Work out a lot, enough to be buff, muscle boy or girl People will treat you differently if you are in shape – no matter what you look or act like – and that’s not just high school

Pretend they are hyper dogs. Don’t make eye contact. Walk normally past them. Throw a ball or dog treat to distract them. Complain to their owners if they are off leash.

You’re so young, I know this may not help, but please remember this is just right now, not forever. Things can and will improve.

Are you in a bigger school? Any other neurodivergent people you could align with?

My observation is that bullies bully, because they’re insecure about their own worth. They try to make themselves feel better about themselves by putting others below themselves. The more worth they perceive in you, the more they want to put you below themselves.

The vile thing about your age is that pretty much no one has much actual worth to show for themselves. You’re still going to school, so you haven’t yet achieved much for society. When you get out of school, you’ll still have plenty time to achieve things for society, but it can still make people feel bad about themselves until then, and some of them react by bullying.

So, yeah, basically two things:

1. It will get better. Adult bullies are quite rare, because adults generally have self-worth.
2. Try to make friends. Bullies won’t go after you, if they feel like many others are on your side, because those others are your (mutually relevant part of) society. They can really shred those bullies’ self-worth.

If you’re struggling with proper friendship, this does not need to be proper friendship. It can absolutely be transactional, like maybe you can explain certain subjects to them or heck, bake cakes, and they’ll do the emotional work of integrating you into their friend group.

Unfortunately there is no universal solution, and in some cases there may be no viable solution. It might be best to just work on yourself and getting through/past it. You can always look for solutions, and certainly if they are violent or harmful you don’t want to just endure that.

Most of the times I tried to solve my bullying problems, they ended up getting worse. Basically any reaction is a positive response to them, but unfortunately “no reaction” is also a notable response, as you had to put effort into not reacting. There is a “correct” response that would help, but it’s whatever someone that isn’t us would do, so we’re out of luck on that, lol.

Basically, if they are just being annoying or mean, you can handle that. If they are doing more than that, you do unfortunately need to get help. Ideally from an adult if you have viable options. Another kid can help in some situations too, but use your best judgment that you won’t be putting the other kid in harms way. Some times it’ll work out, some times it won’t.

Being bullied is not your fault, even if it pretty much always feels like it. Try to see it from the point of view that you are doing nothing wrong. It’s kind of akin to sexual harassment, someone being harassed is not at fault. No matter how much they could change their own actions, it’s not on them to do so. They didn’t do anything wrong, the person harassing them is the one in the wrong. Same with bullies. While changing your actions could make you more or less attractive to bullies, it’s not on you to do so, the bullies are solely the ones in the wrong. But similarly to sexual harassment, it sucks anyway even though you aren’t doing anything wrong.

You will eventually be through the part of your life where bullying is a problem. The most important thing is getting through to the other end of it and still being as “you” as you can be. Bullying evolved from the pack behaviour of trying to make sure no one member of the pack stands out in any way. A uniform group is less likely to be attacked. It’s not a particularly useful behaviour anymore, but that doesn’t change instincts. And instincts have never been about how happy anyone was, they were only about survival and proliferation.

There are upsides to being different. Try to capitalise on your strengths, and prioritize shoring up your short comings based on which ones might specifically impede the path you want to take. There is not enough time to shore up everything. The main way our strengths and shortcomings work is as an effort multiplier. The things we are good at take less effort to build on, and the other things are rarely completely out of reach, but they will take much more time and effort. It sucks to work on a skill that you have incredibly inefficient gains for. It feels bad the whole time. But it can end up being very important. Just make sure to have balance, you don’t want to burn out.

Just know that there is eventually an end to it. I love my adult life, it was very much worth getting through everything I got through. I’m not an important person, but I’m a person that is important to some people. And I am happy.

Most of the bullies I dealt with were in college or business jabronis in the workforce since I was homeschooled (that’s a rant for another day) so YMMV. I also stopped getting bullied physically by everyone except my parents as a small child, so I don’t have any advice for that.

tl;dr: bullies stop when it’s not worth picking on you.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but these have all worked for me with various people bullying me verbally / emotionally.

Hippie shit:

Understand why they’re doing this: most of them are deeply insecure about something and are deflecting from that. You could figure out what that is and make fun of it, but that is the path to the dark side. Instead, acknowledge it in your head. “He’s picking on me because he has a stutter.” “She got frozen out of her friend clique because they think she’s weird and is lashing out.” It’s amazing how that knowledge helps you ignore whatever they’re saying. State of mind is key. They morph from some awful monster you have to hide from into a pathetic jerk that has to put down other people to feel ok.

Just straight-up gray rock them. They need a reaction. One-syllable responses (“huh”, “yep”, “really?”, “ok”) are not fun for them and most of them will move on to easier targets.

Do an image audit and makeover: get some nicer clothes, change your hair, take care of yourself. This boosts self-esteem and also confuses the bully. They’ll probably have new material once they unblock their second nostril and get enough brain oxygen to do serious thought, but you can be ready for that. My little cousin was getting bullied in middle school, and my aunt’s solution was to buy him brand new clothes, give him a faux hawk, and get his ear pierced. It worked!

This one’s innate for me, but I have what my wife refers to as “resting warlock face.” I assume it’s mostly just a look of grim concentration trying to navigate the universe, but it mostly just looks like I’m trying to set whatever I’m looking at on fire with my mind. People generally do not want to approach that.

Chaos agent shit: The following can be used to great effect, but might also get you punched. Deploy with care. Getting punched is not a good way to deal with being bullied.

Aggressively refuse to understand what they’re saying. Ask a lot of questions. When you finally decide you’ve figured it out, say “OH, you were making fun of me! You should lead with that next time.” Next time, interrupt with “just to clarify, you’re making fun of me right now? OK. It’s hard to tell with you.” and then fold your hands and stare directly at their forehead / nose / whatever works, expectantly. This takes some of the power back, throws them off their script, and makes the whole encounter deeply unfun.

Be funnier. I discovered George Carlin during his post-shilling for AT&T phase, when he was good and angry. It’s amazing how he puts sentences together to convey maximum vitriol in a funny way. I listened to him obsessively (also Eddie Izzard, Mitch Hedberg, Dylan Moran, and lots of others) and can fall into a rant mode and get the crowd back on my side. Bullies want easy, predictable targets. Being funnier than them changes the power dynamic and makes them want to disengage.

Keep the riff going without them. “You fucked my mom? Did she at least charge this time? I keep telling her that she can’t keep taking charity cases. If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” I found I could always go grosser and darker than the bullies. If they get uncomfortable or cross a serious line (or you’re uncomfortable going further), end with “we were having a nice conversation about [whatever the original subject was] and you had to make it weird.” Don’t go so far you become the bad guy; I keep racial/gendered/ableist stuff out of my vocab.

Good luck and to reiterate, don’t do chaos agent shit if it’ll get you punched.

Don’t rise to it, bullies do it for entertainment or to look big. Keep your head down and focus on the things you enjoy in life. Be open about your autism, you never know where you might find some allies.

I’m not sure it’s a good option, but I’ll tell you how I dealt with it.

I tried to respond in an unexpected way. Specificaly, a way that robbed them of their pleasure for doing it. They want to make me to feel bad. I’d show them I was far better at that than they ever would be.

Maybe I doubled down on their insult, explaining to them it was worse than they thought. Or I’d start talking to them like they’re my therapist, unloading whatever else was depressing me. Stuff about my parents, or siblings, teachers, whatever. As long as it was related to what they said, they new they wouldn’t get what they wanted from saying that in the future.

This might not be in your wheelhouse. It might not work for anyone today. But it was effective for me roughly 30 years ago.

The best you can do is try to remove yourself from the situation when you can. Try to not engage with people you know will cause trouble for you.

It also can help a lot to find likeminded individuals to befriend. Join or start a club relevant to your interests and make friends when possible.

It’s a lot easier to bully someone isolated.

Hey bud, sorry you’re dealing with this.

I want you to know you’re in good company, though. SO many adults were bullied in school and made it through. Realistically, some of your ancestors also were bullied and made it onward to live great lives (which eventually led to you being on this planet). You have that same resilient spirit in you and you’ll make it through!

As for what you do with bullies: The best thing I’ve seen is when someone was getting bullied and the person being bullied said “this is so boring. You’re really boring.” and just walked off. If a bully escalates beyond that to violence, wait for them to touch you first and then destroy their ass.

My go-to is a three step process. The first insult goes unheard, the second goes one of three ways. If the insult is minor, in case they’re “ribbing” I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and give a shrug or other “I know I’m weird, but I like it that way” sort of response. If the insult is severe or out-and-out malicious, I’ll give a very muted, unemotional response, like “uh huh…” Or “glad you think so…”

If they go for a third to get a rise out of you, go for the throat. Make direct, fierce, and very forced eye contact. Completely face them. If you know them, you could opt to make a very grave, personal insult on something that you know will cut them deeply, but it must be acurate and not at all overstated. I don’t use that approach anymore, but instead the better option is to call them out within earshot of others. Show the anger on your face but show none in your voice. “Does anyone else feel like this guy likes being a prick? Does anyone else think he’s cool because he’s an asshole?” Draw eyes. Call out his name. Ask if anyone else thinks he’s a bully. Put the spotlight on him without drawing on any direct insult.

In the animal world, you can fight or you can hide. The best option for you is to hide, meaning you must learn mimicry to blend in. Learn the normie behaviors and practice it as if you’re an actor playing a part. When you don’t stand out, no one will bother you.

Although lacking ASD I had other problems growing up, and got bullied relentlessly. My advice is learn how to fight back. Like with literal punches and stuff. If you can, start lifting weights. If not, find an equivalent using mundane stuff - water-filled plastic gallon milk jugs is an easy starting point. Just do it safely.

When they start using violence, return fire but don’t overdo it. You want to force them to find easier prey. Do no more than defend yourself, and when you - inevitably, because schools suck - get in trouble, maintain that you were defending yourself and will continue to do so, since the school is clearly unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Bullies will continue to bully until forced to stop. What you don’t want is to have a full on break and nearly kill somebody in a rage. If I was a teenager in this day and not in the 90s I’d have landed in jail.

Just: In my personal experience from way back when? Being such a terrifyingly violent little shit that no-one wants to risk setting you off may have its drawbacks, but it damn well works at getting bullies to knock it off. But being terrifyingly violent doesn’t mean you need to be an asshole when not provoked.

First, if everyone you meet is a jerk, you might be pissing people off and that’s on you.

If this is not the case, you need to confront them. Bullies are a fact of life. It gets WAY worse later in life if you can’t deal with them.

Not many people will admit it, but hauling off and hitting someone picking on you is a top three experience. It doesn’t even matter if you win. Bullies establish self-worth by degrading others. If you make it easy, they’ll hang around.