Autistic people, please can you help me understand

[wildflowers1996]

I think I've treated someone with autism terribly and I hate myself for it

Basically I have really bad BDD (body dysmorphic disorder). Because I hated myself so much I just wanted to escape myself and I didn't have friends irl, but I made friends with a girl online when I was 12 and she was 13.

I never met her, but we were friends for years. We talked nearly every day for hours for years. We spent so much time together. I didn't know she had autism at the time because she was only diagnosed recently.

Anyway, as I expected, eventually she moved on from me and made friends irl in her late teens. I didn't have that option because of my BDD, and I missed her /so/ much. It drove me to wanting to die because she was all I had.

I did not say to her I wanted to die because I had lost her because it felt manipulative and wrong - just because I couldn't have a life, doesn't mean she shouldn't. But I did tell her I felt suicidal. I just didn't tell her why. But honestly, was it a way to try to get her to stay? Maybe. :( Maybe at the time, I wasn't even serious about it. I just wanted her to care.

It completely backfired anyway, because she completely ignored my message, and I just felt utterly shattered that someone who I had spent so much time with for years didn't care how awful I felt or that I wanted to die. It completely broke me and has contributed to my genuinely feeling suicidal.

She eventually apologised and said how much she missed me; she wrote me this really long message saying how sorry she was and how much she missed me all the time. And I let myself believe her... only for her to leave me over and over again.

I know I shouldn't begrudge her having a life because I can't. But I did feel led on in a way - she told me she loved me and then would just stop spending time with me and never tell me why and it hurt and yes it probably sounds ridiculous because I never met her irl and so it probably wasn't a "healthy" attachment to have and I suppose I couldn't really expect anything from her but she still meant so much to me.

Eventually I took an overdose some years back and I told her what I'd done and to be honest I was probably being manipulative; I wanted proof that she cared about me. And the same thing happened again. She basically said to me she couldn't talk to me because she was spending time with her new friends. I was left on my own really frightened/having a bad reaction to the tablets I took and she didn't care. She didn't ask me if anyone was with me (they weren't) or tell me to go to the hospital; she basically just left me alone to die. She didn't care what happened to me.

I felt like the victim but now I don't think I am. I chose to took the tablets. I just wanted to feel loved and cared about and felt it was the only way to get attention and I suppose I wanted to be shown I wasn't worthless. I felt like I deserved to suffer/die and I wanted to be proved otherwise - and I wasn't. And I felt like I (wrongly) hated her so much after this happened. I convinced myself she was this awful, heartless person for leaving me in pain to die and I basically said that her to her later on

I feel really nasty and cruel. She later told me she had been diagnosed with autism and essentially said it means she doesn't have the ability to care about me because she has her own problems and she has a partner now and only has the energy for them, no one else. She also said she finds it really difficult to focus on anything other than the "situation she is in"

What I want to understand is... did she ever care about me? During the time we were friends? Did she mean it when she said she loved/missed me and then she just switched that off when she found someone she liked better? She said something like she finds it difficult to think about anything other than the situation she is in and that she does care about people other than her partner but she doesn't have any ability to show it and I just don't understand how that works

I felt like how she acted was so callous and now I'm starting to suspect that I really am the one in the wrong for feeling "owed" anything and just don't understand her

 

[anastenka]

I'm diagnosed autistic and from what you have said she is clearly using her diagnosis as a scapegoat, something to hide behind. I don't speak for everyone with autism but there is a big difference between being neurodivergent/unintentionally abrasive and being a complete asshole. she's the latter if it wasn't obvious. it sounds like she was a terrible friend and I'm honestly so sorry for you; her autism is not an excuse for her behavior.

 

[lqpbxeuh]

As an autistic, it makes me angry that people use autism as excuses for everything. It makes me feel ashamed to be even diagnosed and associated with those people.

 

[wildflowers1996]

Thank you both
I still feel like I must be portraying her wrongly somehow and that I'm the one lacking in understanding/empathy because I know she doesn't find life easy herself and I just chose to make things worse for her by calling her a bad person instead of trying to appreciate that and I feel really ashamed of myself because it does seem like she really can't help it and maybe I just wasn't a good enough friend or didn't do enough to help her or something

 

[HopelesslyAlive]

By the sounds of it, you both made bad decisions in those interactions. However, I don't think you are portraying her wrongly, clearly she didn't care much about you and it isn't fair to treat someone that way just because you are autistic. I'm also autistic and will admit that I do often struggle to get back to people, but from the sounds of it, it felt more like she was leaving you intentionally.

 

[wildflowers1996]

Thank you
It just hurts so much and I find it all so confusing

 

[Kit1]

Dearest wildflowers1996,

I am autistic. I don't always have the need to be in touch with people as I struggle to spend a long time in the company of people without taking breaks.

However I have never knowingly deserted a friend in need and will keep in touch with people. Just because someone is autistic doesn't mean that they cannot empathise or lack feelings - especially given that you were both talking to each other for years. I am so sorry that this has happened to you. Please do not blame yourself and you definitely deserved better given what a good friend you have been as well.

 

[Esokabat]

I think everyone is different but I can cut a relationship very abruptly with surgical precision and never look back. For example if someone did something I find unacceptable or I feel they are trying to manipulate me. One time I visited a friend, travelled from overseas, stayed at their house, and the next morning they had an argument with me about how I drink my coffee. When I pointed out this was a ridiculously insignificant topic to have an argument about, they got even more heated. This was a long friendship and I liked this person a lot, but I refuse to accept any silly treatment like this. I cut the friendship off and never looked back. I have very little tolerance to what I tolerate from friends and I cut things off permanently very quickly and with surgical precision. I don't know if this is my autism or just my personality. I don't apologize for my behaviour, I don't purposely want to hurt people but I care more about being absolutely authentic, it is more important for me to be truth to myself, be my authentic self, without sugar coating, than pleasing someone else. And I have very little patience for drama, self-pity, emotional manipulation, those are things that will make me cutoff a relationship in a short second, even a long relationship, permanently, without ever looking back, sometimes I don't even bother tell the other person that I cut off the relationship. But this is just me, I think not all autistic people are this radical. I just have very little tolerance to behaviour I find unacceptable.

 

[shtangley01]

I dont think you had bad intentions necessarily, but I can see how your actions may have been tiring to deal with. I obviously can't know fully what was going on with you and her and what was happening between the two of you but it sounds like you may have had something of a codependent relationship. I don't think that makes you a bad person or anything, and I don't mean to discount the idea that she may have been hiding behind her diagnosis as an excuse for her behavior, but I think its best to consider this a messy situation without an obvious clarity in the placement of fault. I think you need to try and move on for your own sake, if nothing else, because as much as she deserves her own life, you also deserve friends who genuinely care about you and have the bandwidth to help support you.

 

[last3mos]

I am an autistic person that has space and energy to be close to very few people at a time. It takes a lot out me to maintain multiple close relationships, my brain can only do that with one or two people at once. If I overload that, I shut down, and that affects my emotions, my functioning, and I withdraw from everyone.

But I genuinely love a lot of people and one of the biggest regrets of my life is that I *didnt* have the space to have more of the people I loved in my life. That I couldnt function like the people with robust social networks. And they will never know. I have been so lonely.

I think the friendship was real, and loving/missing you was real.

But I also think that while autism would make it difficult to manage multiple things at once and she might have been out of touch or dissociated from her emotions from being in a social, stressful situation when you reached out, you were in need and you asked her for help, and she didn't even send someone to check. I would feel hurt in your place. I would have called someone in her place.

I think it's ok to hold onto the love and the past relationship as being real, but it's also ok to be hurt about this and ready to move on and put that chapter in place. I know how hard and painful that is.