i just gotta write this out somewhere. my father was abusive towards my mother and for many years it gave me an intense fear of men and to this day a general panic response to raised voices and sudden (perceived) aggression.
most of my friends are autistic (as am i) and one of them has really bad pathological demand avoidance which causes him (amongst other things) to be loud and aggressive in tone when his mother asks him to do stuff. he’s always really apologetic about it bc it’s completely involuntary but it triggers that response in me which sends me into a loop of feeling bad for feeling bad about something and bc i can’t hide it, it sometimes sends him into the same loop which gives me a double loop of feeling bad about having felt bad causing someone else to feel bad about having felt bad and sometimes it sends him into that same loop.
logically i know that i haven’t done anything wrong and can’t fix it and it just hits a bad spot in our brains but i still always feel like i’ve done something wrong and need to fix it. that said, it’s really comforting to know that someone else gets in the same loops even if there’s different causes 🙂
edit: we’ve been close friends for years, this is literally the ONLY negative thing in our relationship. we often joke about being doppelgangers, he’s the only person ik who understands it which is what makes it so hard when it happens between us.
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Give yourself space for this person if you are able to do so without extreme guilt. I have been in similar positions. You want to fix people but sometimes it’s too much for you to do and you’ll burn you
Ah I’m so sorry that sounds like a tragic situation all around but unfortunately I do think you guys shouldn’t be in each other’s company… It sounds unhealthy for you both…..
Learn to manage better or end the friendship. If you’re locked into responses, train yourself for another reaponse. A good life skills therapist can help.
I am triggered by many neurodivergent behaviors, being loud is definitely one of them. I’m pretty sure I’m neurodivergent as well and even if not, I have CPTSD. One of my neuro friends does this thing when we’re walking somewhere, where she constantly crowds me and like walks into me or so super close to me. It drives me up a fucking wall. The reaction it triggers in me is crazy. I want to scream for her to get out of my personal space. She’s really sensitive so I am always reluctant to tell her but that’s on me. I have a right to my space and a right to speak up for myself and my not doing it isn’t really a healthy behavior.
I know that my reluctance to speak up and my feelings of guilt, all stem from my childhood. I also know I’m not responsible for other people’s feelings. Even logically knowing all of this, I still struggle to pull the trigger. One of my main addictions is tormenting myself with guilt though. This is all stuff that just takes time and active retraining of the brain. It’s just not easy to do and the process of healing can be slow. I hope it happens someday but it definitely won’t happen if I don’t put in the work. I try to remember this when I get really complacent in my healing journey.
This is a very unique situation and really hard to give advice on. I’d say so long as both of you are working on improving then grace is warranted. Both issues are treatable and non static, and even though they may not disappear they can improve and you both can find strategies.
Does your friend see a therapist or are actively working toward lessening symptoms? I understand it’s involuntary but treatment is also important. My mom had a whole host of trauma disorders from an abusive childhood, and one symptom was rage. She was an amazing mother otherwise, she did the best she could with what she had. We all are lol! But when she added therapy, it helped immensely. Change was slow but over many years, she had gone from screaming and breaking things to screaming at worst, and then to a point where her yelling was infrequent. The symptoms were still there, but dulled because she had learned coping mechanisms, behavior modification techniques, ect.
If your friend is unwilling to put forth effort to try, and has succumbed to the thought that they have not an ounce of control in it, I don’t see y’all’s relationship working out. I have the same reaction to yelling too. I had a panic attack as a McDonald’s cashier when a dude was screaming at me about his burger, I had to go to the break room for 20 minutes trying to deep breathe and remind myself of where I’m at. If this is happening frequently, it’s sending your nervous system into a spiral. The effects panic episodes aren’t confined to the actual episode, those leave me tired and more anxious than usual for the rest of the day. I’m guessing they have the same effect on you. It’s okay to love somebody but need to spend less time together for your own mental health. Check in with yourself before accepting an invitation, do you have the emotional spoons for it?
Also you could leave when you feel it coming on, even if you just go outside until it’s over. I’ve learned over the years that it’s good to have a plan in place when I know I’m walking into potentially upsetting situations. Just thinking over what coping mechanisms I’ll use, where I’ll hide out to ride out the panic if my coping mechanisms fail, and at what point I’ll leave. Some days I even do one for Walmart lol!
Be kind to yourself OP. I have the same trigger, I CANNOT handle men being aggressive. When it does happen, I need plenty of time to recover. Why would you need less recovery time than the rest of us? Always put your needs first and in doing so, you’ll be a better friend to those around you. <3 <3 <3
I am 28 years old. I have met so many high-school and college-age kids saying that they have autism of some kind.
About 95 percent of the time, they appeared to act completely normal. No learning issues, no physical limitations, just this word to describe something they felt was “odd” about themselves.
My opinion is that parents allowed these children to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with them, and provided them with a label so society wouldn’t challenge the socially awkward behavior.
I am in no way arguing that autism is a real medical diagnosis with real world implications. I am arguing that too many children are being misdiagnosed as autistic over minor tempermental/behavioral differences.
When i was young, I truly believed I was autistic because I was severely bullied and couldn’t seem to change the outcome. I assumed I was physically incapable of picking up certain social cues. You know what getting bullied all the way through my education taught me? How to avoid getting bullied. How to make friends. How to have enriching relationships that had medium to long term benefits.
Society beat the “socially awkward” out of me. That’s how society is supposed to work.
Its not fun when you have to learn the lesson. But learning the lesson means you get better at the game.
Sometimes people are just not compatible. You can wish all day long that you guys were, but sometimes you have to care about people from afar.
Are you on any medication? If not, then try valerian root tincture. Add it to water and sip it when you start to feel stress, it can turn it down a bit. If you are on medication, ask your doctor, it’s quite well known so they’ll be able to tell you if it will interact with anything else you are on.
Yeah, sometimes our symptoms just bump into each other like that. It’s not really anyone’s fault, it’s just a fact of having relationships.
I know you mentioned therapy isn’t guaranteed. If you can access it, EMDR therapy is wonderful for clearing triggers, especially those from childhood trauma. If not, research EFT (emotional freedom technique) and how to do it on yourself. I was totally at the mercy of my triggers until I discovered these tools. If you have any questions about how to EFT on yourself, DM me – I have some resources.
Is there a reason you have to hang out at his house? It seems to me like meeting in public or at your house would solve the problem.
I completely get where you are coming from. Just be honest and create space when needed. It sounds like what you are already doing. And I appreciate you pointing out that sometimes, especially with people who are neurodivergent, that it is not always something that can be helped. No more than a diabetic can stop being diabetic. And remember that neither of you are doing anything wrong. Don’t blame yourself for having your own needs and triggers.
My whole household is neurodivergent. Most of the time it works well because there is an understanding that neurotypical people rarely have. But when issues arrive, we tend to create safe communication spaces to allow us to move past those episodes.
Well it does sound like you deeply appreciate the friendship and want to make it work as it’s good overall. The long answer might be to rewire your brain with neuroscience, your brain can learn new patterns. Your brain doesn’t have to do these loops forever. You get to decide what patterns your brain creates. These patterns are currently very familiar. So it’ll take time and dedication to unlearn and relearn ideal thought patterns. It’s not an overnight fix but something a good therapist or psychologist with neuro-plasticity experience can help you in if that’s something you’d be interested in.
I don’t think that him being mean to his mother (who he possibly lives with?) is something he should just say is because he’s neurodivergent or that you should have to deal with it. It’s ok to set a boundary for your relationship that you won’t be present when this mistreatment of her is occurring and he can either abide or spend less time with you.
Check out IFS (internal family systems) and find a therapist who is trained in it. This form of therapy is life-changing and life-saving.
Maybe you can work on the loop. The first reaction is there and probably you can’t really do anything about it, but acknowledging that it hurts and try to work on not starting the « feeling guilty » part could help a bit. Allow yourself to isolate or something when it happens, to get back on track, and not fall into the loop. I also have these loops sometimes, feeling bad because I feel bad and so on, and I try to not fight the first one, just the loop. Not sure if I make sense 😀
Hey, sometimes you can like a person but your gears don’t fit. Your can also split ways on good terms, without anyone being at fault. I had a similar situation once.Â
I started doing therapy, including stationary therapy, to finally face my demons from my childhood after they rendered me incapable of living my life anymore. One of my closest friends was involuntarily put into a psychiatry as a young teenager where they suffered abuse. So when i started my therapy sessions, they got triggered and that triggered me, since i waited for help for so long because my abusers told me i wasn’t allowed to get it. You know, noone was at fault here, noone could change. But we definitely had to split ways, for both of our sanity and health.
 I think your situation is very similar. Not only are you triggered by their behavior due to a trauma you had no fault in receiving. Also your trauma response will create a very bad feeling in your friend, who probably already suffers from a lot of problems due to their neuro divergence. They cannot change. You cannot change. Your two can only protect each other and learn to make good boundaries without fight, fault or fear.Â
Separate ways as friends.Â
Don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm
Do you go to therapy? I have the same trauma response and it does get triggered by people talking aggressively. But working through it in therapy has helped a lot with being able to separate the emotions. You can have these feelings and still really value your friendship. It isn’t their fault, and neither is it yours. It’s about getting comfortable with things not being in your control and recentering yourself when those things come up. I don’t like a lot of these answers simply saying you shouldn’t hang out with them. That’s a massively oversimplified answer that doesn’t help you solve a problem within yourself, all that does is move the problem. It seems like you enjoy with person in every other way, so that would be extreme and not helpful to you learning how to cope better.