Published on 12, July, 2020
I've done bad things. I didn't respect boundaries, I came across as though I was entitled to friendships and I didn't communicate clearly, meaning that I misjudged what someone was comfortable with. I was reckless with it.
I've made lots of bad choices. One of many was befriending people who would sooner share the things I've said in private with their 12,000 Twitter followers than speak to me. There's wanting to hold someone accountable for their actions and there's setting people who weren't party to any of it onto you. Total strangers lecturing you like you're a child. Others accusing you of all sorts.
It's the sort of thing which would make you want to retreat and double down. I never did, though given the scale of the anger that I was faced with (albeit justified), I almost want to.
They expected me to deal with it like a neurotypical person. Suddenly it was like, "you are no longer an autistic person in our eyes". They had all made their minds up yet still expected me to explain myself. They wanted me to make an apology statement; I needed a few days to fully process it but I wasn't given that.
It was the equivalent of bullies beating up a kid in the playground, begging him to say sorry, he says sorry and they just carry on kicking his head in. Doesn't matter what the reason is, it doesn't help.
Someone else in a comments section said "is he even actually autistic?". This made me really angry. Someone chiming in (after having spent 20 minutes slagging me off) saying "well, he used to keep spreadsheets of his friends which is very autistic" didn't help - yes, it was true, and they were sort of defending me, but you don't get to do that when you encouraged that comment in the first place. I get that you were angry but that's my life.
These are other autistic people, by the way. You'd think they'd be more understanding but when they've decided that you're neurotypical, there's no chance of that. At least my therapist also sees how absurd the handling of it was.
When it all died down, only one person (of those who witnessed it) asked if I was okay. Just one and they're an acquaintance so they could never have helped me. I know I'm not entitled to anything, I'm not a believer of "you must be able to handle me at my worst" but that (as well as everything else) made it hard to trust others.
Please don't tell me that I should change therapists, because I am perfectly happy with my therapist and it's just naturally going to be a long process. It was the most traumatic thing I ever went through, and me having made a new friend doesn't change that. It's going to take time.
Please don't accuse me of playing the victim or trying to garner attention. I can only speak about my own experience and I have every right to without being made to feel ashamed or like I should just shut up and deal with it.
HMO said:"well, he used to keep spreadsheets of his friends which is very autistic"
You just reminded me. I was looking through a box of childhood belongings my mum had given me, and in it was a diary I had when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There weren't many entries, but in the front of it was a piece of paper with a list of every child in school and I had rated them and categorised them in various ways such as whether I should talk to them.
When I found it, it unlocked a memory because I remembered my mum at the time telling me in a shocked voice "you shouldn't do that" and I didn't understand what was wrong with it or why it was bad.
Try doing that when you're 25. But yeah, it took me a while to realise why that was not helping me at all. It was actually making me more anxious.