Friends

Many times, as autistic adults, the word “friends” can seem like a scary or hard word to digest.

Some of us may want friends and some of us may want to run away from the fact of connecting to someone we have to “get to know.”

You see, our brains don’t always allow us to understand the pragmatics of how to interact with others to have a connection with them.

It is many times either too little or too much effect that can come across as not wanting to or being so overpowering that we scare friends away.

It has taken me a long time to get to where I am today in this regard.

My parents always say, “it never hurts to have friends in your life.”

More and more as I am on my own, I am starting to think that they are right.

For life, especially if you spend a great deal of time on your own can be quite lonely and sad.

I know that I do enjoy my independence, it just takes understanding the pragmatics that it involves.

But for autistic adults, it must come to them in their time and in a way that is comfortable for them.

For times, I was pushed in a way that could be coerced or misunderstood to us.

Doing this can set us back into ways that can make us regress in the realm of friendships.

For being connected to others must be in a way that is comfortable and safe to us.

If we learn how to be safe and respected as autistic adults, getting what we want to be who we want should be the only priority for the goal.

It should be what we want and not what others have plotted out for us.

For we need to be seen past being the identity of being autistic and just being who we are as any other adult.