Reply to I’m on the autism spectrum. How I wish people could have helped me socially

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I appreciate your candor and self-awareness. I'm going to relate an experience I had with someone like you, in the spirit of honesty.

I had a friend some years ago who was the same age you are now. She engage in a host of behaviors that were, yes, annoying, but also sometimes hurtful and unkind. She was later diagnosed with ADHD and I think in retrospect some of her behaviors were due to ADHD.

She likely perceived me as being like the people you describe -- letting things built up until I exploded at her. But I didn't let anything build up. I told her about the behaviors that bothered me as they came up. She didn't hear me. For instance, she had a habit of telling lies or half truths a lot. I would call her on this and ask for explanations ("That doesn't make sense. You told me last week you didn't know that person and now you are calling them your close friend. Do you know them or not?"). Her response would be to lie more, to lash out at me, and to avoid the conversation.

She also was very skilled at evading accountability for her behavior (I assume a skill honed over 30+ years) and she would engage in manipulative behavior in order to get out of things. This would include claiming she could not remember things that had happened recently, claiming that certain behavior was a joke, or even suddenly claiming she didn't know me very well, that we were merely acquaintances and not fairly close friends of several years. She would say this behavior was the result of her ADHD. That may or may not be true, but it's also gaslighting.

It should be obvious by now that my friendship with this person did not last, and it ended pretty terrible actually. But at no point did I lie to her or let her behavior slide. In fact, I think I was one of the very rare people in her life who called her on some of her bad behavior, and I think it's possible her experience with me led her to her ADHD diagnosis. But I think she would describe her experience with me much the way you describe yours with others -- she'd claim I didn't say anything until I "blew up" at her with a laundry list of complaints. It's not true. She chose not to listen to me when I politely and kindly raised issues with her along the way, and when I got tired of being ignored and dismissed, I did "blow up" because by then I was upset not just about the lies and other annoying behaviors, but also at her manipulations and evasions when I tried to address these things with her.

Sharing this with you in case there might be something here you see in yourself. It can be easy to blame others for conflict, but of you are having the same conflict with people over and over, it's possible that you are the one creating a dynamic where it seems like people are being polite but then blowing up. Do you listen to people when they politely tell you that your behavior has been hurtful, annoying, or inconsiderate? Or do you only listen once they get Big Mad and blow up?[/quote]

PP, this sounds like the person had borderline personality disorder- the blame shifting, lying, manipulating, gaslighting- that's not ADHD (and she likely would have lied about an actual diagnosis anyway).

OP, what you ask for is how I was with my sister. The thing I love the most about people with autism is the way they accept feedback and don't take it personally- at least in my experience. It's very pleasant/refreshing and my interactions with people like this are stress-free. And it's nice because you can drop some of the social nicety stuff with people like that who don't care/don't get offended. She never argued, just nodded and incorporated the feedback as much as she was able. She always had/has to work on *noticing* whatever it was in herself or others and 'remembering to care to get it right' but she vastly improved over time. I wasn't always nice about it because it took a lot of work at times explaining/proving/showing examples of 'general human interaction' rules... she sometimes couldn't wrap her head around why people tell white lies, or why people don't like hearing about comic books for an hour and a half- but she could recognize and insert formulas "if I am asking too may questions I will lay off", "If the person isn't asking me questions about Star Trek, I will stop talking about it", "I should probably agree with everyone else in this room that our friend doesn't look fat in those pants"... we still joke that she liked Star Trek so much because she WAS Spock. She found human behaviour interesting. A lot of the time I'd take her out to malls/bars with me even though she was a few years older- just so we could people watch and I could point out people who interacted/moved like her and people who appeared more confident (we were always worried that because she was in her inner world- that she could be targeted for mugging, etc).

Anyway, we are in our 40s now and I did/do see her improve on being more reflective. Sometimes she is still child like and has to be walked through the logic of something but when she gets it, she gets it. Whether she will recognize the situation when she sees it again is another thing. Mostly I just wanted her to be able to have a better BS detector for jerks or liars as she was very naive.

I just wanted to say I found it interesting that your family/sisters DID tell you but you didn't listen- so I guess watch what you wish for. Maybe return to the topic with them and let them know you welcome more feedback now and that you know they tried to help you. Often I just felt mean- and she probably felt I was too- but I just wanted her to be safely independent. She is one of my most favourite people these days because I've dealt with DC society so long that she is incredibly refreshing/relaxing to be around. Anyway, I hope somebody feels this way about you.[/quote]

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