Live, Observe, Learn, Repeat

There is a time for everything under heaven according to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. I wonder if that includes there being a time to process via writing and a time not to. Or, maybe more accurately, is there a time for making public one’s processing via writing and a time not to? I’m not sure where the line is on that, so we’re going to ‘go there’ with the acknowledgement that I know I am probably over the metaphorical line and am venturing onto the more precarious side of it. I’ll step back into safer places once this is written.

I write for my own processing purposes, yes. But I write too fairly sure that I will not be the only neurodiverse individual who has difficulty with all kinds of peer relationships. Maybe it’s time for this difficulty to be aired and not hidden. Hiding it implies it is not ‘usual’ or appropriate but maybe it’s time to suggest it might just be a reality for many of us neurodiverse-ites and one we maybe need to find ways to better manage. If you have this difficulty too, there is something you can know for sure – you are not alone in it.

As an autistic child (although we didn’t realise I was autistic then), probably predictably, my ‘friendships’ were less than what many expect the term friendship to mean. They were more me watching, copying, masking and trying to fit in by standing around and hoping I didn’t stick out from the crowd too much (while I, in hindsight, was most definitely sticking out from the crowd in many obvious ways). That’s all fine and good and part of how I navigated the world at that stage. I have no complaints, and it is not a problem. It was just how it was. At the time, the whole thing was somewhat unnerving simply because I was clueless as to what was expected of me. What would be appropriate behaviour in any given social context? How could I best interact verbally (once I’d stopped being a selective mute), when I knew that whatever would come out of my mouth (on my braver days) would be seen as ridiculous and probably ill-timed in terms of delivery (because once I’d built up to actually speaking, the conversations or scenarios would have moved on to other subjects by the time I’d (not) caught up)? What did I need to do to make friends? The questions could go on.

As an adult, I have inadvertently wandered into tricky relational territories with acquaintances, friends and relational ‘others’. How has it happened? Through a combination of naivety and my ignorance of some social rules that I’ve been learning about as I go along amongst other things too, I'm sure. I have also needed to learn that my perspective is just that (it is mine and not theirs) and that there is no reason why anyone else must agree with my perspective, understand it or even be aware of it. I've also learnt that communication can be tricky when we assume we have been understood from what we think we've communicated when what has been heard by the recipient was not the same as what we think we said/wrote. 

I have also fallen prey (several years ago) to the dangerous and crazy impact of affirmation of me as a person, although I think I've broken the power of that over me in the last few years. On each of the past occasions, however, I  absorbed the affirmation, and I then got too attached (in very different ways each time) to the person delivering the affirmation. I became reliant on having them in my world, and that usually happened just before they disappeared. I guess they leave because they’re either bored of me, or maybe I didn’t give enough thought to them (although I always try to do that), or maybe they wanted more of me than was available. Maybe it’s those things and other things too.

Like all humans (because I'm sure we all have been in one way or another), I too have been manipulated and controlled by others. I guess (in my case) it isn't difficult to sense my naivety about much that is blatantly obvious to most people concerning the social world. I’ve also frequently taken literally the things people have said when (it later transpired) they didn’t mean exactly what they said. This process always causes all manner of complications and all of these things in the mix, I have discovered time and again that all things relational are a nightmare for Dawn and she is a nightmare within them.

Within ‘roles’ in life, relationships are easy. In a role, I can do what is needed for whoever. Carer – easy. What I need to do and how I need to behave to be a positive within that role is understandable and it works. Teacher – easy. I get it. I’m forever learning as both a carer and teacher, but there is a foundational understanding of what is expected of me. I also have a further understanding of how I can develop my skills and what I need to do to improve my performance within whichever role. Outside of any ’roles’ however, utterly clueless.

Each time I sense a new adult human link is forming, you’d think I’d get better at navigating it, and one day I will (she says). You’d think I’d learn to more ably deal with the hurt of them vanishing (when they do), but I don’t. At least not yet. I find myself bemused, confused, hurt and upset for a whole load of reasons I don’t understand. Tricky, especially because I have minimal skills at navigating my own emotional world, and so I manage it as best I can which is mostly poorly.

For many years, I’ve tried to gently warn people who have become friends of whatever kind to me that I tend to end up upsetting people or they get mad with me for whatever reason, even though I usually don’t know what I did or didn’t do. I figured (past tense) that it was best to explain ahead of time that for reasons I can’t yet seem to grasp, that peer connection with me doesn’t usually end well. For each of those who has had the gentle ‘heads up’ given to them, every one of those links has also not ended well. The only additionally fallout more recently is that because they wholeheartedly promised me that it wouldn’t happen with them like that and then does...well, I don't know how to navigate it.

It could be argued that I have created a self-fulfilling prophesy by giving this ‘heads up’ to people, and maybe I have. The plan is to not do it again (aside from writing it here), as doing so hasn’t produced different results to what was happening before I began this self-imposed ineffective relational intervention strategy. If a definition of madness (of one kind) is to keep doing the same thing but expecting different results, then I do need to stop that way of trying to protect anyone who pursues any kind of adult link with me. It doesn’t work. Not for them or me, so it’s time to stop. I will stop. That’s that decision made. Good.

With all this content written and shared, what are we neurodiverse-ites to do with this relational stuff? How are we to navigate adult links and manage the breakdown of adult relationships of all kinds? I most definitely do not have all the answers, clearly not, as I’m mid-processing these things. However, I do have some advice I’m going to try living out.

My aims:

1.        Continue to do all I can for those I encounter and be cheery about it (while not allowing myself to get too connected to them).

2.        Realise that I don’t need to earn acceptance by conforming for conforming’s sake. That I am free to be who and how I am while I try and do the best I can with my own survival and with how I interact with all humans. 

3.        Be kind.

4.        Don’t allow any affirmations of me to become too powerful. Simply just carrying on doing what I do, the best way I can at the time, the best way I know how to at the time and not to become reliant on any affirmation from anyone to be too much of a fuel for me.

5.        Value the people who are in my ‘now’. Treat them well (or as well as I know how to) for as long as they are there. Accept that they might (for any reason and at any moment) vanish. Learn more about how best to navigate that as I live it.

I don’t know that this will work but I will try. In a sense, it was what I was already doing, even if it didn’t help me recently. However, when I look at those things logically, there is nothing in my 5 steps of a plan that I think is a bad idea. Maybe my recent failing was to get too attached in a seemingly symbiotic connection that ended up apparently not being, or was, but just for a season. 

We live in a world full of unique humans. Those humans will have several varying general tendencies regarding behaviours and ways, but ultimately, there is not another human who is exactly as we are or who has the exact same experiences as we have had. With that in mind, maybe it is more than fine for us to do the best we can as we navigate life as an individual and in our links and relationships with other individuals/groups.

As I tend to frequently write, there is ‘now’. ‘Now’ has much within it that is good, right? Situations might be complicated and there will undoubtedly be things we’d like to be different in some ways, but maybe (with an intentional look at it all) there is good to be found in ‘now’. I believe there is. And as for the friendship and all things relational…I aim to keep going and see who I bump into (literally or metaphorically) along the way, making the best of all the ‘nows’ that happen as they happen. I’ll try it. I already know each encounter changes us in whatever way, whoever we are and whatever the encounter.

One thing I am increasingly sure of in all of this is that we are all linked, us humans. It’s as if that is ‘By Design’. I think it is By Design.