AS and abuse: Are people with AS prone to abuse?

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I am wondering if people with AS are natural victims of abuse?

I was sexually abused by a male neighbor when I was a pre-teen. Although I am awaiting formal diagnosis of AS, I'm wondering if my "differentness" might have made me an easy target.

I want to know peoples take on this. I am NOT expecting personal stories, yet feel free if you are comfortable. The abuse does not necessarily need to be sexual. I just want to know if AS makes people more vulnerable.

Everyone's take?

I think it does. More prone to be bullied especially.

Gullibility leads to being easily tricked by those who prey on others.

I think so, because we are misunderstood by peers and sometimes our own parents.

I was abused, non-sexually. More of the two black eyes and imprint of a hand around my neck variety. And that was just at home. At school I was constantly bullied and slandered.

There really is no such thing as a "natural victim" of anything. My parents left a young-and-vulnerable "me" exposed to a certain neighbor when I was young, and there is an outside chance he *might* have taken advantage of their negligence ... but the only time with him I can actually recall is from a visit to a rail yard to look at trains, and I was certainly not being abused there.

I was bullied pretty badly for most of my life (though not much of it was physical because I'm female) and got groped at/felt up/etc. at school by strangers more often than most girls? Also got a lot of emotional/verbal/physical abuse from school staff aaaand daycare staff when I was younger. So yeah, I'd say that it's definitely the case.


Edit: Err, not the case that anyone is a "natural victim." More like... People who are outwardly different are more likely to be abused because a lot of people are just ignorant or cruel or insecure and need to assert dominance over others to feel like they are worth something.

I think yes, when there is less knowledge of what is socially acceptable, a person could be more lightly to be a victim of abuse. I know I was bullied and there are many here (wrongplanet) that have said the same.

I feel sad and angry that your neighbour abused you.

About your query, I don't know. All I do know about this is that abusers are very manipulative and in many cases blame the victim. Abuse is always the abusers fault.

Yes, I was bullied a lot too. A kid beat the living snot out of me in front of my "friends", I got a swirly in the toilet by a mob of boys and never told (the assistant principal must have found out somehow, but I was too scared to tell him who did it), and had a boy threaten to kill me if I didn't give him my locker combination. There are may more.

I ask if I was abused because I was different, or am I different because I was abused? What is everyone's take?

Some of us seem passive or "slow" or whatever, and that leads some people to see us as being vulnerable to their aggression ... and it is *then* when we become victims of their wrong-doings. Being on the spectrum and being bullied are only circumstantially related -- being bullied is not an inherent element of autism.

This.

I've always been an easy target for both the bullying and agressive behavior. I've learn to read some of the red flags and steering clear of these personality types but it's not always easy. I don't think it's exclusively inheritant to those on the spectrum but I could see it being a problematic factor when it comes to attracting the type that gets their kicks off targeting "the weak" per se. My naivety and not being able to gadge in the peking order through superficial means makes it tough. This makes it easy for people who see right through you.

Definitively yes.

You were abused because of evil in other people, a more attractive target because you were different, and more different now because you were abused. It is best if us "different" people can have some kind of partner or advocate in life to help us be less vulnerable, better protected...but that is not too easy to find either since we are...well...different.

But why is it that people who have autism disorders know that being bullied and teased is wrong, yet people who have no autism disorders go around bullying or teasing others?

Some people seem to have a defect that makes them unable to feel ok about themselves unless they are putting down others. They have to degrade other people to boost their own self image. It's a horrible trait.

When people hear autism, ADD, learning disability they assume that means those people are dumb. Well maybe THEY are the ones who are dumb then right?