The Autistic Writer: Bullying in Fiction

tyunglebower ♦ June 21, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

I was bullied without mercy or respite for the better part of five years of my schooling, spanning over three different schools. There were various reasons, no doubt, but I don’t hesitate at all to put my (then undiagnosed) Autism at the top of that list.

The majority of students, and even adults on the Spectrum in most surveys report having been bullied, or being bullied still. Early indicators suggest that even all other things being equal, the very presence of an Autistic person makes them stand out as an ideal target for bullying, even if their ASD is unknown. We seem to “give off a signal.”

My spirit, psyche, call it what you will, was irreparably damaged by these experiences. The scars and echoes affect me to this day under certain circumstances.

You absolutely could not separate my being a bullying victim from the rest of my human essence; it is a forever-engrained component of my identity.

I won’t write fiction about it.

This doesn’t merely mean I will never write a semi-autobiographical novel, or that I won’t use my experiences with bullying to inform a story. I mean I literally will not include bullying in stories that I write.

I barely ever read stories that feature bullying. If the jacket blurb tells me it plays a major role in the theme, the book goes back on the library shelf.

There are of course authors who work through their past traumas, (and by extension comfort current readers with similar traumas) by composing fiction inspired by their own experiences with bullying. It is a noble service, far beyond the power of their story. For me though, not only do I not wish to be reminded of my trauma any more often than I already am, I now see the majority of bullying story lines as gratuitous. Pointless. Like a sex scene in a non-streamy book for its own sake.

There is no redemption to me in bully-fiction.

Even vengeance fiction requires a deep dive into the initial assaults in order to be effective. I confess I could find a certain joy in a bully getting comeuppance, yet I simply will not write or read through the torture of the character required to make a vengeance plot in any way satisfying.

As an Autistic, I experience heightened sensory input, longer lasting and clearer memory, and an overall sense of protective isolation. Not to mention an enhanced sense of justice–justice I was denied every time that no work of fiction will replace. Ergo, it does me, the author, more harm than good to write it, and me the reader more harm than good to consume it.

Of course my characters go through tribulations, that’s what makes a story. But bullying is way too personal for me to include in my work.

I do use my life experiences, emotions, memories, opinions, moods and so on to inform my fiction writing. All authors do so to some extent. But all authors also have boundaries they refuse to cross—subject matter that will not include in their fiction no matter how moving it could be for readers, or cathartic it could be for themselves.

I have written essays and thought pieces about my bullying, because I consider that reportage. But if reality can be stranger than fiction, it can also at times be crueler. Children being bullied is a cruelty that is entirely too common in reality. You won’t find it in my fiction.