Skepticism when recounting bullying events

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As an Aspie, a phenomenon I find truly perplexing (but maybe not if I was NT) is that by and large, when I recount a bullying experience to someone within my trusted circle of family/friends (luckily I've got plenty who are kind and supportive), they seem to question my judgement of whether it was bullying. Not in an angry way, but more objective, I guess. They'll ask "are you sure that when she made comment X, she wasn't trying to convince you of Y rather than Z?" and I'll say no, it was obviously manipulation or a threat or whatever...given an observed pattern of other traits...but still. Also from my father, I've gotten more pointed responses like "I don't truly think that he's trying to abuse or harass you given what you said, he must have some sort of reason that you're just not seeing, from his point of view."

Yes, we Aspies tend to be "dyslexic" when it comes to reading theory of mind and intent, but we can analyze things logically, as I do, and if the tormentor's behaviour is not consistent given a pattern and only makes us feel crappy not inspired to do better or based on constructive feedback, then I would label it bullying. Also we Aspies are by and large not paranoid schizophrenics or dishonest, so the person we recount these stories to surely can't think we imagined the incidents, or that we're being deceptive. They must be automatically assuming that we lacked the theory of mind to see the other person's intent (since they know of my challenges, I can see how they might be quick to jump to this conclusion).

But I suppose it never occurred to them that the reason we got bullied in the first place is b/c the bully sensed that we lacked a theory of mind, so they could engage in their slimy behaviour under the guise that there was some legitimate goal behind it and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The reality is though, the recounted events I experienced in the past were just arbitrary, it was just torment with no other objective than the bully's self-gratification. Even if the bully goes out of their way to be vindictive and inconveniences themselves, they will just blame the target saying the target "made" them go out of their way and created inconvenience.

A personal example I had in the early 2000s when I had a room-mate(flatmate) who was a very vindictive and manipulative bully. While she was out, I was mopping the floor with a standard cleaning chemical in a bucket of hot water - just doing my share w/o being asked, good intentions and all - and when she came back, she blasted me that I didn't think to ask that she might be allergic to that chemical. She said she had a moderate allergy to it, and that now she would be forced to spend the next few hours in her room b/c I didn't ask (which she did). I apologized, thinking yes that was just my lack of "common sense", and asked how I could make it up. She said that there's only one cleaning chemical she's not allergic to, which I would have to get, so a few days later after checking three groceries I finally got it (it was hard to find). I brought it back to the apartment, then she told me that her doctor just informed me that she actually can't be exposed to that one and I'd have to find another one. When I refused and insisted this was all a game, she got really angry, said how dare you be flippant about this and not think of anyone but yourself, bla bla bla. As far as I was concerned after that, she was just "crying wolf".

To illustrate it a step further, a couple of years ago I recall two workers at a group care home for autistic adults (mostly the lower-functioning ones on the spectrum) and they were caught on camera/tape beating an autistic man and making jokes like "you know why I like beating on these types of people, because if they ever complain, nobody believes them."

Luckily, those two were fired, licensed revoked, charged, etc. But it proves a point. Be it physical abuse for low-functioning autistics, or psychological and emotional abuse for the higher-functioning ones, those who appear less likely to be believed by others will be targeted more. Personally I find it insulting that another party within my circle would question my assessment of a bullying situation, I think I'm perfectly able to distinguish between psychotic and rational behaviour.

and you perfectly illustrated a large reason why I believe humanity deserves to stew in the gigantic pile of s**t it is stewing in. Honestly, f**k humanity. People are too stupid AND lazy to lift a finger to help others. IMO the classical illustrations of dragons hoarding everything and whatnot is a perfect analogue to human greed among other things.

Yeah...good analogy hehe. Those who hoard everything like that usually get it from bullying. Start by grabbing the kid's lunch money at recess, then graduate to being a boardroom bully who threatens people into surpassing sales quotas so you can get your huge bonus. Of course, intertwining this with the subject theme, a lot of these a**holes get off on making false accusations to a target on some pretext of the target not doing what they're supposed to. Like this one posting I read from a former manager at a major department store who said that everyone trembled when the Regional VP came to visit, because he would blast local management with a hailstorm of abuse about how sales targets needed to be ramped up, regardless of how good business was. It was like crying wolf, his only goal was clearly to show how grand he was and how people would tremble at his feet not based on any legitimate concern for the company.

Sometimes I wonder if people take on caregiver roles just so they can abuse people. It shouldn't be that way and perhaps those that want to abuse their power in a role where you are supposed to be caring should be weeded out. Bullies who take on positions like teaching special needs students, nurses etc...don't have a screening for them instead they must be caught! It's outrageous that there is pre-screening done for "shy" people yet these people should not be in these positions period.

I know what you mean about people trying to make it seem like the person who was being a bully wasn't really and it's just your imagination. I've asked people if they've ever had it happen to them and the usual answer is ...no.

Which further concludes that the majority of people do not really have empathy for those that aren't like them.