[removed]

Next time, cut your nails and just punch him in the face.

You did the right thing by standing up to your bully. If you don't they just do more and more and more. It is the school system and their "It is everyone's faults, the kids, the parents, the laws, but oh no we are not at fault, the school is never at fault."

I was thinking this in my head, he tells the bully, hold on hold let me cut my fingernails real quick, I don't want to cut you. Spends 2 minutes cutting his fingernails neatly, while the bully is looking at him like wtf. Then BAM, punches him.

This was not self defense

[removed]

yeah this isn’t self defense. you assaulted him and could get into serious trouble. even if someone is being mean to you you can’t physically hurt them. you need to tell a teacher about the bullying or remove yourself from the area when they start so you can avoid having an outburst.

yeah i know. im also gonna try to get anger management classes if i can

i know, thats why i posted this bcs i know i fucked up today.

but still, i was at fault for scratching him.

Well, good news is you're too young for court. Bad news is the moment you "head toward" and initiate the attack you're fully to blame for your actions. Depending on the school and how far that kid's guardian push it, you're looking at suspension to expel. Best you can do now is gathering every evidence you got of the bullying and let your mom know so she know the full picture and be prepared for the meeting. Don't let your mom go in there unprepared, she can't defend you without knowing what's going on and got ambushed with their version of events.

Trim your damn nails, kid.

[deleted]

I guess self defense mechanism rather means it was kind of his last option he saw to stand up for himself. And not self defense by it’s definition.

Physical outbursts can happen if you‘re being harassed. Actually they‘re rather common as far as i remember.

Anyhow: whilst I understand your reaction, violence is never the right choice. Try to avoid those situations or seek for other methods to stop those outbursts. Especially because you kinda maneuvered yourself into that situation with being loud. So it should be avoidable kinda easily.

Seek help from your parents, teachers,… and try to stop the harassment to protect yourself and your classmates.

Seeking an anger therapy is a nice solution as well. Trying to learn new methods to avoid it and probably being able to clean up other stuff (like being loud for no reason) too.

If you know why did you out in your title that it was self defense?

[deleted]

I want to add onto this that OP could also maybe try and find other outlets aside from verbal stimming that they can try to turn to when in an environment that expects people to be quiet/silent. I know it could be hard, and I doubt it'd stop the verbal stimming entirely (honestly, I wouldn't expect it to) but it would still be useful to have other outlets rather than noise making.

​

Speaking from experience, noise making - especially repetitive noise - can drive people absolutely mad if they have to hear it for an extended period of time. I tend to whistle when bored and I have like 2-3 tunes that I do on repeat: Twisted nerve, lost woods and imperial march. Unfortunately for my coworkers, I am able to whistle very loudly.

It doesn't bother regardless of how much I whistle those tunes, but my coworkers who - if I'm placed at self checkout - can hear it for around ~8 hours in a day? It gets annoying quick and they didn't start out coming up to me and letting me know that the whistle was getting irritating. They'd just try to ignore it, but that isn't fair to them; it may have been keeping me from going insane from boredom, but it was driving them to insanity.

In the end I think they ended up joking with me about it, and that caused me to realize I was whistling perhaps more than I realized and I told them why I was doing it - not to be annoying, but because it was basically my idle mode - and that I would do my best to have something else - something quite - to do but that if I did whistle, it wasn't intentional and they could tell me to stop and I wouldn't be mad.

I've since started carrying baoding balls or a deck of cards with me, that way instead of occupying my mind with a whistle, I can do something with my hands to keep my mind from driving me crazy due to boredom. Sometimes I still whistle out of habit, but I have my other outlets to turn to instead or when I catch myself whistling (or when I don't but my coworkers do and decide they need me to stop).

You seem to be aware that your behavior is disruptful (occasionally making loud noises) but you seem to have decided that's acceptable, why is that?

Sadly the commenter below ended up rage blocking me. Here is the last comment intended for her, hopefully she reads it...

Look you were the one who asked me to elaborate on how I knew about science and autism, thats why I brought up my education and work experience. And you are the one clinging to your own anecdotes some sort of evidence that you must know everything about schooling environments. Where you are using your own family history as some sort of bible about how you know best. Which is both incredibly arrogant and exactly the type of thing you should have learnt not to do by now if you truly are only 2 university level papers short of your degree.

The learning environment is for all students, ALL. That means the ones who are not disrupting the class have just as much right to learn and be distraction free as the ones who cannot control their outbursts. Like I said above, if a student is in able of adjusting their behavior to meet the rules of one particular class environment then a more suitable classroom environment should be made available to them.

That's what I know, that's what the literature says, that's what boards of education recommended and that's what works.

What doesn't work is some half educated parent marching into a school and defending her child's inappropriate behavior and shielding them behind a diagnosis. That helps no one and is the source of the majority of frustrations teachers and administrators face regularly.

Now kindly pull your head out of your ass and realize that you and your kids are part of society, not the center of it.

And you seem not to know what anecdote means.

How about you get off Reddit and go to therapy

First reasonable comment. Obviously made a mistake, and the use of the term self-defense mechanism here makes sense to me. It’s not like they’re trying to justify it by actually calling it self-defense.

edit: it makes "sense" to me in the sense that that was the best term OP could think of at the time. I'm not saying it was actual self-defense in any way.

Op is the bully lol.

Makes loud noises through a test, then attacks someone with his nails.

Lots of extra details in there but thoser the facts.

[deleted]

Not self defense, he did not assault you nor verbally threaten your safety. And you’re clearly self aware of your issues so I don’t think being autistic is gonna work as an excuse either. Part of being an adult is recognizing your weak spots and working on them. Sounds like you need to work on ignoring people. Move forward and grow from it.

Whatever you feel about whether you were morally right, here, and I do believe there's grey area in like a cosmic sense when he came at you like that . . . you cannot physically attack people in school, because they don't weigh physical and mental attacks the same way. You won't be punished that severely; it's just a fight. You might get suspended, but no one in your adult life will ever care. Just don't do it again.

Escalating verbal conflict to physical conflict is not a self defense mechanism. Crossing the room to kick his table and scratch him out of anger was not a mistake, it was a choice.

It does sound like OP gets this was a fuck up, and both were in the wrong, but the title is still incorrect and downplaying what happened in the comments is dumb.

It would be an excellent punchline.

You’re a lunatic, this wasn’t self defense, you assaulted him.

The way they’re so casually talking about screaming in class is so odd. But it’s Reddit and everyone is autistic on here.

Yeah you really did fuck up

I understand you probably didn't know in that moment what else to do, and you probably felt pretty overwhelmed. If you're in a situation where you don't know how to de-escalate, and you are not in immediate physical danger that demands a physical defense response, it would be better to remove yourself from the situation. The consequences of ditching class or being late to class would probably be easier to stomach than what you're dealing with right now. If it were me, I would also contact my parent to tell them about the situation as soon as I could. I think most parents will be easier on their kids if they're honest- that honesty reinforces a good foundation of trust between parent and child, and if your parent trusts you they'll be more likely to hear you out and try to understand your side of a situation.

I'm sorry for what happened, and I hope that you can find a resolution for your classmate bullying you.

You know your problem areas so improve them. Seek anger management. Violence is never the answer but self defense is acceptable within reason. Don't do anything stupid. Punishment is coming, accept it. Peace..

You're lucky the kid didn't break your jaw.

As an autistic person, it’s actually not odd at all. Most people are used to seeing “Asperger’s” type autism so they don’t realize. It’s called vocal stereotypy or vocal stimming. Some people hum, some people yell, etc, like my nonverbal autistic child.

I don’t know this situation, but I do know that I won’t ever stop my kid from making vocal noises just because people look at them oddly. If they’re disturbing others to the point of being a nuisance, we leave. However, I will never train my child to stop stimming. It’s necessary for our emotional regulation, which I know from experience. I just happen to stim physically instead of vocally. So long as they’re not purposely being a nuisance, it’s absolutely acceptable. Sometimes it’s not a choice.

While I commend you for an heroic approach I am pointing out here that OP (and possibly OPs parents) have made a clear mistake. There is no way any child should be physically attacked in class for expressing their own frustrations at a clearly frustrating environment.

If OP cant control their audible outbursts then it is necessary to move OP (and maybe some of the other noisy students) to something similar to a "high tempo" style class.

This is a real life medical issue. I was quite clear that I was discussing the vocal stereotypy, not injurious behavior, which is never acceptable. Downvoting me doesn’t change science, I’m sorry.

The vocalizing is the root of the problem. Science is on my side of this discussion. Sorry.

Oh, so you know science AND autism! Please elaborate

My bachelor of Science in Psychology, focused on adolescent development.

Funny! I’m two classes short of that exact degree, and autism has not been discussed. Is that in abnormal psych? Let me know.

In fact, to work in a medical manner with autistic children requires a master’s degree. Even then, short of a brilliant neuropsychologist I work with, none of them really understand autism aside from its basic ideas, which you don’t even seem to grasp since you think vocal outbursts are always considered maladaptive behavior. To anyone like me who knows what they’re talking about, you sound ridiculous.

Please continue. I’m really entertained now. I want to hear about how this child’s vocal stereotypy is more dangerous than his physical harm of others. That makes no sense and they don’t relate to the other aside from motivation, at best. But I’m happy to hear what you have to say.

I did a post grad diploma on issues like Fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, adhd, addiction and maladaptive developmental environments. Started a masters on the protective factors the help people avoid recidivism leaving prison but never finished as I changed countries during that time. In my new country I worked with youths at a youth protection foundation and then moved into schools working as a special needs teacher for students with learning difficulties in a regular school environment.

So I didn't need my masters in the end.

What you really really need to do is stop assuming you know everything when you are relying upon your own anecdotes and go out and get some experience.

Any learning difficulty that disrupts a learning environment MUST be addressed

Not once have you answered the question. You just keep talking about your education and proving my point. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about and refuse to admit it.

I learned about many psychological disorders as well. As in, they’re mentioned in a single chapter on maybe a page or two. That’s your knowledge of autism. You’re talking to someone who has generations of family with autism, so aside from my degree, which taught me nothing about it, I have decades of experience you can’t learn in school. In addition, I’ve worked closely with people who only work with children with autism (like my NV child) and I’ve had to study the subject at length in private. Also, I am autistic. So please keep lecturing me about your education when I’m trying to ask you

For the THIRD time: where is the science that says vocal stereotypy is harmful? It’s nowhere, because it isn’t. It essentially means to babble. So you’re saying babbling is worse than physical harm. So again, please explain why you think chatter is worse than physical violence. I’ve got your credentials. Back up your “sCiEnCe”

Do you know what anecdote means?

Do you know what “desperately clinging to unrelated tangential subjects” means?

I made that comment after seeing comment after comment of people stating the obvious: OP fucked up and it wasn't self-defense.

Of course I agree with that, but I just don't see the use in repetitively reminding them they fucked up, because they seem to be well aware of that fact. I hoped people would see my comment and realize OP isn't trying to *justify* what they did. **They just tried to give the most fitting term to their actions.**

Edit: I definitely misused "mistake" in my first comment. However, I'm giving a little extra leniency to a differently-abled 15 year old who clearly is admitting fault for their actions. They develop at different rates, and perhaps this was a lesson that needed to be learned. Does it seem a bit old for you and me to be learning this lesson? Of course, but we're not OP.