Published on 12, July, 2020
I joined here around 5 months ago.
Since that time it's come to mean different things to me.
I think sharing experiences is invaluable but equally invaluable is the honesty I find here.
It's a place where we can talk about shared experience /our emotions/difficulties in a way that's impossible in the 'real' world - or at least if we speak about it there, it's unlikely to be understood.
It's a place to connect in a world where we often find connecting difficult.
I've received some PMs recently that have made me focus more on how very important this community can be to us as individuals.
Luna RIP called this her 'forum family'.
As a person who doesn't seek friendship (?or thinks she doesn't?), some surprising and valuable friendships have evolved from here for me.
How about you?
What I will add to my earlier post is, I’m finally able to have friendships here without the stress and minefield of trying maintain them.
Thats the hardest thing for me, not making friends but maintaining them. It feels like ,in the outside world not on here I mean, when I want peace and quiet people are always pestering me to do stuff or messaging me loads but when I want someone to talk to no one is there. I wonder if anyone else finds this
It’s a hard one to juggle, there’s a phrase of permanence placement, if I don’t see a friend then I don’t find the need to contact them, it’s very much , if it’s not in front of me, I’m not interested. I don’t know if that sounds strange? There is also a flip side to me that when someone does contact me, they actually just want something from me or of me. If someone is in front of me, I can tell if they are lying , not so much through their speech but through their body language. I don’t use my hands to gesticulate with, they remain still, I suppose it makes it harder for people to read me, it’s another defence for me. I get what you say when you do want to explain how you feel to someone, I get the, “ just concentrate on the good things.” It makes me scream inside.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
"Giving you a choice" sounds way too assertive for me.
When I read things where the author clearly is foundering, and "friends" is a popular one for us Autists, no mistake there, and my Doctor tells me flat out that I have too many friends to be Autistic, & my Psychiatrist who does my diagnosis says the same, then I start wondering what I am doing right, that others who are similar to me do not.
The gardening analogy works particularly well for me, as it shows that directed effort is what brings results, but not always the results we expected or wanted. Just cutting the grass being analogous to picking up the phone and calling someone who you count as a friend but for some reason haven't talked to, or done anything with, lately. Making an arrangement to go and do something together is analogous to strimming the edges.
In the real world, occasionally it suits me to water the plants myself in the dark, from my own personal excess. (It's got electrolytes! or whatever it is that makes the grass really quite luxuriant)
Whilst a Triffid in the garden would probably sort out the security aspect quite well, and be an interesting novelty, it might also prove to be too much of a hazard for the cats and, er, my watering apparatus.
At this point some words of timeless wisdom arise from so long ago that I've forgotten where they came from : "Don't pick at the metaphor, it'll make a nasty scab".
Well, if you are only giving me the choice of plant or gardener..... then I choose...... Triffid.
Nah. It's a real thing. The very best way to lose a bunch of friends, as we all know, is to move.
A couple of miles will do it for some people.
OR change job, or political alignment, or refuse a "jab" in some cases.
Friendships need management, and they COST as well as they GIVE. The cost is often something you give automatically and without thinking, but if you stop paying it, the friendship dies.
That "cost" is usually the time you invest in shared activities.
MY family were shits, so I had to build my own, out of my friends, hence I needed to study this topic from an early age in order to "survive and thrive".
I think I might either be the plant pot (forgive the pun) or, more likely, the organic fertiliser ?!?!
To put it simply: Maintaining friendships is like growing dope.
Most of the time you don't have to do a blame thing, but some things need to be kept under observation and prompt action taken (or NOT) if you are to be successful.
Essentially friendships need to by "Watered" with communication and "fertilised" with shared activities.
You are either a "plant" or a "gardener", I realised about 40 and then again, 25, years ago.
I used to get the sad feeling but as I've got older, especially the last few years, I'm a bit more forceful about my needs in terms of needing time alone and not feeling guilty for wanting my own time. I feel exactly the same, it always feels like too much work. My sadness has always come from not understanding why I feel that way when no one else seems too - it seems the come naturally to others.
Roy said:Talking to other autistic people is easy, we seem to operate on the same wavelength.
Exactly!