My problem with doctors, dentists, and veterinarians, is that I tend to take things literally, I also tend to over-research, over-analyze, and ask a thousand questions. I butt heads with them if I feel they aren't listening to what I'm saying, don't have the time to hear me out, or don't follow their wishes (which is mostly the doctors). But I do feel bad for them because, as one told me multiple times (which got old), I can be a challenge. I'm sensitive to medications and side effects. Interactions happen, adverse reactions, and problematic issues (like if headache is a side effect, I'll get one). But convincing them that I know my body REALLY well, that I'm not just saying that, that I'm empathetic and overly perceptive, is nearly impossible. I have seen eyes rolled in every possible way imagined. And I've changed doctors more times than I can count and been to a LOT of specialists, including alternative (my husband and I even trained to be Reiki practitioners). I have found doctors I like over the years, only to have them retire or quit practice and move away (which I know is not from me, but I tend to take it personally if I'm used to someone). I have landed on a great doctor right now who is young and enthusiastic and I have to hope he'll be around for a while and so far he really listens and takes me seriously. I have also found a specialist (a Neurologist for my migraine headaches) who has been fairly understanding as well.
Dentists are a challenge because of all the sensory stimuli (so much noise, bright lights, smells, being trapped in a chair, people in my wide open mouth, pain...). I just got a new dentist who I really like. The staff is incredibly friendly and attentive, the dentist is really nice and asks me multiple times if I am doing ok or need anything, and when I told them I needed a pillow and dark glasses, they complied immediately and without question, wrote it down, and have it ready for me every time now. I did eventually mention that I was on the spectrum and that being at the dentist was challenging for me, my first time admitting it to someone. They were great about it and even kinder at all future appointments. I also got a tip from a friend to wear earbuds, which was something I hadn't heard of but now appreciate a lot. I was able to connect my phone to my Pandora stations via bluetooth and play the soothing music stations I like, which was super helpful. The office is busy with constant cleanings and other dental work and the high pitched whirring sound was really grating to me until I could wear the earbuds, even though they do play music and I liked it, but it just wasn't enough to cover that other annoying sound. I also needed to have a tooth pulled and the description was giving me such anxiety, I was beginning to have melt-downs just thinking of it. The dentist could see my anxiety and recommended an oral surgeon who was in the same complex since he thought I might be better off having it extracted under anesthesia, which, when I thought about it more, seemed like the best answer. The surgeon was also incredibly kind and attentive. I told them about being on the spectrum and they were great with that info too. I did get an infection and that was hard, but everyone was great at working with me. My primary care doc also gave me a prescription for an anti-anxiety med (another friend suggestion), I haven't had to use it yet since they have worked so hard to make me feel comfortable. I am glad that I got up the courage to admit my diagnosis. Along that line, for people like me, I could have used more instruction from the oral surgeon on what to expect. They were pretty vague regarding post extraction care. There were some instructions, but they weren't specific enough and because I'd never had dry socket or an infection, I waited longer than I needed to in a considerate amount of pain, before contacting them. They were very apologetic, but people like me need clear, concise and thorough instructions because things that might be intuitive to neurotypical people, aren't for me.
The vets- well they get extreme me. I'm a helicopter pet parent and hold them in the highest standard, which means if they mess up (and I totally get that everyone makes mistakes), I see another one for a 2nd opinion. But luckily, they see how very protective and observant and hands on I am and the two I see now both actually praise my husband and I for being so good with our pets. Even though I'm sure at first it was no picnic for them. I have gotten them gift cards and brought them cookies to make up for my thousands of questions, among other things. But I do see why in the book Aspergirls, they have found that those on the spectrum often don't choose to have pets or go with pets that are less challenging like hamsters or guinea pigs or maybe fish. I have a lot of melt downs over the pets, because I get easily overwhelmed. Any health issues they get and not knowing how to help them or make it better, if it happens on a weekend or at night when there's no one to talk to (we have an emergency vet but he's an hour drive away), if they won't eat or take a pill, if they're having behavioral issues, all can lead to melt-downs. We are on our sixth dog, and our third cat, and it's still challenging at times. It's a double edged sword, the challenges and losing them, but I've also loved them all so much and many have been like therapy dogs to me (especially my last pup Koala and my current pup Floki- both Shih Tzu's, both very sweet and loving and tuned in to my moods). I always think the current pet will be the last one, but then another comes along. It's always a challenge, but it's been worth it.
Neighbors and co-workers almost fall into the same category, unless they become good friends. Which does happen, obviously. One of my closest friends was the manager of a store I worked at and one of my other closest friends was the childhood friend of a girl who was my stage manager for a play I directed for my senior project (she became a good friend herself for a while, until she moved back to MN, though the friend she introduced me to has been my friend to this day, 26 years later and she too moved back to MN). I have tried to make friends with both neighbors and co-workers over the years, only to have it go badly wrong. I was great at being a manager who didn't have to manage people since I ended up clashing with so many personalities over the years. It was so frustrating to me when I tried to talk to employees and it somehow didn't land right and I would end up driving home crying. And I also now know that because of my conversational inadequacies, I didn't do well with joking, and I'm so bad at argument, debate, or confrontation of any kind. The machinations of the retail world were the worst! I don't have the capacity to do what is necessary for ladder climbing and I am not a fan of gossip, yet somehow people always felt the need to 'dump' their drama on me, which drove me crazy. I usually just smiled and listened, though I don't have any poker face now, I can't imagine what I looked like then. And the older and crankier I got, the less I wanted to be involved in gossip. At one place I worked, when people would start talking to me about their sex lives, affairs of fellow co-workers, stuff I did not want to know, I finally got up the courage to start saying "stop, I don't want to hear it". I was actually pretty proud of myself! And, after setting those boundaries, I was far more comfortable in the workplace. And instead of being mad, most of them seemed to respect me for it and didn't push it.
Office work and management was a little better, I excelled at the busy work, but the social interaction could still be a minefield. One woman I worked with drove the gal who had my position before me and me to both quit in a five year window. And everyone knew she was the problem because they told me, but it was easier just to quit than have to put up with her viciousness. Plus, she'd worked there so long no one wanted to fire her because she knew the job so well. At another job, one of my supervisors didn't do well with all the questions I asked. I know I ask a lot of questions and now that I know about the autism, I realize that part of it is because things that are intuitive to neurotypical people are not for me. Plus, I am very literal and I don't assume well. I need a lot of information sometimes and ask a lot of questions if I'm not clear on something. Although, this supervisor was notorious for not giving enough detail or giving confusing details when describing projects, so it wasn't totally just me. She gave me a task but I didn't have all the info necessary to complete the task, and when I asked a bunch of questions she lost it and accused me of deliberately being difficult and trying to sabotage her tasks and/or the department by putting up roadblocks in the way of... asking questions?? I didn't totally understand where she was going with that. But I wasn't going to let her accuse me of something I wasn't doing and I stood up for myself, telling her it was my job to help her and the department because I loved and valued my job and to sabotage her in any way would jeopardize it, so why would I do that? I told her how very flabbergasted I was that she had arrived at that very confusing conclusion and how upsetting it was to be accused of something I wasn't doing and had never been accused of by anyone else, and I reminded her that everyone else I worked with loved my work and had no complaints. She seemed to finally understand my side, but the entire confrontation was awful. While I now know why that interaction happened, it doesn't take away the pain of it.
The same thing often happened with neighbors. It has been so awful with past neighbors, that in the current place we've lived for almost ten years, I have been cold and distant because we love this place and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize it. We bought this place, so it's not like we can just give notice and move away. We do know some of our neighbors now, especially our next door neighbor on one side that my husband mows the lawn for. All the other places we lived we rented, and whether it was neighbors or the landlords, there was so much dysfunction that we had PTSD about renting again. Part of it was having pets- landlords don't like pets, but the rest was the constant conflict. I've seen so many relationships take a turn due to us doing or saying the wrong thing or them turning out not to be what we thought (we have said over and over that our first impressions suck and we have been taken advantage of or missed signs of people we wouldn't want to be with many times, though we're getting better at it now, but it totally sucks that it's when we're in our 50's...). Which is why I thought if I kept my distance this time, there would be less chance of issues. We've had one minor dust up with a new neighbor over a dog issue, but we just ignore her now, and her us which is fine by me.
Friendships have been really hard for me for the reasons above and things I probably don't see. From a young age I had trouble with other kids. At one slumber party, my underwear was frozen, my bra was stolen, and the kids laughed at my responses until I cried. I had my mother come and get me and I avoided most slumber parties with groups of girls after that. I did have sleepovers with friends, but only ones who I felt comfortable with, and even then I had problems. One of my 'best' friends (who I considered that way but now I know she did not share that view), used to sleep in and I would wake up early and I had no idea what to do and I am pretty sure almost was on a melt-down level because of my anxiety of wanting to get up but not wanting to disturb her (or her family as she was afraid of her mother who was an alcoholic and I think fairly abusive). That girl eventually distanced herself from me in junior high, giving me no reason, and found new friends. I did too, but often bounced from friend to friend and friend group to friend group. The girl who dropped me eventually came back, but faded away and came back several more times. I had a lot of friends AT school, but after school was a different story. Some of them who were really nice to me at school and let me hang with them, even have lunch, rarely invited me to their house or parties after school.
I never seemed to fit in with any one group. In junior high my mom actually arranged a birthday party for me at the local roller skating rink. She brought food and a cake, paid to rent skates for everyone, rented out the back room and put up decorations, and my dad even brought favors from his store (they were little antique looking pencil sharpeners in the shape of things like old cars, wagons, etc). I believe we skated, but then when it was time for cake and favors and presents and stuff, they hadn't really brought gifts, took the favors and complained about them and left them or threw them away and all left, leaving me feeling awful and crying and my mom so mad she said she would never throw another birthday party for me again (she didn't) and that I wasn't allowed to have those kids over to our house every again (I didn't).
I was always so desperate for a friend, I would do whatever it took to blend in or be socially attractive. I was not and am not a girly girl. I don't really like to shop or talk about stuff like make-up, hair stuff, accessories like jewelry and purses, clothes and shoes, and while I did talk about boys and want to 'go out' with boys, I wasn't as advanced when it came to relationships or intimacy. In high school, many of the girls were experimenting with sex and talked about birth control and things like that and I was at a loss as I wasn't interested in sex. I did 'go out' with a couple boys, flirted with a few, had crushes on a couple, but mostly held hands and kissed. I know some women on the spectrum were taken advantage of, and I did tend to gravitate to friendships with boys over girls because I didn't do well with the girly drama and men were much more to the point, though I didn't like sports or other male subjects either. But being friendly got me in trouble. Some boys thought that meant I was interested in more than friendship when I wasn't. I had my heart broken, not because I was in love, but because several of the boys that I considered good friends did not consider me in the same light. However, due to my inability to detect certain social cues (and the fact that I'm sure that was obvious), they took advantage of my, for want of a better word, naivety, to spend time with me. Perhaps hoping they could make me fall for them (it wasn't going to happen as I had no romantic interest in them whatsoever). I realized the issue when one shoved my hand down his pants at a movie and the other, when he realized he wasn't going to get me to be his girlfriend (after pursuing me for years), suddenly turned on me and became angry and cruel. Both had been, what I would consider close friends, for years. And just like that they were no longer anything. Both did reach out years later, but one of my personality quirks is a sense of betrayal. If someone does something that feels like betrayal to me, it's really hard for me to forgive. Since I could no longer trust their intent for interaction, I wasn't willing to let them back in.
That happened with both boys and girls. And even as an adult with other women. Ghosting counts with me as betrayal. Like abandonment. I do understand that confrontation can be difficult, nearly impossible for some, so I understand it's going to happen. I even stopped communicating with a friend once rather than say anything because she wasn't very reasonable and it seemed futile to say anything, so I just stopped communicating with her. She always treated me like a back-up friend anyway. And even though I'd known her since I was 6, she was always both overly familiar and controlling and bossy. It made me uncomfortable. I think I continued to stay her friend because we'd been friends so long. And because I didn't have many friends. Letting go of one was hard for me. But she was dismissive of things that were important to me and I was no longer interested in maintaining our relationship. When I saw her years later, she spoke to me as if nothing had happened. She didn't seem too upset, which was good for me. I didn't have to feel that I had given that sense of betrayal to someone else.
But, I've had ghosting done to me more than once and it hurts (in varying levels depending on how close I was to the person) every time. Sometimes so deeply that I actually grieve the loss of the friendship. I know it's likely my fault because of my social oddities due to the ASD. I know my issues now: I tend to fixate on the subjects and items I like. If I find someone who likes those same things, I get so excited ("Me too!!"). I can be loud and obnoxious about it and I can also talk WAY too much about it. I also don't tend to even feign interest if it's a subject I don't like and I have said more than once that I do not have a poker face (I really don't). My distaste will show clearly on my face. I also take things really seriously and very literally. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation, someone will tell a joke and I won't catch it or get it and keep on talking. I don't get subtle and really dry humor which can be embarrassing. I get thrown off if someone interrupts me, even though I'm always interrupting others. I wish I could be breezy and funny in these posts so that people read them and are entertained by them and more and more people want to read them and share them and learn from them. But, sadly, I'm not that person. My husband is the funny one. I can be funny with him, and occasionally on my own, but I wish it happened more naturally or more often. When I'm nervous, I say the wrong thing, I babble, my voice is too loud, my behavior too exaggerated. Pretty much the same if I'm excited. And if I'm having a good time with someone, I don't want it to end and I can get weird when they want to leave. I think that then makes them uncomfortable and they probably want to avoid getting together again so they don't have to feel awkward or tense or uncomfortable, which I understand. The really hard thing for me is that I know when I'm being weird, but I can't control it. It's led to some pretty serious social anxiety and I tend to avoid people and situations now rather than know I'm doing something that will make someone uncomfortable. Even family and friends. Especially since I can see the looks people give each other, or the eye roll or annoyed expression, the tone changes, I have very sensitive hearing and can hear the 'under the breath' things. I also have some really strong gut feelings about people who are pretending to be nice or when they are trying to leave or get out of spending time with me. It's really hard to be on the receiving end of someone squirming out of being around you. For me, when someone stops talking to me, I usually don't reach out to see if that's what's happening because I wait to see if they are going to contact me again in case I'm mistaken. Plus, I wouldn't want to keep contacting them if they don't want to be my friend anymore but don't have the courage to tell me. Some people will answer me back if I contact them, but won't reach out first. That usually tells me they aren't all that interested in the relationship anymore.
The thing is, I know that my conversation is not sparkling, witty, or particularly intellectual. At least not very often. I tend to have interests that seem immature for my age, but it's not that I am immature or can't hold mature conversations, but to me, those conversations are boring. I sat at a family gathering listening to the adults my age or older talking about 401K's, retirement plans, insurance, and so on, and I couldn't have been less interested, and I'm sure it showed on my face. Plus, under any kind of pressure or stress, I can't speak at all. Which is too bad because I do actually know a lot about a variety of subjects.
Not having kids also makes a huge difference when trying to make or keep friends as an adult. My husband cannot have kids and neither of us have ever wanted to have them anyway, which puts us in a minority. We have lost couple friends who ended up having kids. We get it, they are busy and their lives revolve around their kids, which is totally understandable. Neither one of us is that good with kids, not really. I babysat when I was a teen, but I never enjoyed it and only did it because it was the only way I could make a little spending money. And I know nothing about kids so talking to friends who have them usually goes way over my head. Which is why so many of our couple friends who ended up having kids drifted out of our lives. I remember one year, my husband was visiting couple friends (I was in grad school and couldn't go with him) and the wife was pregnant and my husband said that he figured that was the last time he'd see them for a while and they asked why and he said because once they had kids we wouldn't see them and the wife took offense to that, even though it was true. My husband had another friend who kept trying to get the four of us together and when they had a kid kept saying he thought I needed 'baby' time which I didn't understand because I've never needed 'baby' time. I'm assuming it had something to do with women being maternal, maybe? On the other hand, his wife and I didn't know each other, didn't share the same interests, and all she wanted to talk about was her kid and Montessori schools and how to raise her. It was not fun for me at all, especially because of how I am: I just can't even pretend to be interested. At least not unless it's someone I'm really close to.
Basically when it comes to friends, I have always felt like a satellite (a term I borrowed from my husband). I never had a 'best friend', I've never been on a 'girls trip', and while I have been a bridesmaid, I have only been my sister's maid of honor and only because she got married quickly and didn't have any other bridesmaids, even though she had more friends than I did. I am still in touch over Facebook to some girls I went to high school with, but we never call each other or get together. I am still good friends with a couple girls I was college age with, and I have a couple gals I talk to and meet up with once-in-a while that are older than me, but the couple gals I made friends with who were half my age but liked a lot of the same things I did drifted away this past year. I knew that would happen eventually (they were so much younger than me), but it still makes me sad. As it does every single time someone drifts away. I am in touch with some girls I was a camp counselor with and some gals from work, but if it wasn't for Facebook, I doubt I'd be in touch with hardly any of them. I don't really blame them now. I would get angry sometimes in the moment when I knew the relationship was over, if I was being ghosted. I would wish they would tell me why, but we just don't live in that kind of society. It's easier to slip away than be honest and say we are growing apart. At least as friends. And of course the older we get the harder it is to make new friends. That doesn't mean I won't keep trying, but I am a little hesitant these days with anxiety about not wanting to lose yet another friend and how they receive me, knowing now that I probably don't come across well or eventually will do or say something that might make them uncomfortable.
I admit, I am more prone to being a pessimist than anything. Apparently people on the spectrum are susceptible to depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, a host of mental issues. And I can attest to that. But that doesn't mean I don't see the good in people and the joy in the world. I do. But this diagnosis did throw me and I have been melancholy and reflective. I won't deny that I'm not angry about some of the relationships in my past, particularly with family which I'll get into later. But the friendships make me more sad than anything, the ones that have slipped away. On the other hand, I have no way of changing what happened. I can't change who I am. That also makes me a little sad. But I also realize that no one should be sad to be who they are. I have many gifts that being ASD has given me and I don't want to feel bad or guilty about them. No one should ever be made to feel bad for being themselves. I hope that sharing that will make people think twice about how they treat each other or treat people with disabilities or neurobehavioral disorders like ASD. There are a lot of people uncomfortable sharing this information because they have faced and continue to face a level of shaming, humiliation and bullying. Please be kind to everyone you meet. If you are awkward or uncomfortable with someone, excuse yourself the best you can, but don't treat them unkindly because you have no idea what they are going through.
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