Hey, I saw you mentioned you also bullied others in elementary out of retaliation. I had a really similar experience. I’m autistic and was made fun of because of my special interests and I just generally acted weird because I didn’t understand how to socialize. I was mean to other kids from a combination of bitterness and not understanding that I was doing anything wrong because that’s how others acted. How did you get over that? I still feel anguish and guilt to this day, and I’m in college now

vampireapologist:

I was lucky. I went to a small school and the other kids I was mean to kept growing up alongside me and they must’ve just forgiven me as we went. We ended up friends again in HS and are still friends now, though we rarely see each other.

But I still felt guilt and anguish over the way I acted, and my sister said something to me that’s really stuck with me forever.

She said that I was holding my childhood self accountable as if I did those things as my present self.

And it’s true. Since we’re the ones who were mean all those years ago, we picture ourselves now, with all our current wisdom and experience and information, being a mean little kid.

And well, that’s just plainly Not how it happened, is it?

I was a troubled kid. I was OCD and autistic with no diagnosis, and I had a lot of trouble going on in my life on top of that, and I was bullied every single day, 

viciously. So sometimes I broke down and was a bully back. And I spent a long time regretting that and asking myself why I couldn’t have been better or stronger….when I was 13…..

So my sister made me get out of my own head and imagine if I witnessed a 13 year old girl, scared and so sad and putting up with all of that mistreatment from kids and adults, and I saw her be mean to another girl. Would I think she was evil? Horrible? Bad? No!

Of course first I’d comfort the girl she bullied, the girl I bullied. But then I’d sit with her too and ask her what’s wrong. Ask her what she needs to feel better and be better. Because that’s what I needed. I wasn’t a bad person. I was just lost.

So were you. You have to forgive yourself.

If you can’t, picture that little kid you were, and forgive them. You’re the grown up now. Tell them it’s okay.

It really is.