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.
I appreciate your response. I avoided speaking to people for a while because I thought I didn't deserve it.
I guess many would argue that regardless, I would have benefited from that.
Perhaps. It's the fact no one offered any support, and somehow it's surprising that I'm still feeling this way.
A very wise contribution.
Autistic's have a wide range of views. Perhaps it is them who were behaving badly and not yourself? Social media encourages groupthink and bad behaviour
HMO said: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.
Sounds like your therapist has their head on straight. At least with regards to the iratioality of others responces to the situation.
People hate the idea of autism as an 'excuse' and often its autistic people who hate the idea of this most of all. We love to belive we are infalable or responcable for our own outcomes untill it becomes painfully obvious the world doesn't work that way.
Fortunatly academic opinion is prity firm on the point, sometimes autism is a valid excuse.
It sounds to me like you might have (unfortunately) experienced a clique (in the context of: "a small close-knit group of people who do not readily allow others to join them").
Cliques can be fickle about who is / is not included within the "in" crowd.
When engaging with such a clique there is an enhanced risk of injustice eventually being felt by both those within the group and those not admitted.
There may not be reason enough available to successfully be applied to such a conflict resolution.
Both sides of the equation would benefit from drawing a line under the proceedings and stepping away from each other (physically, online and within thought processes).
The incident is an object lesson (to all), in three parts;
1) both that anyone is capable of making mistakes and everyone can resort to mean-spirited behaviour when they feel slighted (real or perceived),
2) there is nothing to be gained, by either side, by engaging in the protracted post mortem of such an unpleasant situation (the temptation to do so is seductive but better for wellbeing to be resisted), and
3) irrespective of whether NT or Autistic; we are all still simply human (with the associated frailties that membership entails).
That to which you allude sounds like it has been a ghastly experience. However, I wish for you; that you don't give it the power to further prey upon your thoughts, feelings and wellbeing.
It is clearly observable (from your posts on other threads in our Forum) that: you have much in the way of generosity, wisdom and enthusiasm on other topics to offer to share with fellow Autistic people in our Community. That is a good health-giving path.
I hope you will find a way to become comfortable putting your energy into those other threads again.
If I were in your place, and I were to find it seems a really difficult challenge for me to tackle by myself (moving on from the bad experience and re-engage with our Community on other topics); I would hope someone would be kind enough to encourage me to reach out for help from someone known or contactable by me in the real World.
People in the real World are available to you (be they close to you or new to you). I am, as kindly as I know how, gently reminding you of that availability (and hoping you will reach out to the real World if you were to find that you need to do so).
You owe it to yourself to look after your wellbeing.
I feel confident there are likely to be plenty of people on our Forum up for being supportive of your endeavour (helping you as you look after your wellbeing) ... probably via engagement / re-engagement on threads other than this one.
Best wishes.
As other's have said, I really think you need to learn to let this go and move on. It will eat you alive otherwise.
This is where it gets complicated. They weren't NT's, they were other autistics.
It was other autistics behaving like this.
Remember that NT's have shorter memories than we do. You are probably the only person alive who still thinks of it.
They said to me "we will never forget this". I'm still trying to form a network of people around me but it's a case of, how can I trust that they won't completely ditch me if something goes wrong? Much as I doubt that would ever happen again.It was a case of "they said it, so it must be true, and everyone reading it believes them". I wouldn't care if it was such an isolated part of the internet but millions of people will have seen those tweets (in terms of that view count).
Ok my friend. You need to erase the thoughts of it from your mind. I would suggest a deep dive into a new special interest. Remember what happened on there need not define you for the rest of your life. The people were internet strangers and just because they are tweeting about you , it does not need mean that they know or understand you.I was an active participant on twitter many years ago and you can best believe I got into debates on there. But ultimately the people did not know me, nor I them. We just had different views.
It is me. I'm not on there and haven't been on there since May 2023.
Yet the worry is still there. I have been trying to understand why, I think it's the difficulty with how I was treated and hung out to dry, and how those who were so horrible seemingly just got away with it. No one went after them.
It has been 15 months. It probably won't get easier.
I've read your post again and you are. Do you still have an account on there? I would suggest leaving twitter immediately and never reading it again. If you haven't done that already.
You seem alright to me. Are you the guy that had all that trouble on twitter or am I confusing you with another poster?
We're human beings too. I think that individual wanted to paint me as this evil, psychopathic monster. Something I still think I might be.
Yes ,the idea that Autistics are incapable of evil is paternalistic nonsense.
Years ago my favourite female Canadian school friend had someone trying to pass (unsolicited) judgement on her / poke fun at her / tell her what she should do differently / imply she was not a real human / basically bully her (she was blessed with a stunning head of beautiful long red hair ...not that it was any of the other person's business) plus the abhorrent individual was also trying to influence and encourage others around them to go along with directing similar behaviour towards my friend.
She stood still, looked at their face, and then loudly exclaimed incredulously - for all to hear; the perfect "put down" statement (before she walked away); "Oh my goodness, you actually thought you could drive my bus!".
Over the years, across my working life, I have all too often heard in my head the replayed video tape memory if that feisty girl's retort ...as I encountered yet another one of life's tedious wanna-be-backseat-bus-drivers of MY own life.
Cue the internal instruction to self: "that is NOT happening ...walk away now girl".
So far, I have yet to resort to blurting out loud the suitably delivered "drive my bus" statement ...I have a feeling that part of living up to my goal of learning to grow old suitably irreverently (disgracefully) might mean the days are numbered before the full experience gets metered out to ...somebody who seems to have checked their own civility at the door before addressing me about something unacceptably NONE of their business!
Who knows, maybe I'll find that somebody makes a badge / button / pin with the appropriate text printed on it? I could have it pinned on the reverse of my lapel and just turn it over and point to it in silent, visible, rebuff! ... before I just walk away and get on with driving my own bus, thanks all the same.
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.
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.
Exactly! I voiced at the time how bad I felt, I put my hands up and accepted my fate etc but they weren't having it. It's like they wanted me to be completely non-remorseful.
They said that "we will never forget this" so I'm not sure. I never got to defend myself at the time, which is probably why it still bothers me.
Fair point about the Olympics thing though. I wish I could bring a lawsuit...