Talking a lot about Autisim

Thanks a lot for your very kind words I think what you said is very true.Real friends would accept you as you are and not expect you to be someone you are not.

Thanks again

Helena

Just keep being true to yourself. The idiots may find the Autism difficult to deal with (Autism as an idiot filter!) But the genuine people with appreciate you for your empathetic and caring nature, and the genuine people make much better friends

Thanks a lot a very good answer.I always try to  be empathetic and caring if someone has something  that they need to speak about an get off their chest these things cost nothing an mean a lot if someone is struggling. As I have said before I am here for everyone on this forum too if they need to speak.

Many thanks again

Helena

Hello and welcome to the forum! I’m sorry to hear that you lost a friend, seemingly because they didn’t like you talking about or educating them about Autism. Ultimately Autism is part of who you are and as horrible as it is to lose a friend, if that ‘friend’ is unable to accept you for who you are then perhaps they were not a friend after all? It is better to spend time with a few people who accept us as we are than spend time with a lot of people who expect us to pretend to be someone we’re not.

Bravo!

Hmmm...My parents actually told me this pretty much throughout my childhood..and a few others on the way throughout my adulthood!

Pretty nasty notion on their parts and hardly a helping hand!

Thanks glad you liked my poem. Helena

I think your right I know if someone has a condition or what ever I try hard to learn about what they have ,so I can be a better support to that person unfortunately not every one is like that.I now just stick with friends who are kind, caring, and help me to be the best I can be. I try to be encouraging like that to others too. Thanks again Helena

Lovely poem

I think that maybe I do make reference to my autism too often, and I do seem to frustrate my wife at times with this.

However, as someone has said learning all I can about it to broaden my understanding has become my latest obsessive behaviour.

Also given that it's shaped my fifty-five years of life without me knowing, it is kind of important to me.

I think there's a popular misconception that it's somehow cool to be an "aspie" (although I never hear this from people actually on the spectrum) and maybe people wrongly think there's a brag taking place.

So, I won't be changing my approach anytime soon. If your friend can't be bothered to understand what you are experiencing and appreciate the situation, then it's their loss and you don't need them.

 My Forum Friends

I think each one of you is fantastic my group of Forum Friends, if ever you have a problem on me you can depend. I might not have all the answers but I have a listening ear and I would make the time to listen  as you kindly have done to me here.

God Bless you

Helena

Helena, I'm sorry that this has happened and if you're anything like me you probably take your friendships very seriously and value them highly as you worked so hard to get them. I only have really close friends, I can't commit energy to maintaining superficial connections, as I've got older I realise some people do this. (Maybe it's about quantity of connections rather than quality for some people). Anyway, what your friend said was downright nasty. She will have no friends if she carries on like that. Theres a way to go about things and this wasnt the right way. It must have been a shock to you but you don't need people like that in your life. Friends appreciate you for who you are. If there is something so important in your life of course you want to share it, your friends would want to hear sbout it. At the end of the day you can't get inside her head or know what's going on in there, so you can't change how she reacted. It's her problem.  She might have been having a bad day or her own problems going on (although I'm not making excuses). People change. Are you worried about losing other friends unexpectedly like this? It sounds like your close circle of friends appreciate you for who you are so focus on these. 

Trogluddite said:

It's not our fault that autism is so pervasive that there's barely a subject of conversation which can't be at least tangentially connected to it

Beautifully said! There should be a quote book somewhere that this deserves to be part of.  :-)

I've not looked at any of those sites myself, but from what I can gather, they are mostly frequented by people who have had bad experiences in romantic relationships with an autistic person (or at least, somebody who claimed to be autistic). I don't consider it unreasonable to acknowledge that autistic traits can be among the countless things which might make two people incompatible, and many of these people have experienced a great deal of emotional pain. But some generalise this to all relationships involving an autistic partner and take it upon themselves to warn others against such relationships. Unfortunately, it's also not unheard of for abusers to use false claims of being autistic in the service of emotional manipulation, muddying the waters yet further.

I should add, of course, that we're talking here about a very small cohort of people, and most of them at least have a genuine emotional trauma driving their behaviour, which is more than can be said for many of the other people who are inclined to give us a hard time!

Very sorry if you are having a problem trying to explain to your family about your spectrum.There are books an  booklets out there on the net you might find something there that could help you, or get in touch with The National Autistic Society, they have a helpline and if you rang them they could perhaps give you some good tips in explaining things to   family and friends. May you know you have caring friends on this forum here.

Helena

Sorry it's me again. I just reread your post an it said in one bit there are Websites warning people to stay away from us,I had not heard of that before, that is not very nice atall. I  wonder why they say that? As I previously said I have only been on this forum about 5 mins an people are being kind and friendly God Bless you all.

Helena

Thanks for being so understanding I  have not been 5 mins on this forum and I feel people want to be a friend already ,thanks a lot. No the person just felt they could not take me speaking about my Spectrum condition a lot, which I was only doing in such away to give them insight as to how it affected me an how they could support me better. If they had wanted to do so they would have still been here now wouldn't they not? No one can know what we have to face every day can they?Some days we cope not to badly and then other days we may struggle, but unless you have walked in someone else's shoes we won't know what it's like will we? Many thanks again. Helena

A very insightful answer. Autism has definitely become one of my special interests since I started exploring diagnosis... as you suggested, I think it's natural to want to get to know yourself better.

Welcome to the forum.

It seems to be quite a common thing, especially for us late-diagnosed folks, for autism to become something of a "special interest", and I think that's perfectly natural. For the most part, we're cast adrift after diagnosis, left to seek out our own explanations and coping strategies. And we're often acutely aware of the misconceptions about autism, because for many of us, it was our diagnosis which shattered our own belief in those same misconceptions

Other people might be able to discern some of our behaviours which are influenced by autism, but they cannot possibly understand how profound our inner world differs, nor how profound it can be for us to discover a whole new perspective from which to reflect upon our lives. Maybe we sometimes get a little too keen to share our new insights; but what person doesn't like to share their epiphanies with other people? It's not our fault that autism is so pervasive that there's barely a subject of conversation which can't be at least tangentially connected to it. I do get self-conscious sometimes that I bring autism into the conversation a little too often, but I try to remind myself of all those times I was bored to tears listening to people talk about the trappings of their lives in ways which were meaningless to me (I have never had a car, mortgage, wife, child, or favourite football team!) It can pay to remind people sometimes of just how tolerant I have to be about their pet subjects!

This person's reaction suggests that their commitment to the friendship was quite superficial anyway, so I doubt that you have lost very much in the long run. There might be any number of reasons for their reaction - some people perceive the slightest openness about autism as special pleading, others have been hurt in the past by people who were autistic, and whether deserved or not, blame this entirely on autism. There are even websites dedicated to warning people away from us! More often, I think people are just a bit embarrassed that we're talking about a subject that they don't know enough about to be able to comment.

I'm glad to hear that you do have a circle of friends who accept you for who you are; I am fortunate that I do to. And I'm sure that you will be just as accepted here.

Best wishes.

Hi, welcome to the forum. I'm 25 and I'm waiting for my diagnostic assessment. It sounds like this friend is very selfish. When you're reading up on autism to try and get to know yourself better, you naturally want to share that information with the people closest to you. The people who matter will stick around and listen; those who don't care aren't the kind of people you want to surround yourself with. Also, don't apologise - you're not "going on", and if you can't open up here, where else can you?

My advice would be not to worry about whether you talked too much about autism - she just didn't listen enough. Focus on the people who appreciate you for who you are. Take good care of yourself and be kind to yourself too.