'Bullied because I was different'

As someone with Asperger syndrome,Joshua acknowledges that he "tends to show up on the social radar".

He looks like any other 17-year-old but his condition makes it difficult to make eye contact or read other social cues.

" The bullying started when I went into Year 2, so I must have been six or seven.

It probably doesn't sound much - I was just excluded more and more from games in the playground and when I was invited to join in it was only if I was the target, the object of fun.

It may not sound much but when it happens every day it does get to you.

By the time I got to Year 5, I was depressed. In Year 7, when I was 11 or 12, I very quickly became very depressed and was put on anti-depressants.

That's when I first became suicidal.

At primary school they didn't really do a huge amount to help. The people doing the bullying were reprimanded once which did help for a bit but it didn't stop it completely.

The main trouble was that it wasn't the accepted definition of bullying - there was no physical violence as such, no hitting or punching, but it was constant.

I think there's no doubt about it that I was picked on because I have Asperger's.

Shoved

Although I wasn't diagnosed until I was 15 I am still someone who will show up on the social radar as being different.

But the fact that I wasn't diagnosed - and therefore wasn't recognised as someone with special needs - shouldn't have made any difference to how the school reacted.

It was when I moved to secondary school that the bullying became more physical.

The school had really narrow corridors and when we moved between lessons I was forever being shoved - occasionally kicked - and always had name-calling.

I would try and seek refuge in the library and the bullies would come and deliberately annoy me.

The school didn't do anything. I would talk to people about it but nothing happened.

Breakdown

A teacher did once show me some pictures of pupils including some of those who were tormenting me and ask me to pick them out. I did but the file was just packed away.

In Year 10 I had a nervous breakdown and developed a phobia of school.

There were attempts to reintegrate me into the school system but eventually my psychiatrist decided that any more would do irreparable damage so I finally left in the January of my Year 11, just before my GCSEs.

I managed to scrape a handful of Cs and Bs in my GCSEs and there's no doubt my school experience affected my results.

When I was at school I was on the verge of a panic attack for most of the time so how could I possibly concentrate?

In the September of what would have been my Year 12, I attended the internet-based Satellite Virtual School and studied from home.

It's a great system and threw me a lifeline but it isn't the same as learning face-to-face.

Degree hope

So, after a year I did some research and found Farleigh Further Education College near Bath - about 100 miles away from my home in Guildford, Surrey.

It's a residential college providing support to "Aspies" and I'm doing my A-levels there now, with the fees paid by Surrey County Council.

Ideally I'd like to do a degree but my education has been so damaged that I'm having to review my GCSEs as well as do my A-levels and what happened at school has mentally scarred me.

I think the main trouble schools have is that they pride themselves on not having a bullying problem so they won't admit it and won't do anything about it.

I really think you need someone independent of the school that people can go to, to speak to about bullying.

Until schools acknowledge that it is a problem for them it will never be tackled.

A lot more needs to be done. Bullying really does destroy lives. "

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Department for Education and Skills
Education and Skills Select Committee
Beatbullying
National Autistic Society
Anti-Bullying Alliance
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