I wanted to chime in on GP with some interesting personal experience (obviously on a throwaway), and this is so similar I figured I'd just reply here.
Similar experience to your acquaintance growing up (high function autism and related experiences), except my parents only really had academic goals for me, which I was unable to meet completely due to down stream emotional effects of my poor social aptitude and comorbid ADHD(none of this was diagnosed until my 20s). Additionally my parents are very accepting and provided me with little surface to rebel against as a teen, and I've come to realize as an adult (~30 now) that they were very distant compared to the norm, for whatever thats worth.
With regards to violence, the bullying I received wasn't super physical and I received little if any corporal punishment as a kid. Escalating a verbal argument to a physical altercation is something I stopped doing when I was 7 or 8, and I had learned to cope with people enough by that time to just avoid fights entirely.
It took me years to develop my social skills to the degree of being able to get into a steady relationship, and I think if you talked to the first few people I dated they would have described me as needy, unfortunately. However, I would say in retrospect I wasn't terribly needy, just too inexperienced to know when I'm not clicking with someone, and still idealizing the person I'm dating.
Then I got into a relationship with someone who was physically abusive. This didn't have the effect of causing me to become violent, I was a fully functioning adult by this time well into my 20s, however it gave me a profound respect for how far society has come wrt animal training and the treatment of children. Every time I got hit my mind became a little more confused, fearful and upset. Often times I wouldn't even know what I did to get hit when it happened. Eventually I involuntarily grabbed their wrist as they were about to hit me and it managed to leave a bruise, that they then threatened me with and held over my head (my skin doesn't mark, and my ex was nearly a foot shorter than me, a tall fit male). As a result I became extremely fearful of being hit, fearing my own reaction more than anything. Until then I'd have people try and convince me from time to time that I had some underlying anxiety that I just didn't recognize, but this put that to rest, as for the first time in my life I was experiencing visceral anxiety and its symptoms, waking up with with terrible stomach aches everyday and depersonalization being chief among them. During all this I truly believed that if I put up with it long enough and worked on their problems they would get over it. I ended up just being damaged, not to the extent of partaking in direct violence, but by the end of it I was breaking things and slamming around, something I never would have done before, and even now seems like it was done by another person.
Anywho, the relationship and how it developed and ended, along with losing my business about halfway through gave me a severe bout of depression that I'm still struggling to overcome a couple years later. Even with good diet and exercise I'm barely functional (without it I will literally do nothing) and while I could really use medication for the ADHD to help me start getting enough things done that my depression also goes away, and probably some therapy at this point, the type of energy it takes to sign up for social medicine in my country/state is the same type I need for almost every other thing in my life, like a job in software, and the type I'm most short on. It really sucks.
Similar experience to your acquaintance growing up (high function autism and related experiences), except my parents only really had academic goals for me, which I was unable to meet completely due to down stream emotional effects of my poor social aptitude and comorbid ADHD(none of this was diagnosed until my 20s). Additionally my parents are very accepting and provided me with little surface to rebel against as a teen, and I've come to realize as an adult (~30 now) that they were very distant compared to the norm, for whatever thats worth.
With regards to violence, the bullying I received wasn't super physical and I received little if any corporal punishment as a kid. Escalating a verbal argument to a physical altercation is something I stopped doing when I was 7 or 8, and I had learned to cope with people enough by that time to just avoid fights entirely.
It took me years to develop my social skills to the degree of being able to get into a steady relationship, and I think if you talked to the first few people I dated they would have described me as needy, unfortunately. However, I would say in retrospect I wasn't terribly needy, just too inexperienced to know when I'm not clicking with someone, and still idealizing the person I'm dating.
Then I got into a relationship with someone who was physically abusive. This didn't have the effect of causing me to become violent, I was a fully functioning adult by this time well into my 20s, however it gave me a profound respect for how far society has come wrt animal training and the treatment of children. Every time I got hit my mind became a little more confused, fearful and upset. Often times I wouldn't even know what I did to get hit when it happened. Eventually I involuntarily grabbed their wrist as they were about to hit me and it managed to leave a bruise, that they then threatened me with and held over my head (my skin doesn't mark, and my ex was nearly a foot shorter than me, a tall fit male). As a result I became extremely fearful of being hit, fearing my own reaction more than anything. Until then I'd have people try and convince me from time to time that I had some underlying anxiety that I just didn't recognize, but this put that to rest, as for the first time in my life I was experiencing visceral anxiety and its symptoms, waking up with with terrible stomach aches everyday and depersonalization being chief among them. During all this I truly believed that if I put up with it long enough and worked on their problems they would get over it. I ended up just being damaged, not to the extent of partaking in direct violence, but by the end of it I was breaking things and slamming around, something I never would have done before, and even now seems like it was done by another person.
Anywho, the relationship and how it developed and ended, along with losing my business about halfway through gave me a severe bout of depression that I'm still struggling to overcome a couple years later. Even with good diet and exercise I'm barely functional (without it I will literally do nothing) and while I could really use medication for the ADHD to help me start getting enough things done that my depression also goes away, and probably some therapy at this point, the type of energy it takes to sign up for social medicine in my country/state is the same type I need for almost every other thing in my life, like a job in software, and the type I'm most short on. It really sucks.