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I'm really bad at staying in touch with family and friends

AJ

Content warning: loss / grief

So, as the title goes, I'm really bad at keeping in touch with family and friends. I'm not sure if this is an autistic thing (I'm awaiting assessment) although I'm sure this kind of struggle isn't unheard of in the autism community. 

I don't know why it is, but I can go for months without speaking to family and friends, even though I do care about them very much. I've lost many friends over the years and been berated by family for not keeping in touch, and it's not even that I don't want to stay in touch. There have been many times when I have tried to be more proactive but I eventually fall back into my default state; sometimes because the process of changing my ways is so exhausting, or perhaps I just plain forget or get distracted by other things that have diverted my focus. This type of reverting back isn't unique to this situation, either, literally anything I try to change about myself inevitable fails this way (even simple things like trying to remember to brush my teeth every day).

About 10 years ago my granddad passed away from cancer - we had known for a while that it was coming so it wasn't a shock. We were really close when I was younger, and he was responsible for encouraging a lot of my interests (especially trains and coin collecting), but I had not spoken to him for at least a couple of months and this absolutely devastated me knowing that I would not get to speak to him again.

He was the first of my close relatives to pass away, so it took me a long time to properly recover from that, and I vowed that this would never happen again. 

Now, today I received news that one of my nans has passed away, and while I am once again devastated I am really angry at myself because again I had not spoken to them in months and hadn't even visited since last summer. I forgot to visit them at Christmas and had to call up to apologise and promised to visit soon, then obviously Covid happened before I got chance to go around.

I like to stay in my own little bubble, but I am honestly sick and tired of this aspect of myself. I still have two grandparents in their 80s, and my parents are both in their 60s, nobody is getting any younger and I just don't know how to break out of this cycle.

Over the years this inability to stay in touch with people is the biggest problem I have that makes me stop and say "what is wrong with me?"

Parents

  • Sorry to hear about your Nan dying. It brings a lot of feelings to the surface when someone passes away.   I cried a lot when my nan died. Random times like walking down the road.  Don't underestimate the need to grieve, to miss her and to let it out. 

    Based on your account, you're better at keeping in touch than I am. First, every family (autistic or not) have their own interpretation of how often to keep in touch with one another. My partner speaks to their family every day.  I'm comfortable with once a fortnight or less.  My grandparents are dead, but I only used to see mine once or twice a year or less. I somehow fell somewhere between the maximum and minimum level of contact that was the family norm.

    I wonder if it's the broken "promises"you make with yourself and / or family members that makes you feel so bad, rather than the fact that you don't need to see them much or you don't get round to it very often. 

    With friends, I am really bad at keeping in touch and I think I let them down because there is an invisible unspoken contract different to the family one.  They expect me to contact them more often. Time just seems to pass very quickly before I'm prompted.  I have a very good memory, so it takes a long time for me to miss someoene and want to see them again. Seeing them too often would just overwhelm me with impressions and crowd my mind.  That's why i don't have any friends. 

    **I made a terrible copy/ paste error earlier and only pasted the second half of what i had typed. I hope I didn't upset you ( the message started mid-way through a comment and it seemed like i didn't care about your bereavement) I corrected it now.

  • in reply to Plectrum

    Thanks for the reply, and don't worry I didn't see the mistake!

    I guess it is the broken promises really, because I really don't feel the need to stay in touch, I just feel like that is what is expected of me.

    My partner has hour-long phone calls with his family and friends on a daily basis. Sometimes they call more than one a day so they are on the phone for hours. I have to go in the other room because I can't deal with hearing half a conversation or with somebody talking for that long. Whereas I struggle to keep a phone conversation going for more than a few minutes before I either start repeating myself or going onto completely unrelated topics (usually along the lines of "oh, did you know this random fact that i learnt today").

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  • in reply to Plectrum

    Thanks for the reply, and don't worry I didn't see the mistake!

    I guess it is the broken promises really, because I really don't feel the need to stay in touch, I just feel like that is what is expected of me.

    My partner has hour-long phone calls with his family and friends on a daily basis. Sometimes they call more than one a day so they are on the phone for hours. I have to go in the other room because I can't deal with hearing half a conversation or with somebody talking for that long. Whereas I struggle to keep a phone conversation going for more than a few minutes before I either start repeating myself or going onto completely unrelated topics (usually along the lines of "oh, did you know this random fact that i learnt today").

Children
  • in reply to AJ

    lol, it started with "it's the broken promises you make...  " aargh 

    BTW I love the small observations and revelations that are made in these threads. This is exactly like me, yesterday I went and did all kinds of chores for an hour because my partner was on the phone in the living room and i wanted to block it out.