How many heard "I'm done" from friends?

[Michelle Espinosa]

I'm going to write an auto biography and title it - I'm not an asshole, I'm neurodiverse.
How many of you, despite your best effort to be a good person and as considerate snd thoughtful as Aspergers will yield to always meet with good people who never the less become intolerable frustrated commu icatingnwith you while you become lost and confused in the code switchung or switch from understand to anger without a clue how it happened?

How can I not alienate.good people who want to be my friend and care about me?

 

[Major Tom]

You can't really. The trick is to find people who like you for who you are and will accept that sometimes/always you are different.

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

The actual difference between neurotypicals and those neurodiverse is the difference between a functioning mirror neuron system and lacking one.

Via that system neurotypicals are able to navigate the physical world, self reference and develop a sense of self, experience empathy, learn about others, oneself, and how to interact with tne the physical world.

Research is only a few years old maybe five.

After reading the most recent studies related to neurodiverse brains, I wonder how it is I feel empathy, and what is happening when I am sensitive to EMFs and other EM fields whether man made or that of other life (all life has an EM field).

What am I accessing and how?

But, beyond all that speculation is the intolerable loneliness of not being able to communicate or be sensitive and thoughtfully responsive with neurotypicals.

Alienating and frustrating one good person after another who sincerely want to be my friend, despite incredible effort on my part to do what is required socially to accommodate them and not frustrate and repel them had become I intolerable.

I have good character. I'm kind. I do think of others because it has been a nessessity in order to blend in or present as well as I do.

What is it that makes neurotypicals say I use autism as a crutch and that I am negative or somehow faking because how can I be a brilliant writer and filmmaker (I am a writer of fiction and filmmaker) and not get it when communicating with others?

Please advise.

I'm tired if an isolated life. I'm tired of lack of contact and understanding.

I'm tired of alienating one good friend after the other because of something I cannot help and do not understand.

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

You can't really. The trick is to find people who like you for who you are and will accept that sometimes/always you are different.

But when they like you for you but cannot tolerate your lack of respinsivemeness and feel that as a slight or something...

 

[TempeFan]

My friend of 38 years didn't even say she was done. She just cut off all contact. Right after I got the diagnosis, she sent me an email saying "that explains a lot" and telling me how amazing, successful and inspirational I am, then just ghosted me. I really want to be her friend or at least know why she did that but I don't know what to do. It's been months. She is very religious and too nice to be mean. Is it because she is processing that I have Asperger's and will get back to me when she is ready? Did she lose her cell phone with all my contact data? Did one of the abusive people from my childhood sabotage the relationship? The last time I saw her was at her daughter's wedding. It's possible something happened there that am not aware of but was blamed for. I don't know how to ask. I fear asking the wrong way will just make it worse. Any suggestions?

 

[Lysander]

I agree with @Major Tom . Since my diagnosis I have made a consorted effort to understand the manifestations of the AS and keep them in check, but at the same time I have learned that people are just jerks no matter how much effort one puts into changing or controlling how they act.

Completely this.

 

[Fino]

I've heard "I'm done" my whole, often told I'm being difficult on purpose, and seeing someone else relate the same experience for the first time is amazing for me so thank you, but I'm sorry that you go through all of this.

 

[BraidedPony]

My sister-in-law and I were friends for 17 years and then overnight she just stopped answering emails. She was going through a very hard time so I was giving her space but sending a supportive email about once a month.
I don’t know what happened, it was probably something I did, or didn’t do and should have?
Now it’s too late because I’m going to divorce her brother so I guess we won’t be friends again.

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

Exactly. I am told or it is assumed I choose to treat others with a deficit of sensitive and exacting response to their every emotional state. Without mirror neurons I am truly only studying their social codes and doing my best to mimick them.

I suspect that the reason others become exasperated is because they have expectations and social needs based on their experience as neurotypicals operating as a species with a mirror neuron system that as a hardwiring, necessitates consistent interaction of that system and effect on the whole biology. A species imperative. They cannot imagine or conceive of a human being opreating outside that. It is literally inconceivable to them.

And yet, her we are.

What are we accessing and how do we connect. Why is it we as a species developed ourselves with our distinctively neurodiverse access to human experience. Why?

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

My sister-in-law and I were friends for 17 years and then overnight she just stopped answering emails. She was going through a very hard time so I was giving her space but sending a supportive email about once a month.
I don’t know what happened, it was probably something I did, or didn’t do and should have?
Now it’s too late because I’m going to divorce her brother so I guess we won’t be friends again.

Every single time I wonder and examine every interaction and communication obsessively looking for ANY indication of what this dynamic or process or schism looks like. What exactly is happening here?

I am so fed up losing one beautiful caring person after the other who literally suddenly and inoqivaccly bag out.

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

My friend of 38 years didn't even say she was done. She just cut off all contact. Right after I got the diagnosis, she sent me an email saying "that explains a lot" and telling me how amazing, successful and inspirational I am, then just ghosted me. I really want to be her friend or at least know why she did that but I don't know what to do. It's been months. She is very religious and too nice to be mean. Is it because she is processing that I have Asperger's and will get back to me when she is ready? Did she lose her cell phone with all my contact data? Did one of the abusive people from my childhood sabotage the relationship? The last time I saw her was at her daughter's wedding. It's possible something happened there that am not aware of but was blamed for. I don't know how to ask. I fear asking the wrong way will just make it worse. Any suggestions?

See, that’s just it.

I do not for the life of me get how anyone goes from being a so called friend who cares about you to over night not speaking to you.

I swear I will get to the bottom of it. I am starting my documentary on neurodiversity in a November.

I am determined to solve that mystery. I want to know what’s going on and why.

Maybe one day I will have friends and a companion.

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

You can't really. The trick is to find people who like you for who you are and will accept that sometimes/always you are different.

I do. Every single time they do like me and often love me for me.

They never have an issue with me.

They just end up face to face with the extent to which they can extend themselves toward me without any real grasp on why.

As my good friend asked me, why does he have to learn how we communicate.

Answer is simple. We cannot choose one midify. For neurotypicals, the possibilities for modification, reversals, development, etc. are endless. For us - possibilities end and atrophy.

As far as extending ourselves to yet again accommodate the neurotypicals n a iCal world designed for and suited for them without the slightest avenue or thought of inclusion for us.

 

[Fino]

People try to "teach me how to talk to people" all the time, and if I've gotten any better, it's marginal! Is it possible to become consistently proficient at socializing the way they want?

 

[Lysander]

In the NT world, "friends" almost never means "friends forever". To their way of thinking, a falling out is completely natural.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to us why we would go through the charade for no other reason than that "it's just what people do", but it makes sense to their weird social instincts so... k.

 

[SusanLR]

I don't feel it is possible to be consistently proficient at socializing the way they want.
Of course at my age, I don't really try to learn, but, have become aware of what they want.
After so many statements like "Why do you have to go all the way around the world to explain something?"
or, " I've worded it five different ways and I can see by the blank look on your face you still don't get
what I mean."
Statements like that, leave me knowing some things about how I process are impossible to change.
I've become aware that forgetting the socially expected greetings, replies, thank yous, sorries, and such
are a meaningful part of their way of socializing, yet I find I just don't think of it.
If I do remember, and catch myself in time, I will put in the correct response they want to hear even
though it feels so phony to me since I don't understand why it is so important.

I've compared meeting with an aspie friend to NTs and it is so different, yet it is comfortable to us but would seem odd to others.
Example: I go to the park to meet my aspie friend and the first thing he says is "My allergies are killing me today. My nose is so stuffy." I replied, " Mine aren't bad this morning."
No Good mornings, How are you todays, fine and you? That type of stuff.
Just the first thing that is on our minds we wish to speak about.

As far as the mirror neurons, I lack that also. Mentally I understand, personally it just isn't activated.
The EMFs spoken of in the original post I feel also.
You are correct, everything has them. I also can "feel" this.
But try to expain that to someone who doesn't. They think of physical feel or the empathy feel.
Not the feeling of something through EMFs.

 

[Autistamatic]

I've not had the "I'm done" thing, but I've certainly been ghosted. I very rarely tell people of my AS, but people do recognise I'm a bit different. If I'm lucky the difference is interpreted as "eccentric" if I'm less so it's "weird".
All I hope for is for people to demonstrate a similar patience with me as I have to exercise with every single person I interact with.
Mirroring is only part of the puzzle though (a significant part though). Yes many of us have difficulty copying other people convincingly, but we also have problems understanding what other people are thinking and therefore how to react. NT people do it without even thinking, but for us it can take considerable mental effort. It's not that we lack empathy, we are more than capable of putting ourselves in someone else's emotional shoes, but it may take us longer to realise which shoes we should be wearing in order to react appropriately.
This facility is "Theory of Mind" which is worth looking up if you're unfamiliar, or if you prefer, I just did a video on the subject.

 

[Suzanne]

My husband said it to me the other week, but I have learned to not take him literally; just him being angry and frustrated.

Although he does tend to mock me and often will say: oh that person must have aspergers; on the whole, he is trying to be supportive and one way is to give me ideas on how I can talk to neurotypicals and not be judged and it worked not so long ago.

The "beautiful" thing with aspergers, is that it is not static, as is classic autism; so we can learn and adapt and well, unless we are quite happy to be on our own day after day, after day, then we really have little choice, but try our hardest to fit in with NT and just occasionally, an NT will be super nice and actually be willing to adapt to OUR way and that is really lovely to be a part of.

 

[OkRad]

I find more people tend to ghost you than tell you they are done, unless it's family blowing off steam.

I understand both because it's some thing we all have done. I recently was trapped in a long term one way conversation with a man at the gym and realized I may be in the process of kind of ghosting him! I am trying not to, I honestly don't know how to solve the problem.

SO when we are ghosted, it could be maybe we raved about our special interest or got too didactic. I grew up with Aspies . Being didactic was great! Long winded Special interest rants rocked! But others don't like it.

No one said they are done unless it's family and well, we have all done that. :-O

 

[Michelle Espinosa]

People try to "teach me how to talk to people" all the time, and if I've gotten any better, it's marginal! Is it possible to become consistently proficient at socializing the way they want?

To me, as a neurodiversity activist and lonely. ASD bearing this is the most important for us. I want to interview those of us struggling to interact with andbsecelop meaningful relationships with neurotypicals.

Understand that we can ONLY approximate their coding and m8mick what we observe. We cannot and will not be able to generate the sort of interaction and engagement they do. That is NOT to say we are unable to have meaningful and engaging interactions as human beings. It means we as neurodiverse, are expected to accommodate the codes and panoply of rules if engagement as they do even though we do not access and navigate this world as they do.

Isn't it time for neurodiversity?

Are you as tired as I am extending yourself bending over backwards to accommodate and make comfortable the unacommodating neyrotypical?

I am.

They get angry at me when despite my greatest effort I cannot do it as they do.

I say **** them.

It's time for neurodiversity and inxlusivity.

They need to look at themselves.

 

[Fino]

You are making me feel so much less guilty and ashamed of my inability to learn what they insist upon! Thank you!