A little assistance with a HFA friend

[Nick Blade]

Hello, everyone.

I'll try to be brief (but usually when I say that, I end up typing something ginormous), yet as detailed as possible. You see, I have a REALLY close friend I know online that I may have mentioned in a topic in another area before. Not too long ago, she revealed to me that she had high-functioning autism...and the coincidence was that it was around the same exact time I revealed to her that I had Asperger's. I wouldn't spill what's going on out of respect for her (even though she'd likely wouldn't see this), but just knowing that she's suffering from autism explains quite a lot of things I've wondered about her nearly forever now, which makes me want to help her even more since I know how it feels. Out of anyone I know, she's one of the people I care about the most considering we only know each other through our memorable and daily online interactions. While she's more worried about me than herself, there are many times where I feel the same. I have my fair share of problems, but I worry more about her than myself...and I want to be able to help her out more with her troubles she runs across me, since we're both also in the same boat: We both don't really have anyone in our offline lives to lean on, and she in particular only has online friends like myself to rely on.

She's officially diagnosed. While she's my friend, I very well understand that there's only so much I can do for her, especially since we're separated by distance and only connected via computers. But I guess what I'm try to get at here is that while I know about high-functioning autism generally, I just don't know enough to be able to sympathize even further with her. She isn't suffering due to her disorder, it's just other things in her life that she has trouble with...but due to how I sometimes can't seem to form the right words to say to at least make her feel better (and not try to say anything that makes her feel worse), I feel like I need to know more about her condition in order connect better with her than before. I guess it would be even better if I had examples from others who fall under the spectrum.

I just want to help her out the most I'm limited to, as I still feel like there's more I can do and I refuse to believe otherwise. I care a lot because she's been way too kind to me, to the point where she ignores her own problems for my sake. I want to help her for a change instead of being so helpless. Knowing that just makes me more determined to find ways to make her feel more happy, and to learn even more about how HFA females generally need to cope with stress/depression. You could say I should just research more, but...even after reading countless articles, webpages/etc., they just don't seem to give what I'm looking for. And if I told her I was going through this much to help her, she'd likely try to convince me to not worry about it. I just refuse to give up, so that's where I stand.

So much for brief. But thanks for taking the time to read this!

 

[Ereth]

Hello, Nick.

I've found that actually listening to people talk about their problems allows me to help them far better than taking advice from an article (generally speaking).

But it's also important for you to recognize that the issues your friend faces are probably best addressed by a professional if required. I say this mostly because you mentioned stress and depression. You're her friend. You don't have to be her doctor. Support her, but don't be afraid to point her towards other sources of help when you know you'll be out of your depth.