Suicide, self-harm mentions
In high school, I bullied one of the Special Ed students. (He was a girl back then but is a dude now because I still talk to him and we are friends.) Despite being smart, I couldn’t see past my belief that all autistic/special Ed students were dumb and grouped him in with them.
He also was very awkward and quiet, and would always greet us or try to ask us how our day was. I eventually got annoyed with his awkwardness and his greeting us because he refused to gossip or talk about drama. I therefore called him stupid, especially socially, for not knowing or caring about our school drama, and with my friends, threatened to beat him up, told him to “shut the hell up”, and “kill himself”. Everyone but me still hates him and doesn’t talk to him anymore.
We bullied him to the point he got very depressed and traumatized and even tried to hurt himself.
Now, we’re friends and he’s like a brother to me. We made up, I apologized, but a part of me still thinks his social awkwardness that made him target to the bullying was his fault.
If he was a perv and making you uncomfortable because of that then it goes beyond just being socially awkward. It’s still not his fault for being bullied because that was a choice that you made, I would just accept the responsibility for my past decisions rather than blame the other person and think about whether it was truly the best way for me to handle things.
Thanks. Am I right to call him a perv since he would always say hi to us and ask how our day was? That’s what he did and it pissed me off, I wanted to punch him and my friend said she was going to kill him.
Wanting to violently attack someone for saying hi and asking about your day seems like a huge overreaction to me. Was there anything in particular that pissed you off besides that? From what you described it sounds like a pretty normal friendly interaction on his side at least.