Help! Stuck with the school menace!

[Chistian-ity]

The title might have been a bit extreme, but there’s a person in my school that is really attached to me. They follow me around because nobody else really treats them kindly except for maybe one other very kind person who is my friend. This would be fine and all, but I do find them to be particularly unsavory, and just plain burdensome these days. If you disagree with them, they’ll be physically abusive. If you ask them to focus or be quiet they’ll be physically abusive. They only like making illicit/inappropriate jokes and find them really funny, which I find displeasing. And they are very atheistic and always try to bash religion, which I just brush aside. For example, a staple phrase of theirs is “did you know religious people just want to suck God’s toes for special attention?” And, “Religion is a scam. Did you know that? Huh, huh?” (Weird, isn’t it?) It seems as though they want to be treated nicely but don’t want to treat others nicely and I’m not sure what to do. Being nice only draws them in closer. For now, I’m praying for him. But it gets tiresome dealing with it day in and day out. To add to the problem, if you were to try to give them the cold shoulder they don’t care and will continue on or threaten you. I know this because I’ve seen it happen. Also, they like taking stuff and not giving it back. People don’t generally “fight back” because it’s constant and maybe they feel pity? I sure do feel bad for them, I try to pray for him.

In any case, writing this has helped me realize how bad it is as well.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It sounds like this student is bullying (takes your stuff, insults your religion etc) and physically abusive. Is this tolerated at your school? It shouldn’t be.

 

[ThomasMT]

I’m confused, is this a person or a group of people?

 

[Chistian-ity]

It’s not like extreme bullying, more like a pain to deal with. Which my school does not tolerate. They treat everybody in the same fashion. Also I know they have ADHD

 

[Chistian-ity]

A person

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The fact that a person has a mental illness does not make it okay for them to abuse others.
I know you may think this is minor but it’s still not okay.
I had a mentally ill “friend” for a couple years in high school and she engaged in some of the same abusive behavior towards me (She didn’t take my stuff but she was insulting and physically abusive on a daily basis) and it was stressful. I think you need to report this to the school to be honest.

 

[Chistian-ity]

Perhaps you’re right. I think they act the way they do because they find it amusing. Although I can’t really fathom why.

 

[Zaccheus]

You are being bullied and you have a right to have it stopped. Report this person to the school authorities.

 

[JMMJ]

Tell them you are religious. Maybe they will then move on to someone else.

 

[Chistian-ity]

They know, that’s why they say it. I carry a Bible around at school . I think they expect me to react, but I don’t and that’s why they say it multiple times, because they want to provoke a reaction.

 

[JMMJ]

Well then you need to set boundaries for your relationship. Tell the person what you will and won’t tolerate, then follow through.

 

[Zaccheus]

And get help from the authorities.

 

[Kindnessmatters]

ADHD is not a mental illness and does not cause this sort of behaviour. The impact of ADHD is excess energy, and a reduced ability to filter out distractions, which interferes with focus.

ADHD does not cause bullying, lost social awareness, or any of the described behaviours like physical abuse.

It is a learning disability but does not interfere with mood, temperment, reason, or intellect.
.

 

[PetraG]

Confide in a teacher you think handles the most difficult students in your school the most firmly and kindly. Just ask him or her what they’d suggest you do.

Otherwise, I’d suggest that when this person says things that are obviously meant to get a rise out of you that you not bite. Instead, express puzzlement about why someone who is capable of being a good friend doesn’t choose to do it. This is exactly how a bully is not going to expect you to respond.

I’m not sure what you mean by being “nice,” but you are allowed to be blunt. When they make nasty comments you can say, “Rob, I don’t think I’ve ever said a single thing to you just to upset you. Why are you trying to get my hackles up? It’s not as if you can’t get along if you want to. You’re a high energy guy, but you can act like a friend, if you feel like it.” At this point, he’s either going to say he doesn’t want to be a friend (in which case you can say, “well, then don’t waste your time talking to me. Talk to someone you actually like”) or he’s going to actually think, “here is someone who believes that I can succeed at being someone worthwhile” and he may start trying to do that.

A lot of time, people who are nasty don’t think others accept them. They reject others before others have a chance to reject them. This could be why this person hangs around you: that is, he or she doesn’t get anything like acceptance from anybody but you. You’re the only two people who treat them like a fellow human being, no matter what. Well, if they feel as if they’re always going to mess up socially, they might give up and yet still of course have the hope that somebody will like them.

Someone like that may need others to just bluntly tell them what the expectations are without rejecting them. This is what our parents usually do for us. They tell us clearly how to act but they love us even when we don’t do it right. If someone has a parent that never accepts them no matter what they do, they can have a big hole where that feeling of being accepted is supposed to be.

Now, that may or may not be the case here and in any event, this is not your person to “fix.” You may find, however, that being “nice” to them doesn’t mean the same as being “nice” to other people. It may mean being more honest and more clear about what your expectations are and more clear about your attitude that the person is acceptable. You may need to try something that most people don’t try.

Now, they might act very offended that you dare to tell them what they’re capable of. The thing is, I’m not sure what else there is to try. Sometimes, though, people respond really well when you believe in them and accept them even though you’re drawing your own boundaries and letting them know how you want them to treat you. If this person really wants to be liked and accepted (and I suspect they do), you can draw boundaries if you are clear that you know they are capable of respecting your boundaries and being a likable person.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I have had friends with severe ADHD, including a person who was my best friend for over a decade, and they considered it a mental illness and saw doctors and mental health professionals to help them with it. I was also in a profession where we were advised to watch ourselves for signs of adult ADHD and get mental health help/ medication if it interfered with our work.

Perhaps people choose to consider it an illness or not based on the severity of their personal condition, however there is no stigma in calling it (or anything else that may require mental health care and medication) a mental illness and I disagree with you saying it is not, when people who actually have it have told me that it is, just the same as depression and anxiety.

I am aware there is some debate over whether it is a mental disorder or a learning disability and I suspect that this may be due to debate over how to classify it for children who are trying to get help for it through school channels and/or have parents who feel strongly it should be seen as one thing or the other. What I typically read is that when it ceases to be mild and it interferes with basic functioning, it becomes classified as mental disorder.

I agree that it does not directly cause bullying. It can however cause “lost social awareness” according to those I know who have suffered from it. It has been explained to me that the frustration of dealing with it causes them to be less aware of others’ feelings and needs. This has also been my experience when dealing with the people I know who have it. I think how the effects manifest depend on the person, their situation, and the severity of the case. In any event, it is not okay for a person to commit bullying regardless of whether they have a mental health condition or not.

I have said my piece on this thread and will not respond further on this issue as I don’t wish to derail the main discussion about what the OP should do.

 

[GraceJ]

That doesn’t sound good to deal with. Tell someone. Even if they are mentally ill, that is no excuse for being a physically abusive bully. The school should do something; there is a chance that things will only escalate. You have no obligation to befriend this person, please take care of yourself.
Being officially reprimanded could be the needed wake-up call for them to change their behavior.

 

[PetraG]

I agree that it does not directly cause bullying. It can however cause “lost social awareness” according to those I know who have suffered from it.

I think a lot of people who engage in bullying are pre-emptively rejecting people they are afraid will reject them. The other possibility, actually, is that some form of bullying is used at this person’s house as a way to express affection. It’s kind of like when people tickle others in the family with the idea that they’re sharing a good time with them. The person being tickled may be laughing hysterically, but it is not fun to be tickled for more than a very short period of time. Well, in some homes and especially with some individuals, teasing is how attention is doled out, too. If the main person who gives this other student attention is into teasing, the student may not realize that it isn’t experienced by other people in the same way as he or she experiences it. If everyone else is there to square dance and you show up expecting to play football, it can be a confusing, embarrassing and painful social experience for you, particularly if it takes you awhile to catch on to what your place in the group needs to be in order to have acceptance and some peace.

The same can be true, by the way, if the group shows up to play football and you think it is a square dance. Social success requires a person to identify the group’s expectations so they can find their niche in the bigger picture. The person also has to accept the idea that he or she will enjoy his or her “part.” If not, the response can be to try to ruin the whole thing for everybody. In other words, dealing with such a person isn’t a matter of informing them that they’re all wrong in how they socialize. It is more a matter of saying that the time and place call for something else without condemning the efforts to fit in as utterly inappropriate: I mean in a “Bob, some people like throwing insults back and forth for fun, but that’s not my thing. Both sides have to be up for that in order for it to be fun. Let’s do something else.”

Some people also come from homes where there is a “dominance order.” Well, if you’re at the bottom of the pecking order all of the time, a group of people you can dominate can look like your opportunity to “be on top.” Again, it ends up being a matter of those who don’t like it saying, “that is there, this is here. The dominance thing at school happens, but let’s face it, it always makes everybody miserable when it does. We can have our social circle that just lets everybody be happy and accepted; we don’t have to be in that rat race. Join us! Otherwise, though, find a group you like better.”

Another group of bullies, by the way, are the ones who form the “in group.” They bully to show off their place at the top of the social heirarchy. This student is not heading up a pack or being mean to entertain a pack of people, though, so I don’t think that describes him or her.

 

[PetraG]

That doesn’t sound good to deal with. Tell someone. Even if they are mentally ill, that is no excuse for being a physically abusive bully. The school should do something; there is a chance that things will only escalate. You have no obligation to befriend this person, please take care of yourself.
Being officially reprimanded could be the needed wake-up call for them to change their behavior.

I totally agree that confiding in a teacher is really important here…not as a “tattle tale” but just to say, “When he gets frustrated, he punches me in the arm and I don’t like it. What should I do when he punches me in the arm or takes my pencil and won’t give it back? I don’t want to run to you every time, but I am getting really really tired of it. This is what I’ve tried…”

They’re not going to suspend a student for behavior that is “just that bad” but not to the level that the student may have learned qualifies as “serious.” If being in just enough trouble to stop things but not so bad as to get sent to the principal is what this student does to get attention, the teacher may have another way to go about dealing with the matter. That isn’t guaranteed to be a good response, though. The students are always left navigating the difference between the discipline the teachers deal out and the results the teachers are getting by their choice of discipline.

 

[Willing_Spirit]

I wish I’d seen your advice when I was in school. I always felt guilty for wanting to avoid these people when they had nobody else. I never viewed these people as bullies, since they didn’t resemble movie bullies, but I guess that is what they are. They aren’t popular jocks with a gang that laughs and encourages their antics, but they are still behaving like bullies even though they want your company and “like” you.

 

[PetraG]

I wish I’d seen your advice when I was in school. I always felt guilty for wanting to avoid these people when they had nobody else. I never viewed these people as bullies, since they didn’t resemble movie bullies, but I guess that is what they are. They aren’t popular jocks with a gang that laughs and encourages their antics, but they are still behaving like bullies even though they want your company and “like” you.

It is the bullies who are popular who are the ones who are almost a lost cause, at least in terms of how their less-popular classmates respond to them. They don’t want to be popular with the “nobodies.” They don’t want the “nobodies” to be happy. They want being in their group to be the best place and they can make it their business to make everyone else’s place a miserable existence by comparison.

People who don’t know how to fit in can be very tiring, because it can be like trying to play tennis with someone who either can’t hit the ball at all or who always hits it out of bounds. It isn’t as fun as playing with someone you can have long rallies with. Still, it feels a lot different if you can get the relationship to feel as if they’re at least trying to be your friend and not just keeping anybody else from having a decent game.

I can’t tell what category this student fits into, but probably feeling as if someone thinks he or she has the makings of a good friend in them would make school a less miserable experience–and trust me, the student being described is not enjoying school. The student may be trying to make school miserable for everyone else because they’ve decided they hate the whole enterprise and they’re rebelling against having to be there at all. In that case, having the teacher help to contain the bad behavior may be the least bad outcome that will happen. It is a possibility, though, that the student might try to fit in if he or she had the feeling that success is at least a possibility for him or her. That doesn’t mean they’re going to learn all their social skills in a day. They might start going in the right direction, though.