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My old therapist: I don’t think your autistic you seem to be fine socially
My mom my entire childhood: punishing me for doing the wrong emotion/facial expression, explicitly teaching me how to answer a phone or go to a party, making me read etiquette books, etc
Like my mom “taught” me rules for going to a party. Here they are (with my additions from years of party going wrapped in):
- Get invite
- rsvp asap/clearly
- at some point affirm this person “can’t wait for the party”
- depending on location/reason/type of party be on time or late (sometimes it’s rude to be on time)
- day of (usually shortly before) contact host “can I bring something?”
- arrive with gift for host or shareable food/drink
- work the room: say hi to people introduce people with shared interests you know about, ask friends you know about stories they love to tell, ask strangers about themselves, if you notice someone lonely engage with them
- stay appropriate time (again, context rules apply)
- offer to clean up (in midwest culture it’s like Peter, they will deny thrice before they hear the roosters crow/lateness of the hour) start to physically pick up cans or trash as you offer to indicate with body language this is a real offer & not just ceremonial.
- stay to clean up an appropriate time (again, contextual, stay until the group size feels roughly equivalent to the emotional intimacy that your friendship has- if you’ve never hung out one on one, staying to clean until it’s just the two of you may be over stepping bounds unless there are indicators it’s not)
- the next day (or two days after i guess) text them “omg that party was so fun, when xyz happened I felt abc, thanks so much for the invite!!!!”
I have like explained this to people and I feel like I’ve been accused of being manipulative or lying? But it’s more so that I genuinely feel these things but am not always sure of the appropriate way to communicate an appropriate level of emotionality. And having rules to follow makes that simpler/easier? And with spacey adhd stuff adding a “oh I should communicate with this person” as a cute friendship task helps me to remember to do it or not feel weird about it.
I’m often very intrigued by the way people talk about masking or about accommodating for neurodivergence and Altho a lot of it was traumatic at times, I am at times thankful for how my parents both approach social situations and how much they tried to impart/teach me that. I’m much much better at it than my sisters because they forced me to be in situations I was often painfully uncomfortable with until I could mask well. It’s very odd because they are given so much room and safe spaces, but that has not better equipped them to handle the world, but I was traumatized but learned to swim after a good deal of sinking. I’m still coughing up the water in my lungs, all the chlorine I swallowed learning to keep myself afloat. There’s no good solution or way to handle it I can see. The world is simply not built for that.