Online bullying.

[Steel Maiden]

I'm not going to go into great detail but I have decided to leave the autism forum I am a member of.

I posted a post asking about how to manage my friendship with C, as I was confused about his behaviour and body language (neither of which I can read in any case).

I don't do social. I don't do calling a friend for a chat. I don't meet up people for social purposes. C and I are totally fine with our functional friendship. If I need help, he helps me; if he needs help, I help him. We give each other advice and help. We don't do social things at all.

A few people on the autism forum responded with some very hurtful statements which made me quite upset.

I was told by one to actually go and get diagnosed with autism as I'm a faker. I have classic autism, my neurologist has confirmed that diagnosis officially. A psychologist and my psychiatrist agree on this. As well as all my autistic traits, I also had a mild speech delay, and I still have communication problems now, as well as challenging behaviour etc.

There has been a lot of ganging up and cliquey behaviour on that forum so I've decided to leave that forum. I'll read people's threads there from time to time, but I won't post anything.

This is not the first time I've been lambasted by some people on that forum. It upsets me.

Am I overreacting?

[Sketchy]

You are not overreacting. The person who posted that was in the wrong. You don't have to validate yourself to people who accuse you of faking it and are rude. They clearly don't know you and are not worth getting upset about (which I know isn't helpful, since it's natural to be upset by their behaviour).

Is there someone on the forum, like a mod, who you can report this behaviour to? Apart from that, do you find the forum helpful? If so, it would be a shame to leave it because of certain people. At the same time, if it is causing you distress, then a break away from it might be helpful too.

As for your friendship with c, it sounds like a good functioning friendship. You can always ask for help here when body language and behaviour is confusing.

Sorry, I'm using my phone and can't get the text to appear in bold blue, so I hope you can read it ok.

[PoppyLove]

If you can report it to a mod, do so. Even if you don't go back - they may want to know.

But then, if they were moderating the forums correctly, they'd have seen it and dealt with it.

You're not in the wrong. I'm a member of some great forums, but it is so, so easy for forums to become toxic. Little 'cliques' are formed. I was part of one once where the people were downright awful and were involved with some terrible bullying - but if you called them out on it, they would deny it and say you were stupid/foolish and just wrong (the forum had no moderation whatsoever).

Being behind a computer screen makes people really bold. But, even in public some people are just jacks.

Good riddance to them, and hopefully if you need another forum, you'll find one. I hope they're not all bad :)

[Steel Maiden]

Thank you both.

I will report it to the mods, although the mods seem biased because they don't moderate threads like the one I got bullied in, but they delete threads that ask "why all this bullying?" or "can we be polite please".

I talked to C and we are fine. I don't do social, I am not good at social. C is understanding.

Yes, the bullies are idiots. But I was finding the forum less useful by the month. And parts of it were getting silly. So I've left the forum. I'll find another autism forum.

Thank you for explaining clearly to me.