Hi everyone, first post here, so please go easy on me!
I can relate to what mumble says, totally. I have been bullied at the workplace too, though this happened around 10 years ago. I’m 28 now and have AS. I used to work at a small family owned factory where I had my own station. I always felt as if I didn’t fit in, not just in life in general but also and especially so at this workplace. Anyway, my closest counterpart at work was the manager’s son who was quite a bit older than me and more or less straight away picked up on some of my little idiosyncrasies and rituals I would perform every day.
For example, I would prepare my workstation so that everything had it’s place and most mornings I would arrive early at work to do this. However, this person would move things around deliberately, leading me to meltdown, more or less. My first meltdown at this place was less than a month in which lead to me huddled underneath my workstation and crying for an hour.
It was after this that the name calling began. It was mainly to do with the fact that I was apparently ‘weird’. This escalated over time and try as I might to communicate this, to the staff, which was his family, I felt that I was pretty much alone.
It lead to me having my worst meltdown in a long time as he began to not only call me a ‘homosexual spastic’ but also announce it to the entire staff. One day, he even telephoned my then girlfriend, and offered her sex, then telling the staff after that he was ‘going to meet her and show her a real man’. I left shortly after this due to a mix of embarrassment and just fatigue really. This went on for 3 years and I was at breaking point, thinking I no longer had an identidy. In hindsight, I really should’ve taken this further once I left, but I never did, though I couldn’t help but smile slightly when I’d heard that the company had recently gone bust.
