Making a Mockery

Mockery, teasing and victimisation characterised my childhood years to the greater extent. From when I was 6 about to turn 7 until I left school at 16, this was a key dominating factor in my life.

I always considered myself just the victim, until I got closer to God as a teenager and realised otherwise. Nevertheless, I was essentially destroyed within one school term of it actually starting. When I first went to this new school, I would stand in the corner of the playground and cry because I didn’t know how to relate to new people. The other children got worried, brought the teacher over and asked what was wrong, but I didn’t know and couldn’t explain. Then I just got teased for it and got called a girl which was the ultimate insult, being an all-boys school. But I didn’t know how to react or answer back or defend myself in any way, and so the pain ran deep, and there was no escape. This kind of treatment continued until I left school, during which I was unable to stand up for myself because I didn’t know how. I was a year or two behind everyone else in emotional maturity, and was the youngest in the class anyway. I was also bigger than most of the rest, which actually didn’t help.

But I also victimised others, and this began at an early age from what I remember. I used to wind my brother up no end (he is 5 years older than me), calling him names and so on. I also remember joining in with other boys at school, laying into the one or two others who couldn’t cope and defend themselves either.

Of course, we have to remember this was the 1970’s, when the concept of sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me ruled the day. Being able to stand up for yourself was all part of being a normal person, and verbal victimisation didn’t count as bullying, so everyone had a free rein. No-one had ever heard of Aspergers in those days.

I sometimes wonder what makes people behave like this so compulsively. It’s like the victim has written on their forehead “Please bully me”. I remember one boy who was such a complete wimp that all I wanted to do was hit him whenever I saw him. This particular boy I know was adopted, and of what I know now about this kind of thing, it is plausible that his birth mother may have seriously considered having an abortion prior to giving him up for adoption. The threat would have been sensed by the baby in the womb, and would have set him up to be afraid of something nasty happening to him, which in turn would have induced people to want to do that.

I take the view that there is demonic interplay going on here. The actions of parents and forebears opened an entry point for demons to oppress the child as a result of what they did and didn’t do. On the one hand the behaviour of the victim is actively set up to appear weak and foolish in the eyes of those around, and on the other, everyone else is goaded into taking their frustrations out on the victim. It seems to just work instinctively in the same way that an animal predator knows how to hunt and catch its prey.

In my case, it goes back several generations. Both my father and my grandfather had similar autistic traits, and I know of at least one uncle who suffered in a similar way to me at school. I know very little about what went on, as so little is communicated within my family.

When I was young, my father and I used to love to watch Norman Wisdom films. You probably need to have grey hair or little of it to remember this particular comedian. He made a series of films where he played the character Pitkin, a kind of underdog who did hilariously silly things and wound up his superiors in the process. They are the kind of comedy you love or absolutely loathe. It was essentially slapstick. But the mentality of these kind of films became deeply ingrained, and so when I perceived weakness or people in difficulty, my instinct was to laugh at them. They call this schadenfreude (from the German word meaning taking pleasure in other people’s misfortunes). One of the features of autistic people is they don’t distinguish fiction from reality very well. This is because their senses are numbed and reality doesn’t seem that much more real than fiction itself. This is why it became so ingrained.

When I was healed, this didn’t go away, but I became acutely aware of it. Becoming aware of your own faults can lead to self-loathing, which in turn leads to depression. There is a way to overcome this, but I only really learned about this 5 years or so later. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans talks about doing what you don’t want to do and not doing what you want, but doesn’t give a solution that’s obvious to take hold of.

So my children grew up feeling they could never really trust me with anything sensitive because I would just laugh at them, and this is sad.