3w ago

friendships are hard

Honestly i dont even know if i can put the things i feel at the moments in written words but i need to get them of my chest.

I hate being autistic at the moment.

I managed to build a friendgroup in the last two years, we hang out at the local hackspace, did sport together talked about emotions, cuddle etc.

I felt realy safe so I opend up, didnt mask all the time, told them how i feel when many humans are around, how i can crash when my social battery runs to low, how i make decisions, which emotions i have and which i dont, how i sometimes still struggle with being a human...

An with that parts of the group started to change, acted different around me, stoped being cuddly with me, told me that i should not come to partys because i might crash and they then dont want to care about me (they never had to before), and it just feels like i am no longer 100% welcome among some of them.

And i just hate it, i hate me, i want to undo telling them. But i also want to belong, feel safe, not needing to mask all the time and being accepted like i am.

10 comments

most of the times non-autistic people do not truly understand what it is to be on the spectrum. that's not anyone's fault and that doesn't mean they are insensitive. definitely there are assholes but that's besides the point.
I've seen people who insist on saying I'm just introverted and that's fine for me. I don't see autism as disease in particular, rather a trait that makes life different from that of most of fellow humans.
that being said, my hunch is people around you are probably, misleadingly, thinking that you being on the spectrum means you don't like social interaction. it happened with my not-so-close friends too (I'm generally open about this and to some extent visibly autistic. though not into trains lol. (I love trains as efficient public transport ofc)). They assumed, from the social battery perspective, that social interaction is quite draining and thus I don't like it.
in reality it's very different. social interaction is draining except for a few very close people. but I usually like to be in the social scenario. as someone with autism for whole life, I know what kind of interactions are tiring, how to manage them and in general various workarounds. I found this to be the case with irl autistic friends of mine too.
so I think you can talk about hacker stuffs, do social interaction related to it (discussing projects, doing talks for example). and try to enlighten them that you love hanging out with them, it just works in a different way. if they lack any empathy still, it's better to consider them as toxic and go to a different hacker community and/or make new friends. it is difficult but probably the best option.
this exact situation happened to a close friend of mine. she is autistic and whenever she opened up, friends stopped hanging out, trying to give her alone time. this lead her to pulling out of society and loosing hope on friendship completely (I didn't know her much back then). few years later she found friends, both autistic and not, and as happy as ever because they now understand this very aspect of her.
I'm sure you'll find good friends too and you don't have to hide yourself for that.
- Thank you for that response <3
  
  <3
If they don't want to care about you they are not really friends. Doesn't matter they never have to do it, it's the principle.
- I agree but I'd also add that this doesn't automatically make them bad people, just people who aren't' compatible with you.
  I'm not defending them, It's entirely possible they are bad people, but it's not a given.
  What i mean by this is that it's not necessarily because of some flaw with you or them, it can just be that you don't match up right now(or ever).
  I think it's important to understand that sometimes the only way to find out if you match is to try it and see, it sucks when it doesn't work out but the alternative is never really finding out if it could.
- That doesn't negate the good times. I remember when I struggled to make friends, and most of my "friends" weren't really friends, but it was still better than nothing.
Are there are parts of the group that you are still comfortable with? If so, can you hang out with just those ones?
- The thing is i didnt open up the same to everyone, and those who i opend up the most changed the most so i dont want to risk the rest of my friends from that group so i would still have to mask :(
Maybe you can tell them how they're making you feel? It's plausible they could be trying to accommodate you but in a way where they make bad assumptions rather than asking you. If so, maybe they'll listen.
At the very least, even if asking burns the friendship even more, you'll have some data to predict how someone might think in another/future friendship.
That's terrible ignorance from their side, I am sure you will be able to find more people since you already managed to. I don't have anyone like that for more than 3 years not even mates

10 comments