I feel like I've been making a lot of threads on here lately. Hahaha. I just have so many questions!
After being on this site for a while, I have learned a lot about my Aspie friend. A lot of his habits and personality makes sense to me now! However, lately, hanging out with my Aspie friend has been difficult. Every time I am around him, I get a very strange, uncomfortable feeling in my gut. Something just doesn't seem right.
I haven't been able to describe this discomfort, but the discomfort keeps growing and growing. It's gotten to the point to where I don't even want to hang out with my Aspie friend anymore, and that's very sad! He's one of the best human beings I have ever met. I don't want to lose him.
My sister gave me this article, and it described my feeling exactly. I couldn't put it in better words:
479: Aspie to Aspie: Relationships
I am not Aspie, but I am a victim of intense trauma. Because of neglect from a young age, I have communication issues. For the past 10 years I've been in therapy to fix it.
I feel like when Jim met me there was A LOT of excitement, especially from him. He was talking to me everyday, he would read all my tweets, watch all my videos (I am a youtuber), e-mail me every time he had a chance, etc. He was SO excited someone falls "saw" and accepted him for the way he was.
At first these boundaries felt consistent. Jim was good at masking and didn't like showing signs of being Aspie. However, over the year, his boundaries started to shift. Then I realized his boundaries were actually quite rigid. Far more rigid than he gave me the impression of. These boundaries are important, and if the boundaries aren't respected he burns out, and overwhelmed.
it feels like Jim (and even I) were SO EAGER to be friends a lot of these things were ignored. Boundaries got blurred, and I feel like I over stepped several times. When I ask him about this he doesn't communicate.
I feel like I need to sit down and just confront him on these feelings, but I have NO IDEA where to start. How do I bring it up? Do I talk to him in person? Over e-mail? Text? What do I say? How do I not overwhelm him? What if he shuts down?
I would just say what I said here, but again he gets overwhelmed and shuts down very very easily.
How do you deal with confrontation? How do you confront others?