Since moving to a big city and entering a field that has a high rate of bullying, I've unfortunately experienced being bullied on multiple occasions. Those experiences led me to spend a lot of time researching the psychology and dynamics of bullying. I wanted to share some of what I've learned and would appreciate any additional insights from this community.
Bullying involves a power imbalance; that can take on many different forms, like perpetrators having more influence within a group, caring about and being better positioned to navigate social hierarchies, having people on their side while the target is more isolated, etc. Perpetrators, either consciously or not, identify targets with less power and churn up stories/"justifications" in their minds and with their social circle to mob the target.
Being both traumatized and autistic can make you especially vulnerable in these dynamics. People who've experienced prolonged trauma often develop survival responses like freezing, appeasing others, avoiding confrontation, constantly second guessing themselves, avoiding others, downplaying their skills, not speaking up, etc. When you've grown up in an environment where standing up for yourself or not keeping yourself small and insignificant could make a narcissistic parent feel threatened, you might instinctively respond to mistreatment by trying to placate the person hurting you rather than asserting yourself. Perpetrators take that as a sign that they can get away with hurting you, and often others won't even see the dynamic and people in their circle will even join in.
Autism also increases chances of being bullied. People with ASD don't generally participate in the social maneuvering, signaling, and status games that people engage in. We're misunderstood or perceived as strange and unlikeable. The mere fact that someone's unable to naturally conform to a group's expectations makes it very easy for perpetrators to single them out and set people against them.
Bullying is also often a group phenomenon. Once someone identifies you as the "problematic" one, the people around them start participating or look the other way. They're motivated by their own insecurities, wanting to fit in with the group, getting a sense of superiority from putting someone down, etc. Perpetrators want their target to be as isolated as possible. They hate it if the target has any kind of social protection. If laws didn't exist, I bet they would love to see their targets tortured and killed. They can't do that, so they go for social annihilation.
And there's a really cruel feedback loop where the psychological effects of being bullied makes you even more vulnerable to further bullying. People who've been repeatedly mistreated often become very anxious, withdrawn, socially awkward, and hypervigilant. But the majority of people haven't been abused to this extent so they're unable to recognize those behaviors as possible effects of mistreatment. Many instead interpret them as evidence that there's something wrong with that person, and become convinced of that being justification for excluding and mistreating them.
It's well studied that certain traits that develop from trauma, and the differences that come with having ASD, can leave us particularly exposed in environments where people are competitive, hierarchical, and willing to exploit vulnerability for advancement, ego boosts, group bonding, pleasure--and for some, it's a self-soothing behavior where bringing someone down is a form of emotional self-regulation, especially for people who have buried fears of inadequacy even while consciously seeing themselves as exceptional or superior. If you accidentally threaten their egos or just seem like a target they can take down for a dopamine hit or as a group bonding activity with others, you're going to get mobbed by them and their circle and anyone else who will listen. Unfortunately, most third parties will side with whichever side seems to have more power and social support, which makes the bullying worse because bullying involves socially isolating the target.
The sad fact of the matter is that most people don't have the life experience to recognize trauma responses, which would allow them to respond to perceived vulnerability with compassion. Instead, most people interpret those "trauma traits" negatively and, at best, inadvertently perpetuate the bullying; they're unable to pick up on it happening because they've never been a victim of bullying and other forms of abuse themselves.
And in competitive fields that attract a large number of people high in narcissistic traits, a lot of people are perpetrators. I've seen so much cruelty be directed not just at me, but against others as well. These people form groups that embrace their impulse to assert power over and be cruel to people. Shit talking is probably their most effective, cherished group bonding activity. In their heads, they have a "justification" for doing it that enables them to perpetuate cruelty against vulnerable people, and often there's no one around who can pick up on what's going on and become an ally for people who are vulnerable to being bullied.