very wounded by best friends comments

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like many of us here, i'm a HFA but with a lifetime background of vague and various deep rooted "issues". i went through hell during childhood & teens but also became very adept at masking my asd-isms but after the 'wheels fell off' a couple of times, i eventually was diagnosed ASD in jan 2013.
my best friend to this day fails to believe i have ASD and he thinks i am fictionalising it for personal gain- since the start he has said some hurtful or kinda weird things about me not really having ASD but yesterday was the final straw when yesterday he said something along the lines of i am taking him for a fool ( re my autism).
he also told me not to mention it to him ever again.


i am upset on so many levels
- he has only known me 3 years
- i haven't shown him the extent of my struggles, i work so hard to function and still mask a lot of it
- he has never asked me any questions about how my ASD affects me
- he doesn't know anything about ASD other than a very basic overview
- diagnosis isn't a walk in the park, mine took 18 months and extensive assessment
- why would I want to fake something so crippling to me which effectively has ruined and will ruin most of my chances at a normal life
- he is questioning the very core of me, my most inner and intimate identity. i have tried to explain to him in the past how somethings can fluctuate based on my anxiety levels but my ASD-roots don't change, but lots of exterior factors can affect how i may 'present' at any given time. he hasn't taken onboard a word of this.
- do I have to put up with this and what should i do about our friendship?


i'm still reeling.

my asd profoundly affects me & i don't feel the need to justify how much of that to anyone and i do not share the full scope of this to anyone - even less so now - due to the resistance and stigma obviously being alive and well.
other people who love and care for me have been great. my work colleagues haven't been great either though. this is all very damaging to my self esteem, but coming from my best friend.. ugh..
i feel like i have been stabbed in the guts though. we haven't talked since.

I'm very sorry he's treating you this shabby way. What he is doing is called "invalidating" and there is another recent thread on Invalidation here:

https://www.wrongplanet.net/forums/view ... p?t=286726

Yep....he has a very narrow view of AS.

In his awkward way, he's trying to help you. I think his intentions are good, but he is misguided.

He's trying to "normalize" you--he could be scared, on some level, of your disorder.

He believes, like many people, that mere "willpower" will make your problems go away. He doesn't understand the complexity of Aspergers.

I feel, unless you're springing off him,that he must respect you for who you are. He
has to broaden his knowledge of ASDs. Tell him to please do some research on it.

In the meantime, tell him to respect you, while you continue to try to adjust to the world even amid you ASD.

What was good about the friendship?

In such situations I try to ask myself: "Do I have fun when I am with this person? Do I feel good after we have spent time together ?"

If the answers are yes then I consider it an association that benefits me and I continue it.

If one or more answers are "no" then I tag the association as less beneficial, and consider either limiting or eliminating it.

you guys are right, i start to doubt if this friendship is any good for me at all. probably more an infatuation on my part. i do not feel good when i am around this person as it is quite an abusive relationship. he is very critical of me and quite insulting about me in lots of ways. the ASD comment hurt me so bad due to how the implication was that i am some kind of evil manipulator to use fake ASD to get an easy ride or something which couldn't be further from the truth - i work so hard against it, i work in a job full time, i suffer in silence when things get bad for me and i rarely talk about the depths of my life time struggle with the ASDisms - i also am adverse to being the centre of attention so it is not attention seeking nor do i want any sympathy!

i think this friendship may need to come to an end. it was the most disrespectful thing anyone has ever said to me and if i can allow that, then i have no respect for myself.

I relate very strongly to everything in your post, Raf_19.

It can especially happen with people who are able to mask many of their worst issues arising from ASD, that the people in their lives cannot believe their diagnosis and refuse to believe they "have it," or that the challenges ASD causes are real or serious. I too have strenuously tried to live all my life masking and hiding my true difficulties just so not to be a burden even momentarily, but it can be a thing that backfires.

I've often thought to myself, based on my own experiences, that when you're high functioning enough to almost "pass" as NT/normal, and to make strenuous efforts to mask your worst challenges, it almost does yourself a disservice in an odd reversed way, because it makes others think there really is "nothing wrong with you."

Then when you either inform someone of your diagnosis or -- worse -- part of what's worst about your ASD challenges come busting out all over from you like the stomach scene in Alien, the people who saw the "normal" you are shocked or in denial, or mock you.

I've had this experience with a friend also, and it hurt me to get this attitude from him. He literally, physically laughed in my face. But, like your friend too, my friend had not even witnessed everything about me in all kinds of moments in life, enough to assess anything about me.

He didn't know enough about either the autism spectrum OR in fact about me in all my various colors, to even say "I don't think you have ASD." I shouldn't feel as hurt, then, surely? He doesn't know me well enough to even deny to me what my favorite food or movie is, let alone something more substantial like my neurological functioning. But yet it still hurt because, yes, it is invalidating.

As others have said, try to evaluate what is still good about this friendship. If it comes up lacking in more than just this, you may be better off cutting down the amount of time you spend with a person this invalidating (who wants to constantly hear "No you're not!" "No you don't!" "No you aren't!") or eliminating them from your life.

I get a feeling that your friend somehow falsely looks down on you. He seems to take you very lightly. If he had any respect for you, he wouldn't so readily and completely deny what you say about your important personal matters. As others suggested, you might need to reevaluate this friendship. His view of this friendship might have been quite different from what you regarded it as.