As you get older bullying among peers withers away due to most people maturing out of being bullies and you gaining then realizing the ability to da share zone out of bullying situations.

Unfortunately bullying persists in situations where there is power imbalance and can frankly be worse than highschool. Shit.

In my experience getting out of toxic workplaces has been hard, taken years and usually I just ended up in places just as toxic as I left. I am in a cozy place now but it’s taken a serious toll on my mental health. I hope it goes better for you.

Unfortunately, you are onto something, bullying happens at every age, and it doesn’t ever really go away. I don’t really have any good advice, I do think you’re onto something with compartmentalization since that works for other bad feeling stuff. I also opt for just hanging out on my own, but that’s easy with the hours I work and how I’m always tired.

This is why I basically only interact with other neurodivergent queers. We can be ourselves around each other. I love my friends

Yeah i don’t have much to add, but this feeling is 100% accurate, or at least the perceived threat from past trauma lingers long past the exposure. For instance, I hear about how socializing at lunch is such an important thing in the workplace; but i avoid it whenever possible. Or really anything related to eating around others. I don’t even recall the trauma that led to this, but I’m getting stressed just thinking about it lol

it’s not even safe here. i took comrade out of my tags because the /them got me maliciously degendered in a thread where my defensive use of misogynistic language (i called myself the b-slur) was post removed while a dogpiling user got to copy that post out of the modlog, complete with the unfiltered slur, and smear me with it, in the thread, while i was tempbanned for that very comment.

part of me wants to never post here again, to not post this comment, to not drag my hurt out into the open for the amalgamated fear/apprehension/anger at sharing space with that fucker referenced above again, and with the moderator that failed across multiple requests to do their job and take that shit down before it drove me off the site, and with the community that didn’t notice for an instant that it lost a trans shitposter in an ugly and embarrassing way.

another part of me weeps bitterly in cratered desire for community. i liked that poster, for the most part, before this shit happened. now, seeing their account is a trigger. basically the only thing i use the site for now is to lurk the news meta; thankfully, that poster is never in there.

I AM NOT BACK. i’m not telling you even half of the shit that went down here. handling one jerk with dignity is not what this is; mod behavior really fucked me up. this is not ‘enough time has passed.’ i have momentarily overcome demiurgic isolation to vent some shit that i cannot keep holding alone. hopefully i won’t regret it. I AM NOT BACK.

edit: sorry

I take some solace in the fact that pretty much everyone is systematically conditioned to mask. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier, but it does make me feel less “broken” personally.

Basically don’t feel bad for masking around people who don’t deserve you anyways. Do not think you are being fake or weak when you mask, do it with intent to get ahead of people who don’t deserve you. Eventually you will learn to distinguish effectively between someone who warrants your company and someone who deserves to be treated with the harsh coldness of winter.

is it normal to feel like you have a risk of getting bullied forever

the entire world is being bullied rn. that’s what the bullies of the world have successfully aligned their efforts to do.

a lot of bullying happens in situations where you’re not free to leave and much of that goes away. if you’re going to attend university and can pick one with good stem programs you’ll find some other social issues but it will be entirely unlike highschool.

Certainly the cliquey shit from high school never ever stops. More generally about your post, I personally try not to worry that much on the basis that if I do something actually wrong, people can and will tell me and then it’s fine.

Since neurotypicals wanna have all these unspoken rules about when things are “a joke actually” I just take nothing seriously! Try taking nothing seriously ever! It’s great!

The schtick about bullies bullying for a reaction is 90% true in my experience so if you can shrug off any “joke” bullying they typically move on to someone else.

Personal responsibility? victim blaming? what are you even talking about?? I’m just a chill silly lil guy. Rubber and glue and all that ya know?

huh? Yeah I often struggle to open up to my loved ones but I don’t see how that’s related…

This sucks so fucking much, it feels like we can never be ourselves. I have also changed how I act and interact to the point of being unrecognizable to myself just to escape the horrors and sadness of bullying, to the point it feels hopeless. Maybe we just need to not give a fuck, but I at least can’t do that, I care too much.

“High School” Interpersonal behaviour tends to happen after high school, it manifests in many ways long after you’ve left and it can include neurodivergent and neurotypicals. It’s not exclusive unfortunately.

There’s still a tendency with people to form groups and operate in a cliquey fashion which is pretty prevalent in society. If you don’t fit into specific groups you can be ostracised for any number of things. It’s not really any specific reason, could even just be how you talk or how you exist. A lot of this can go unsaid, you can be oblivious to it happening too. It’s not always clear what is happening in these situations. Unless you get someone who likes to bully people after they left school and then it can be more obvious. Sometimes it’s not even malicious with this stuff either, they just don’t like you.

Personally I give off an aura that people don’t want to fuck with. so mostly people will do this kind of interpersonal bullshit on the sly though a lot of the time because of my cptsd I can tell or read them so it’s not really going unnoticed.

You can be the nicest, most friendly person and still be treated like shit or ostracised, you’re best accepting that’s how people operate and try to find people who accept you and like being around/interacting with you.

The upside after high school is that no one can really force you to be around them, so there’s some sort of escape. You can block people online and their numbers, you can switch positions and jobs, you can move places, you can leave any situation. Insert dasharez0ne pic of “if you don’t like it… hit da bricks!”

A couple months ago someone gave me a strange feeling and I was thinking “wow, I haven’t felt cornered and put on the spot like this since my mid teens”. And then an hour or two later I was back to feeling surrounded by an affirming environment that I’d semi-curated for a few years.

Part of me believes neurodivergents and neurotypicals simply cannot get along. I’ve seen some “allies” but we are just on completely different pages most of the time living in a society designed for the “correct” neurochemistry. I think the best thing you can do is to stick to surrounding yourself with neurodivergents with the understanding. But this doesn’t mean that they can’t hurt you as well unfortunately. It’s all trial and error