Dear best Friend - you're fired!
The unexpected perils of telling your best friend you are autistic
Ok, the title might seem harsh but hear me out. I was finally inspired to share my own similar experience because of the recent post by Jackie Schuld (https://medium.com/@jackieschuld/a-letter-to-my-friend-who-wont-believe-i-m-autistic-635f19a81652). Reading it made me re-live my own experience and the anger, disappointment and loss of a person I thought was my best friend, when I thought they were the one person I could share and confide my late autism diagnosis with. I was certain that if anyone would understand and support me it would be her.
I was diagnosed with autism (late in life) - I was worried how people would view me when they knew. I was worried how I’d be treated by work and recognised authorities. I was worried how it would effect my healthcare, my career, everything. I was worried how friends (they few I choose to have) would distance themselves or judge me, but I knew I could share it with my best friend first, test the water with her and work out how to tell everyone else. She’s such an empathetic person. She helps others, volunteers at recognised charities etc. She’s the neurotypical that makes me believe neurotypicals aren’t all bad ;)
When I told her, she responded with instant disbelief, contempt, almost anger. It was as if she felt I was disingenuously seeking attention or she was mad that she'd been fooled all these years because she hadn't worked it out herself. What ever the real reason, she instantly responded to my tentative and anxious revelation with:
"You're not autistic! I know autistic people and you’re nothing like them!".
I was SO… angry and hurt. I tried to explain that that wasn’t how it worked but she was so filled with contempt she dismissed everything I said - she had a better answer for every symptom and event I tried to use to exemplify my painful journey. I was reeling from this feeling of betrayal (that’s what it was - it took me a few weeks to work out what the emotion was) I just wanted to get off the phone so I made a polite excuse and hung up.
I don’t call her any more. I don’t want or need the anxiety of trying to convince a ‘friend’ that I am autistic. I realise that I have grown, and she has shrunk in both my opinion of her and her world view.
Being autistic, having actual empathy (that’s right; autistic people actually have unconditional, realistic empathy, not toxic unhinged agenda driven empathy) makes me realise that I would never have done that to her. I know it would have hurt her when she was feeling most vulnerable. More than anyone else she has confirmed what I have suspected for a long time; the ‘empathy’ that humans hold in such high regard is only a tool they use to make themselves feel good when it suits them - it’s not there when it conflicts with their own opinions or beliefs, when others actually need it. They embrace and abandon empathy much quicker than autistics do, so they should think twice before they lecture us on it.
It makes me feel like an alien visiting this planet sometimes. Where’s the mothership when you need her?