Just waking up to how naive I am about relationships

Perpetually_confused said:

I've only recently started to understand myself as autistic having been diagnosed with ADHD one year ago I have been on a journey of self discovery. Unfortunately I am just coming to realise how naive I am about relationships. I have realised that most of my closest relationships are very one sided and I put up with A LOT of crap from people, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm in my 40's now & it's really quite depressing to come to this realisation. I feel like I am very easy to bully & gaslight because my memory is so bad due to ADHD I just forget about peoples bad behaviour & normalise it. Also not being in touch with your feelings makes it so hard to pay attention to your intuition about people.

I am on a healing journey now & have been for several years but I didn't realise until recently that the reason I need to do so much healing is because of all the abusive people in my life!! I'm starting to cut out a lot of people & really reevaluate a lot of my friendships in my life which I never did before & carefully consider who I want to be friends with & who I want a relationship with.

I was in an intimate relationship with another autistic man but I broke it off recently because we were not looking for the same thing and I'm proud that I managed to do this as this is difficult for me due to my codependent traits. I would like to remain friends with him though because I don't want to lose his friendship and I feel like our friendship was the strongest part of our relationship. He is the first person that I feel like has seen me for who I really am & really cherished those parts of me such as my sensitivity & creativity & empathy & warmth. It was so refreshing as up until now I feel like a lot of the people I have been close to haven't really seen me for who I am including my own family. Almost like they just didn't notice me because they were too involved in themselves. I do need to be careful though that this doesn't end up being an extension of our intimate relationship.

I want to also try & make more friends with people on the spectrum & hopefully develop a support network of some sort, I can imagine that there must be a lot of late diagnosed people in the same boat.

Anyway I'm kind of rambling but just want to share this. I guess I'm just shocked in realising how little self awareness I had. I honestly thought I was a good judge of character, turns out I was completely wrong about that!!

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Perpetually_confused said:

I've only recently started to understand myself as autistic having been diagnosed with ADHD one year ago I have been on a journey of self discovery. Unfortunately I am just coming to realise how naive I am about relationships. I have realised that most of my closest relationships are very one sided and I put up with A LOT of crap from people, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm in my 40's now & it's really quite depressing to come to this realisation. I feel like I am very easy to bully & gaslight because my memory is so bad due to ADHD I just forget about peoples bad behaviour & normalise it. Also not being in touch with your feelings makes it so hard to pay attention to your intuition about people.

I am on a healing journey now & have been for several years but I didn't realise until recently that the reason I need to do so much healing is because of all the abusive people in my life!! I'm starting to cut out a lot of people & really reevaluate a lot of my friendships in my life which I never did before & carefully consider who I want to be friends with & who I want a relationship with.

I was in an intimate relationship with another autistic man but I broke it off recently because we were not looking for the same thing and I'm proud that I managed to do this as this is difficult for me due to my codependent traits. I would like to remain friends with him though because I don't want to lose his friendship and I feel like our friendship was the strongest part of our relationship. He is the first person that I feel like has seen me for who I really am & really cherished those parts of me such as my sensitivity & creativity & empathy & warmth. It was so refreshing as up until now I feel like a lot of the people I have been close to haven't really seen me for who I am including my own family. Almost like they just didn't notice me because they were too involved in themselves. I do need to be careful though that this doesn't end up being an extension of our intimate relationship.

I want to also try & make more friends with people on the spectrum & hopefully develop a support network of some sort, I can imagine that there must be a lot of late diagnosed people in the same boat.

Anyway I'm kind of rambling but just want to share this. I guess I'm just shocked in realising how little self awareness I had. I honestly thought I was a good judge of character, turns out I was completely wrong about that!!

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Tom said:

Just a side thought about self awareness/knowledge. I've heard it said it is the most difficult knowledge to gain, and my own experience is that has a lot of truth to it. I think it is reflected in the world wide tendency thru out history to lean on the opinion of elders.

Looking to nature, I recently learned that deer while they stay in smaller groups usually will combine at winter into larger ones and follow the oldest female who knows the safest spots and feeding areas.

What I am getting at is don't be too hard on yourself. 40s may seem old but in life thats still part of the learning curve.

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blue_bird said:

I'm in a perpetual state of wanting but not wanting a relationship. At times I can e depressed about being lonely and at other times I revel in the simplicity/uncomplicated nature of solitude. I question my instincts when it comes to choosing people as friends. I've been scarred in the past because I was too naive to see who the person really was. It's definitely made me think twice about approaching anyone to get to know them deeply.

I don't know if it's because I am a poor judge of character or if most people are just disappointments waiting to happen. Either way for me, I take the path of least resistance which is solitude.

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Perpetually_confused said:

Im inclined to believe that there are lots of good people out there. In my life I know that I have come across good people some of whom have opened a hand of friendship to me but because I have had so many bad relationships in my life I was unable to recognise it for what it was at the time. I have been subconsciously drawn to unhealthy relationships and toxic people because of the examples I had when I was growing up but trying to change that. I'm an extrovert so solitude is not really an option for me.

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blue_bird said:

I agree there are good people out there. Unfortunately I'm so scarred by the toxic ones I seem to avoid everyone just to be safe. I guess solitude isn't for everyone. I guess you could try making a friend hoping to learn from past experiences. I hope you can find good people to be around.

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Neri said:

I can definitely relate to a great deal of what you have written about. I am now 52 and I still feel alot like you.

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Xinyta said:

I relate to this in alot of ways.

I too am someone who is rather easy to manipulate and bully. Thankfully, I experienced very little bullying to my face. The only person that has ever bullied me to my face, frequently, is my stepmother. She is no longer in my life. Though some of that is my own fault.

On the flipside. I have some nasty traits of my own. Childish stubbornness and the capability to manipulate people by being bratty. And it worked, in alot of ways, for me. But it's also left me without anyone showing me how life works. So I essentially screwed myself. Now putting myself in a position where I have to figure this out myself. Thankfully my Uncle is around to help. Though I've not exactly made things easy for him.

Anyway. I am not a great judge if character either. I can sometimes get it right, when I allow myself to be intuitive. But otherwise, I end up surrounding myself with people that have fed my bad habits, more than anything.

Then add soda and videogame addiction to that. Something I had in common with these folks I called 'friends'. Feeding my coping drink (soda) addiction, and feeding my desire to run from reality via videogames.

I've since cut myself of those things. It's been a boon to my overall improvement. But I have alot if work to go, to get well adjusted enough for life.

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TBRS1 said:

This is a hard & painful thing to which I think many here can relate.

There is no cure for the past, the past can't be changed.

However, a person can deal with this if one thinks of the past as "my educational experiences."

Education is a thing that happened in the past. It is applied in the present in order to determine what will happen in the future.

This is a fancy way of saying "experience, think, learn, then do."

Best wishes. Life is a rough journey. You have new friends now, here.

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