the real test is how they interact with me. If they interact with me poorly, then they failed the test and are not decent people even if they are nice to 99% of the people they interact with. I remember in my second job when I was being threatened with termination, they actually raised the security level up a notch thinking wrongly I was going to go postal on them or engage in workplace violence. They do this with every person they fire. I remember two of the unlucky people made death threats so they thought wrongly I would do that too. Very insulting of them. Hard for me to feel any empathy for them when they treated me like garbage. I believe it’s not just workplaces. I think people in general are just plain horrible, including the so-called “nice” ones. They may be nice to 99% of everybody they interact with but they are super rotten to people like me which makes them bad people.

I experienced massive amounts of discrimination through my work life and had no idea why, found out I was Aspie at age 44 and now have a different perspective and refuse to tolerate it. Ironically I was sat down by someone about 18 months ago in my current job and told that my behaviour was making some of my colleagues feel uncomfortable, so could I tone it down my directness a bit, could I stop talking about things I care about a bit etc My initial reaction was ok, till I realised an hour or two later what he had effectively asked me to do, which was "could I be less Aspie". I do not hold it against the guy that asked as he hadn't effectively realised what he was asking me to do. However when I was talking with another manager later on. I explained that I had been absolutely livid the night before and she was struggling to understand until I gave her an analogy as follows. If I were gay and my "gayness" made colleagues feel uncomfortable, would you dare ask me if I could be less gay? Because whether he realised it or not he has asked me to be less Aspergers. The look of pure horror on her face when the analogy made the connection in her mind was extreme. Suffice to say, I've never had any issues since.

I almost went to prison for killing my highschool bully, it was self defense but I chose to use a method deemed excessive, only the fact that this person was torturing others and crippled one person it was ruled that the potential for him to mortally injure me was there and established. Think about that when you push someone over the edge!!!!