I agree, it's hard when you are ignored by people you think will understand you, especially if you've already got neglect and abandonment issues rampaging through your mind (like I have had a history of). It does exacerbate things, but sometimes when we are very emotional, the emotion all but 'screams' off the page, and those emotions can be difficult for other people to deal with, especially for those who already have a hard time managing emotions. That's the downside of having intense emotions.
I'm not sure this is the right place to express such feelings though, especially since it may scare off new members who greatly need the help. And everything i've seen in my short time here suggests people are generally welcoming.
When faced with overwhelming emotions, one's own, or someine else's, it is instinct, I think, to flinch away, and try to avoid them, as a self protective mechanism. It takes someone with a lot of emotional strength, and stability of their own to handle someone else's intense emotions. Especially the negative ones.
I wonder if this is what my first autism specialist was trying to tell me years ago, during a particularly bad point in my life? She didn't phrase it near as delicately, and I was in such a bad place mentally and emotionally, that I interpreted what she did say in the worst possible way, and couldn't 'hear' anything else. (It was an email exchange). In that case, no response would've felt better than the response she sent, even though half my distress was over the lack of responses to any of my cries for help.
She suggested i was being too negative in my communications, and that I needed to be more positive in what i said. I was too depressed and hopeless feeling to be able to be positive in any sense. I felt that she was telling me, like so many people had, over the years, that I was innately defective because I was so depressed and cynical. I thought she was telling me she didn't want to work with me any more and I couldn't stand the thought of having to deal with the NT world without her support, and belief in me, on top of all my other problems. She later assured me that's not what she meant, and that made things good enough to allow me to enjoy my youngest niece's first real Christmas (@ about 14 months old)
When you add in that most people, autistic, or NT don't really deal well with emotions, and especially emotional problems well in the first place, it's not surprising that intensely expressed emotions sometimes get one the opposite response we wanted. Society certainly doesn't encourage direct management of emotions or emotional difficulties! It prefers we ignore, or deny them. It is only very recently that discussing mental health issues has not been taboo. Society is gradually starting to realize we all need to address mental health issues, and be accepting of them. COVID has at least brought the issue more into everyone's awareness. I am hoping that will lead to permanent positive changes.
