Troublesome People – a New Year’s Resolution. #autism

 

SKATING ON THE THIN ICE OF MEMORY – Sonia Boué 2017

A post about unhelpful relationships. 

You’re fantastic! I’m blown away by how many of you lovely readers have found your way to this site and even returned multiple times this year.  Though I recently hit a dry spell I’ve returned to my stats page with a thrill.

I’m so grateful, because writing on The Other Side has been incredibly freeing for me. As an invisibly disabled person, I know that online blogs can be a lifeline – and mine has enabled me to spread my wings both personally and professionally in so many ways. Having company along the way has been the proverbial cherry.

My golden rules for writing are twofold. I’m careful to write mainly about myself, and try not to speak for others. I also write from experience. This has been vital in finding my voice, and in gaining the confidence to write what’s uppermost in my mind.

Along with some pretty fabulous events and opportunities this year, I’ve had cause to understand my vulnerability in relationships. It isn’t easy to own it.

But this can be a real problem for us – perhaps especially so for the late diagnosed autistic – who may have learned false coping strategies in relationships. We may need to learn a new and very particular discernment in the people we allow into our lives. For some of us it may be news that we even have choices where people are concerned.

It pains me to say that we might more easily be a target for unhealthy advances, but I think we often can be – unless we get wise, that is. In my professional life I’m a mentor to others, and I feel a responsibility to share my growing sense of heightened vulnerability in certain areas.

Apropos of which, I’ve begun to notice a particular type of advance from what I will call the faux enabler, who can present in many forms. Such individuals seek to help others as a way of gaining social currency, or even to obscure their own vulnerabilities. To be fair, they may not be aware of their own motivations – it can be a shock to some of us whose survival has depended on the ability to be deeply introspective and self-critical, that others don’t apply the same rigour to their lives. We ourselves are surely not without fault, but we’re often more prone to fall into self-doubt and try to ‘right’ ourselves (in my experience).

Unfortunately, autism can offer a touch of glamour for such minds. The trouble with this should be obvious, and it often is for family and friends, who may try to warn you that you’re the target of an unhealthy interest. My advice is to listen.

But I’m of the view that gauging the genuine enabler is not as hard as it may seem at first. There are some clear markers. Genuine enablers tend to keep a healthy distance while offering concrete, discernible assistance (of the kind which is actually needed) without making too much noise about it.

The faux enabler, in stark contrast, will zoom in and make constant demands on your attention. At first this can be flattering – you are being wooed. But it’s only a question of time before the intense emotional needs of the faux enabler begin to surface. Once more it may not be obvious. Often we have may have adapted to be kind beyond the norm. We may feel uncomfortable, but still we ignore the warning signs. Mixed signals may be to blame for our confusion – this in itself is a clue. Being ‘nice’ while messing with your head is reason enough to run for the hills.

Yes, giving your attention to such people is to lose your centre of gravity ultimately, because their need to be needed is so vast that you will likely be sucked into a vortex of unhelpful helpfulness. Again, I honestly think this may be unconscious in some cases, but this doesn’t make it any less troublesome to deal with.

Attention grabbers, in retrospect, were always obvious. The thing to grasp is how very smoke and mirrors some people can be – heaping praise and attention on you, while perhaps trying to separate you from a core group of friends and/or dominating all the spaces you might naturally inhabit. This should be a red light, but in the moment it can feel quite natural, and even be pleasurable until you begin to notice that something is wrong. You have been socially seduced with a view to ownership – in the more extreme cases.

The key to it all, I reckon, is to be wary of any person paying too close attention to you, while indulging in blanket flattery. If this is not a romantic relationship apply the brakes at once. It’s important to understand that you don’t have to reciprocate. This is neither unfriendly or cruel. The faux enabler will soon find a new target.

Genuine enablers are usually more discerning and are able to step back into their own lives. Anyone who offers to back you up without such discernment doesn’t actually have your best interests at heart. Deep down what they want is to keep you tied to them.

Manipulation is quite an art, and I’m currently reading an interesting novel called, based on a true story, by Delphine de Vigan. Being fiction (and a thriller at that) it is an extreme and ultimately violent example – but the patterns of faux enablement are spot on.

It plots the trajectory of a relationship which ultimately serves to immobilise and almost destroy the first person narrator. Delphine plays with what she calls “the Real” in her fiction – the book is perhaps autobiographical to a point, but she deconstructs the form as the novel progresses – and you never quite know where the boundaries lie. I was intrigued by this conceit.

In choosing this book, I was conscious of looking for further confirmation of my thinking  on this subject (novelists can be so observationally wise).

It’s perhaps important to conclude with the view that faux enablers are not necessarily ‘bad people’ per se. They may have good intentions which are simply maladaptive. This is tricky, because the truly malicious person may be easier to discern and disengage from. In the end it doesn’t really matter – the only thing which does matter is you. Withdrawing from a toxic relationship is more important than being able to make a judgement on another person’s motivations, in terms of survival this is irrelevant information.

Owning our vulnerabilities and self-safeguarding come together, in my view. There is no way around this, but knowing it brings greater fortitude where social manipulation is concerned. Such wisdom is hard won and worth holding on to despite the pain of understanding that we may be susceptible to being played.

So my New Year’s resolution is to take a deep breath, and step back in making new relationships as a matter of course. And I do so hope this post will be helpful to others.

A peaceful and happy 2018 to you all.

NB The photograph which accompanies this post is of a work which focuses Anglo Spanish childhood. The book is an English translation of the poems of Federico García Lorca. Lorca was in-prisoned and executed by the Fascist insurgents under the command of General Franco, who later became Spain’s dictator for almost 40 years. 

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