The Value of Having Friends Who Understand You

As I have regularly noted on this blog for most of my life I have been greatly misunderstood by both my family and the world in general. I have had very few true friends and can count on one hand the number of long term friendships I have had in my life. Most people have thought that I was arrogant, eccentric, hard to work with, cold, rude and standoffish and while others have not been able to deal with my energy levels and the attention that I give to things. It was only when I came to understand that I have Asperger’s Syndrome and even more so when I became willing to discuss it with others that things started to change for me.

It was not until Thanksgiving that I was even willing to discuss Asperger’s Syndrome with anyone. I thought that I might have it when I met the ex-girlfriend and noticed how many similarities there were between her personality and my own, but I never discussed that with anyone. On Thanksgiving Rikki was watching me eat dinner and having known me for years and seen me at both my best and worst had the guts to tell me that I needed to consider the fact that I have Aspergers’. It was still another two months before I was actually willing to discuss the subject with other people. But once I started to discuss having Asperger’s with others, I started to realize that I was not alone in the things that I have dealt with my entire life.

Even though I had photographed her at several events last year, I first actually introduced myself to M after a fashion show in January. As I was going to send her photos from the event I noticed on her time line she had written that she is an autism advocate. This prompted me to ask her about her advocacy and to open up about my having the condition. M has been very helpful in her friendship. She has a teenage son who has Asperger’s and has been able to share insights on how she has watched him function with the disorder. She has also been able to share insights on the challenges in raising a child with Asperger’s. But where she has been most helpful is in her encouragement of me to get out there and talk to others about it. She has encouraged me to blog about it, to begin to pursue a photography project with the local chapter of Autism Speaks and to make new friends who are either on the spectrum or have family or loved ones who are on the spectrum.

Being open about sharing my struggles and experiences has opened up the opportunity for me to connect with many new people. Having new friends and acquaintances on the spectrum has helped me to understand that I am not the only one who experiences many of the things that up until a few short months ago I thought were unique to me. I am not the only one who has food sensitivities. I am not the only one who has a hard time making new friends. I am not the only one who has sensory overload and meltdowns during stressful situations. I am not the only one who doesn’t like when people invade my personal space. I could go on and on about the things that I thought were unique struggles to me but that I now understand that I share with many other people. The other thing that being open about sharing my experiences has done for me though is to enable more people to reach out to me due to seeing my posts about the autistic spectrum. Thus in the short time that I have been publicly talking about things I have been able to encourage others to talk about their challenges on the spectrum and to encourage them to live life to the fullest! To quote M “if I can help but one person then all of this is worth it!” And that is definitely a much better feeling to have than the feeling that I had of being misunderstood my entire life!!!

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!!!