Published on 12, July, 2020
I was diagnosed with ASD on 16th October this year. Due to this, I have been feeling overwhelmed and dropped out of going to my partner's dad's for a Christmas weekend this weekend. My partners mum, who is divorced from his dad, is extremely offended by this and called him up last night to explain how unreasonable she felt my behaviour was and how she felt I should put up and shut up, despite his dad being fine with me not being there. I found this behaviour to be incredibly hurtful and upsetting. I want her to know this so that hopefully she can think before she acts in future. As his mum likes to write letters in these kind of situations I have written one to her. If possible, I'm looking for constructive feedback on how I can write it in a way that won't incredibly upset her.
Dear xxx,
I’m writing to you as I’ve been hurt and upset by how you have reacted over my withdrawal from going to xxx for one occasion in the 2.5 years myself and xxx has been together. As we could know each other for 40 years + I felt it was best to get this out in the open rather than let this fester. I hope you appreciate my honesty.
In the past, I’ve found you to be thoughtful and kind. Now that I’ve received my autism diagnosis I’ve been overwhelmed by the expectations placed on Christmas and how this highlights how much I struggle and will always struggle. Based on your past behaviour when you called xxx on Friday night I expected you to say something such as ‘I’m sorry to xx is struggling. What things does she find difficult and is there anything we can do to help?”. Instead, you came across as only being concerned about your own challenges with adapting to change and you made some very hurtful comments. As for the last 2.5 years I have put the needs of xxx family above my own, I believe missing one Christmas occasion to put myself first is called give and take, it isn’t unreasonable. However, even when xxx explained that I had cried for two solid days at the overwhelming emotions I was feeling, you continued to talk about my behaviour in a derogatory manner. That was really hurt.
One of the side effects of autism is overwhelming anxiety. The impact on my mental health can be seen in my initial misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder. It isn’t a case of being shy. Asking me to grit my teeth and just get on with things is completely inappropriate, as doing this in the past has left me wishing I was dead.
I didn’t go to xxx's as being autistic I find the following incredibly difficult, which is why, as much as possible, I have avoided sleeping over at yours when you have offered:
Despite what xxx says I don’t have an issue with xxx (brother in law) as an individual. Although I really feel for the pressure that xxx (daughter) and xxx (brother in law) are both under to present a certain image, I do believe that the image they try to present doesn’t match with their reality. Like many autistic people, I have an overwhelming need to tell, and for others to tell the truth. As such, I often find the way xxx and xxx talk challenging.
It is clear the impact that having to attend xxx (partner's dad's) family functions when you didn’t want to has had on you are still resentful of this despite being separated for many years. Being autistic means my emotions around social situations are magnified by 1000 so imagine how distressing these occasions can be for me. When you do this, hopefully you will be able to recognise and appreciate the incredible amount of effort I have put into integrating into your family.
Just a few examples of how I’ve put xxx’s (partner) and his family’s needs before mine include:
I understand from the telephone conversation that you are unnecessarily worried that you will never see xxx (my partner) again. This made your behaviour on Friday even more frustrating as instead of doing what you could to make me feel supported and included so I’d want to spend more time at yours you did the opposite and behaved in a way that was likely to push me away.
Until after your phone call on Friday the plan for Christmas at yours was that I’d attend every day but take my own car and go home in the evenings whilst xxx stayed. Therefore, as usual I’d be spending most of the festive period putting your families needs above my own despite feeling awful inside. As you showed no concern and a total lack of respect for my feelings, making me feel dreadful to please you feels completely inappropriate this year. Plus, I need a cooling off period from how hurt your words made me feel.
Regards,
xxx
All I can really say is, I hope it works out for you and that you'll get the reception you want. As for me, I've given up now. I've written long letters, short letters, in-between letters, emails, texts... you name it to my brother. But, in responses, the A word is never mentioned or alluded to. He still 'normalises' everything. He gets social anxiety. He got bullied at school. He's dreading Christmas. It's all perfectly normal. Basically, then, I'm just making excuses.
To paraphrase an old saying, there are none so deaf as those who refuse to hear.
It does seem to be a stressful time of year for many people, but just because the majority of people grin and bare it, it doesn’t make it right, in fact, it makes a total mockery of the whole situation.
People will only listen when they’re ready, that includes all of us and when we try to tell them, we are just making ourselves raw and vulnerable and we alienate ourselves even further from people. It’s nobody's fault, and as much as we are interesting, fabulous and amazing people, we have to admit, we do think differently and people have been conditioned to think that different is bad. So maybe when they try to normalise us, it’s because they love us and are afraid of what our differences will mean to them in terms of their relationship with us. Many people are still living in the dark ages as well, when we would have been thrown in a room and left there, or worse. No matter what we do, some people won’t accept us for who we are but that’s the same for everyone. And even though that can hurt, our prime responsibility is to ourselves and we’re accepted here and for me, that is huge and means more than words can ever say. The acceptance and understanding I get here, helps me to accept the rejection I appear to get elsewhere. I say ‘appear’ because are we really getting rejected? Is it possible to truly be rejected if they don’t even know who we are? They might reject who they think we are but they’re wrong, we are not who they think we are and if they don’t want to know us, there’s little we can do about that apart from to not accept rejection and leave our hearts and minds open for a day when maybe they will ask us who we are.
Wise words here... Will try to remember them (and react accordingly).
Just had a bit of a strange moment reading this thread and thinking how it is so clear to many here (myself included) that some things in this letter will not go down well while this is not the intention by any means. Yet I would have written pretty much the same, and not noticed it. Not sure why this is, think for me it's emotionally all a bit too much when being in the middle of it, whereas looking at it from outside is less emotional and therefore leaves more capacity for predicting how others will receive it etc. Maybe that's a common thing?
Nope....equally crap....x
. said:when you are indeed caught in the centre of a storm....you can't always see the clouds and the rain, or even the blue skies that are on the horizon
Yes, true. Quite frustrating though, as many people seem a lot better at it than me...
oktanol said:Not sure why this is, think for me it's emotionally all a bit too much when being in the middle of it, whereas looking at it from outside is less emotional and therefore leaves more capacity for predicting how others will receive it etc
Oh my dear Oktanol....I dispense words of stupidity, flippancy, emotionality and wisdom....but I never take my own advice....it travels outwards...but I never hear it! x
when you are indeed caught in the centre of a storm....you can't always see the clouds and the rain, or even the blue skies that are on the horizon
Yeah, same here oktanol. I said at the beginning that I didn’t know how to respond, because I would have written the same things. It was only when I read Eli’s comment that something clicked and I was able to see it from a different perspective. I don’t handle emotions well. Most of the time I don’t even recognise them and when they get too much, I simply want to die. I feel emotions intensely but I might not always know what they’re about. I think, as you suggested, when it’s not about us, we are more able to see the situation more clearly. This is why this community is such a great place for us because as you said, we all knew that NAS24859 was coming from a good place and didn’t mean to be insulting, far from it, but we could see that it could be received that way.
Thanks again. I’ve made very small tweaks but in all honesty I’m pretty happy with the letter now. I’d like to amend the last paragraph to something more friendly but have to be honest and I really don’t want to be friendly with her right now. It currently reads:
“I would like to maintain a relationship with you. As such, I hope that you can find a way to accept who I am when I am not masking the difficulties I experience and that you can adopt a kinder more positive approach.”
The OH was happy with v.1 of the letter and felt I should send that. He’s agrees that if I don’t let her know how her behaviour impacts on me then she isn’t being given the opportunity to change and I could be put in this situation again and again.
Although I’m happy with the letter I’m also conscious that one of the reasons I wanted my diagnosis was that I can easily annoy NTs and I have no idea why. But then should I really care when his mum doesn't care who she offends? I’d be quite happy to send the OH to these functions and stay at home. My concern is that he’ll eventually become annoyed with me due to inevitable backlash that will come from his mother.
This morning I was considering writing her a short text just letting her know that her behaviour on Friday really upset me. I think that’ll end up in more back and forth and the letter might be the safest option. Plus, his mum likes sending letters when her family’s annoyed her so it is a communication method she feels comfortable with.