Bullying, social anxiety, and how RuneScape was my escape
Nathan Chadwick · · 6 min read
TLDRRead the short version
- Chronic bullying through childhood and my teenage years left me with trauma, low self esteem, and social anxiety. I wanted friends badly and could not trust anyone enough to make them.
- For years I did not want to leave the house. RuneScape and the computer were my escape from real life, and in a lot of ways they kept me going.
- It has only been this year that I have started doing things on my own, including going to the gym alone.
- Before that, and still now, I train with a PT in a private setting where it is just me and them. That structure is what made the rest possible.
- Looking back, a lot of it lines up with being autistic: easy to target, hard to read the room, slow to trust, and expensive to be around people.
The thing I wanted and could not have#
I wanted friends. I need to say that first, because people hear "social anxiety" and assume "doesn't care about people". That was never me.
I wanted friends so much that it hurt. I also could not trust anyone enough to let them get close. Both of those were true at the same time for years, and living inside that contradiction is exhausting.
Bullying that did not stop#
It was not one bad year or one bad group. It was chronic. Childhood into my teenage years, the kind of bullying where you stop being surprised, and then you stop being able to relax anywhere that other people are.
When that is the background to your whole development, it does not stay in the past. It becomes how you read every room.
- A group laughing becomes a group laughing at me.
- A friendly person becomes someone who is about to turn.
- A new place becomes a list of ways it could go wrong.
You learn very early that being seen is dangerous. So you try not to be seen.
What it did to me#
I will be plain about the damage, because "it made me a bit shy" is not what happened.
Trauma. My body learned that other people were a threat before my brain had any say. The alarm went off in shops, in corridors, in any place with strangers, and it did not need a reason. The NHS describes how traumatic experiences can leave you on edge and avoiding reminders. Avoiding became my default setting.
Low self esteem. If enough people tell you, in enough ways, that something is wrong with you, you eventually do the work for them. I stopped needing anyone else to put me down. I had absorbed it.
Social anxiety. The NHS describes social anxiety as a fear of social situations that can make everyday things like going out, meeting people, or being looked at feel overwhelming. That is the polite version. In practice it meant dreading things days ahead, replaying them for days afterwards, and arranging my life so I did not have to face them.
Not wanting to leave the house. This is where it all landed. The house was the only place I was not being judged. So I stopped going out, and the less I went out, the harder going out became. Avoidance feels like relief and works like a trap.
RuneScape and the computer#
The computer was my escape from real life, and RuneScape was the biggest part of that.
I do not say that with embarrassment. I say it with gratitude.
In RuneScape nobody cared what I looked like, how I walked into a room, or whether I said the right thing. There were clear goals, visible progress, and a world that made sense. You train a skill and the number goes up. You put in the effort and the effort counts. After years of social situations where the rules were hidden and the penalty for getting it wrong was cruelty, a world with readable rules felt like air.
It was also where I could be around other people on my terms. Chat, clans, and shared goals meant company without the physical threat. I could step away. Nobody could follow me home.
I know the usual line is that games are a waste of time or a way of hiding. Sometimes avoidance really can become a problem, and I have lived that side of it too. But for me, at the time, the computer was not the problem. It was the thing keeping me steady while the real world was unsafe. I would not have wanted to be without it.
This year#
It has only been this year that I have managed to do things on my own.
That sentence is small on paper. For me it is huge. Going to the gym on my own is something I could not have imagined doing a few years ago. Walking into a room full of strangers, not knowing the layout, not knowing the unwritten rules, and doing it without someone beside me would have been completely out of reach.
I am not going to dress it up as a miracle. It is still uncomfortable. But I do it, and I do it alone, and that is new.
The PT who made it possible#
Before this year, and still now, I have a PT. We train in a private setting where it is just me and them.
That setup matters more than it looks. No audience. No crowd to scan. No one to perform for. A clear plan, a person who is on my side, and a space where the only thing that is expected of me is the next set.
It gave me what the bullying took away: a place where somebody else being around was not a threat. Over time that built a little trust, and a little trust is what everything else grew from. I think the gym on my own only became possible because I first had somewhere I felt safe getting stronger.
If you are struggling the way I was, I would say this. You do not have to jump straight to the hardest version. A private setting, one safe person, and a repeatable routine is a real starting point, not a cop out.
Where autism fits#
I am autistic, and when I look back, so much of this lines up.
Autistic children are often easy targets for bullying. The National Autistic Society talks about how autistic people can be bullied because they are seen as different, and how the impact can be serious and long lasting. Here is how it maps onto my life:
- Reading the room is not automatic. Unwritten social rules are things I have to work out consciously. Bullies notice who is working things out and who is not.
- Being different is visible. Interests, routines, how I talked, how I reacted. Kids find the thing that stands out and push on it.
- Trust is slow, and it costs a lot. Once I have been burned, I do not forget it. That is protective, and it is also why friendships were so hard to start.
- Social effort is expensive. Even without bullying, being around people takes real energy. With bullying on top, the cost was too high, so I stopped paying it.
- Anxiety sits on top. The NAS also covers how anxiety is common in autistic people. Social anxiety is not separate from the autism. It grew out of years of being punished for being myself.
- Escaping into a structured world makes sense. Predictable systems, clear feedback, and deep focus on something I love is a very autistic way to find calm. RuneScape fit that perfectly.
I do not think the autism caused the trauma. The bullying did. But autism shaped what I was targeted for, how hard it hit, and how I coped afterwards. Those things are tangled together, and seeing that has made me a lot kinder to the kid who was going through it.
What I know now#
The kid who did not want to leave the house was not weak, and was not antisocial. He was protecting himself in the only ways he had.
The want for friends never went away. It just needed somewhere safe to land, and enough time for trust to be rebuilt in small, boring steps. A PT in a private room. A game that gave me somewhere to breathe. People who accept that I am neurodivergent without needing me to act otherwise.
I am still working on it. But this year I walked into a gym on my own, and the person who could not leave the house would not believe that.
If this sounds like you, you are not broken, and you are not alone. The things that helped you survive are allowed to be part of the story.