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Korvan
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18 Mar 2017, 3:12 pm

Social media has become something that has only made my struggles with autism worse. I only have a social media account to basically keep in touch with my close friends and family so I don't need this massive friends list - only about 30 people or less who I see or talk to on a daily basis.

All of these people have known me for 16+ years to know about my autism and the struggles I have with both online and offline communication.

My younger cousin is about 8 years younger than myself, he will be 20 this year and is still in that teenage mindset. Last week he posted a rant about autism and mental health and dropped the word 'fam' into it along with a very specific message which sounded like something I had written to him. He knows I have a problem with people misinterpreting my communication difficulties as 'attention-seeking' and only came into our lives two years ago after decades of being separated from our family - it's clear he has a vendetta on his dad and although he denies the status was specific towards any one person he wrote a very specific example of 'someone using their autism as a means of attention' that four of my family members picked up as being direct to myself.

Even though my parents have deleted contact with him and my gran, I still don't know what to believe. I know they have borderline traits and therefore I need a second input.

Does it sound as though my cousin is being horrible to myself? Surely my family would not be this angry and delete him if it was not serious? Also, my dad never deletes people from Facebook, this is the first time he's been pushed to do it which is completely out of character from him and he's very level-headed.



hurtloam
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18 Mar 2017, 3:50 pm

Hmm it does seem like your family have picked up on an unspoken subtext.

It's up to you whether you delete him or not.

What would you gain from deleting him? What would you lose? Which is the better outcome. Does he deserve a second chance or are all his posts toxic and negative?



Summer_Twilight
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19 Mar 2017, 9:36 am

If your family isn't comfortable with him then you have some red flags that are already present. Based on what you have told me, he sounds toxic and destructive because he's perhaps an unhappy person. Most unhappy people do whatever they can to make you feel miserable because they feel that way about themselves.

Has he put you down like this before?



solo
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20 Mar 2017, 2:29 am

If it was me and was obvious to my family that it was directed towards me, I would have absolutely zero regret deleting him. I have no tolerance for people in my life like that.