Teacher Asking About Bullying

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Hello,
I am a high school teacher at a private school for students with learning disabilities. I have a student with high-functioning ASD who is new to our school as of this year. He is 16 years old and is a great kid, but he was bullied quite badly at his previous school. Despite being in a place that provides safety and support, along with positive relationships with peers, he cannot seem to move past his previous experience. Every time he hears the word "bullying" he becomes very vocal about his experience and frequently over shares. It sometimes appears that he is obsessed with the memory. I have spoken with him 1:1 and even had him write a personal reflection of his experience. My question is: what can I do to help him focus on the present and the future, vs. the past? I want him to be able to move forward and see the positives in people.

Thank you!

You can never get him to forget his experiences, everyone is scarred by traumatic experiences in their childhood. Add the obsessional thinking of someone with autism and you will get even more focus on it. All you can do is to ensure his current environment is as safe as possible for him, ask him if there is anything reasonable he would like that would make him feel more secure, and distract him with other things.

If he feels he is not listened to in any way he is likely to focus even more on it. Let me tell you, not being believed is utterly awful to an autistic person. You cannot change his wiring. If you show him that you are trying to get him to forget it, you will likely make him even more obsessional about it. It is his way of dealing with it and getting it out of his system.

It's really nice that you want to help him.

Bullying is so hard to deal with and especially traumatic for us. I know I tend to focus on my experiences of being bullied which can become an endless loop. You are a caring teacher to inquire. I know separating oneself from anther's bad behaviour is the crux of this problem. For me, if a machine (for example) is not working properly, then I can fix it. If an experiment does not work, then I can work out why and re-direct it accordingly. Logic-based thinking. Still cannot comprehend how someone can be mean though. Really I do not know how, but diverting his attention onto positives is good. And praising him when he does well.

Well, as it sounds like this was a relatively recent experience, talking about it pretty much IS a way of moving forward.

At least, it seems to work that way with me. I talk about what happened (probably too much in others' opinions; I've often been told that that's one of my more irritating horrid character flaws). I collect others' data on the experience. Eventually (in my time, not on anyone else's timetable), I do move on.

Life goes on even while one is reliving a miserable experience. I think it's called processing what has happened to you, and incorporating new data.

Aspies do it slower. It takes longer to process, and requires more new data to override the old data and change the algorithm.

I'm sorry that it causes discomfort and distress.

I want to say something really caustic, like, life is FULL of things that cause discomfort and distress. People who want to live in a world where there are no discomfiting experiences, and where everyone shares the same timetable for feeling emotions and getting over things and et cetera-- Well, those people can go have their perfectly structured little uniform eutopia someplace far, far, far away from me.

Recommended reading: Lois Lowry, "The Giver".

Lest I sound like I'm spitting at you (I am, a little bit-- but only a little bit-- hey, I've got my own bad experiences with well-intentioned people to process)-- I really do thank you for caring. It's good to know that somebody cares enough, not only to ask, but to actually ask US.