I had a horrible emotional experience today.
I facilitate an Asperger book club which is struggling to recruit members. We did have eight members orginally, but we are now down to two members, other than myself. The two members are a person with Asperger's (who I get on with quite well), and his mum. The mum is quite domineering, and is very socially inclined - the prototypical extroverted 'neurotypical', if you will.
Anyway, today I turned up for book club as usual - book club runs once a month. At today's meeting the Librarian turned up to advise us on how we could better advertise the group, in order to recruit more members. I was feeling quite upbeat, and wanted to remain positive. However, the mum started having a go at me, telling me that I needed to be more proactive about recruiting more members - ''it is all very well us sitting here, but you really need to do something and send out emails'', she said, in an obviously angry tone of voice, while hurling accusatory glances in my direction. She said that all the ideas she had had about getting the group up and running, like having the group at her house and me coming round for tea, or the group playing Badminton, had not materialised. She told me I could bring my Dad to the book club, despite the fact I had already told her that this is out of the question - I like to do things independently and don't like to involve my parents in my voluntary activities; private and public are quite separate domains for me. I reiterated this point, and she said that ''you never do anything with anyone!''. This made me feel upset because (a) this is not entirely true, but (b) it does have some truth - I am friendless and like my own company. However, she touched on a weak spot, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I then told her she was being rude and that it felt like she was 'having a go at me'. She replied by saying ''you are being rude!'', and it felt like a fairly heated argument was brewing. When she said to me 'what are you doing', I replied by saying ''and what are you doing'' - maybe this did come across as rude, but I think she was being rude in the first instance - her mood was foul from the start. I kept on saying ''let's remain positive and calm'', while I was feeling anything but calm - but I wanted to try and reduce the tension, and I hate confrontation. Eventually, though, I could take no more, and simply walked out of the room on the verge of tears, which I managed to repress. Yet it has taken me a good hour for the anger and injustice of what happened to fully dissipate.
It feels like, despite having a son with Asperger's, she does not really get the Asperger condition. Maybe I do forget to send emails out to members and things, but organisation is not my forte. I cannot help having these weaknesses, yet it was me who set up the book club in the first place. I can't expect any credit for this from her, though, although she always waxes lyrical about how fantastic her son is!.
Was I right to walk out in a situation where I wanted to tell her she was right old*****?
