Tags
Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, books, bullying, D.A.M.P., He Was Weird, Michael D LeFevre, school shootings, Self Esteem, social settings, stereotypes, teasing
Sometimes, I wonder that maybe it would be a good idea if I write my posts down first before I post them on here. The reason for this is because when I made my post about Jim Friend, I left out another significant incident concerning him that occurs in “He Was Weird.”
This particular incident happens even before the more major affair of Mark being indecently assaulted by the adult. It happens when Mark has been officially diagnosed with having Asperger’s Syndrome and Deficiencies in Attention, Motor Skills and Perception, (DAMP.) First, Jim teases Mark by making jokes about the long winded name of his condition and ridicules him more when Mark tries to explain what it is. That’s not the worst thing however. Jim accuses Mark and his family of using his condition to live off the government, live off the taxes paid by Jim’s and other working families. He states that Mark is little better than a welfare cheat who live off the government like certain racial minorities.
Like I said in the previous post, there is little direct physical bullying of Mark at the hands of Jim. However, following the two mentioned incidents, he uses the fact that his uncle is chief of police to get to him. When the bullying gets even worse, Jim tells Mark that the police won’t do anything about it because they are sick of intervening on Mark’s behalf. In Mark’s mind, this appears to be true because of the police’s apparent lack of concern of Jim Nickerson violating the restraining order. In fact, it is Jim who tells everyone about the restraining order and incites people to bully Mark by getting them to say, “I want you to get a restraining order on me.”
It is these actions that give Mark the feeling of helplessness. Feeling that there is no one there to help him, he believes his only redress is to get guns and eliminate his bullies that way and as I said last time, Jim is definitely targeted in his sights.
Since I was never officially diagnosed with anything like autism, none of the above instances ever happened to the actual person Jim Friend is based on. However, he did seem to be there and sometimes ignite much of the bullying others did of me at the time. One of those who followed the flow was the person who influenced the character of Damon Bates and whom I will be posting about next time.
To buy He Ws Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443539791&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird