To think this was unbelievably cruel and evil?

[PleaseMakeTheNightmaresStop]

having flashbacks, again. So panicked. So stupid it was 7 years ago.
How can they do this to me but they are ok, they get to have good lives!
I was suicidal and struggling, undiagnosed autism. Id been very supportive to a friend. The whole group cut me out, with no warning. they stood in the way so I couodnt have dinner with them, and called the police to take me away. i trusted them. it keeps going through ym head

How could they be so evil? One of them used to always get horribly pissed and disrupt parties and be violent to people, and she never got exlcuded. why did I? how could they? WHy do they get to be happy but i struggle so much, cos im so worthless and terrified of everyone cos i cant trust anyone, im so scared

Please I think you'll find much more understanding, empathy and support in this group...

www.facebook.com/groups/172742736208005/

Bother all the perfect people.
Nice.
It's not their job to support you. They don't have to if they don't want to. They don't have to be your friends. But you can't see further than your own needs and illness.
I have anxiety and depression. I manage my condition. I don't go hammering on doors of friends when I can't cope and have to have the police called to get me to leave. If you can't see your behaviour was unreasonable then I don't know what to do.
The way they cut you out was unkind. But you sound so intense and like you dramatise everything. You have to be the centre of everything. Your needs trump what anyone else wants or needs and you can't seem to see it from anyone else's point of view.

OP I feel bad for you as you are suffering. I want you to feel better.
The desperation about being abandoned by your friends smacks of BPD for me though OP and if it is that which you have instead of/as well as ASD then no amount of ASD support-not that any exists-will help.
Your emotions are chaotic and frightening. Things which other people might feel sad or annoyed at, you find evil and unbelievable.
I don't know what their perceptions were. Perhaps they should have been transparent in saying 'look, we don't know what to do, so we can't have more to do with you as you need proper help'. Perhaps they were just cunts.
What you cannot do is change other people's behaviour. What you can do, particularly with BPD but with any other emotional difficulty, is learn to manage how you emotionally react to other people's behaviour. Which is necessary, and a life skill, because lots of people are cunts.
Keep on at the crisis team, keep on breathing. Learn grounding techniques for the flashbacks-they aren't real, you are safe. You are safe despite other people being nasty. You just need to be taught how to feel safe.
I am glad they are listening more to you. I think you deserve praise for coping everyday with your difficulties.
Just a note though, drinking is also a symptom of mental distress sometimes. It is just through a different means. So other people also feel like you sometimes. In the nicest way it isn't a competition. We only know our own pain, we cannot compare it. You cannot know if yours is worse or not, only that yours is awful now.
I wish you luck.

I don't understand why the op is getting such appalling responses here. But unfortunately this thread shows exactly how people, including me, are treated by people who don't understand or don't want to understand. Like it's the op's fault for having asd, for suffering, for wanting some human contact, for "dwelling" - seriously wtf
For what it's worth op I get it and I'm there with you. I don't know what the answer is, I don't know why we are constantly excluded wherever we turn and I don't know if it will get better but I hope so.
Some of you - please think about what you're typing. It's not fair game because it's in aibu, this is a human being reaching out from rock bottom and your words can have consequences.

Thanks mags that's really helpful actually.

I’m glad I really, really do hope you find a way to come to terms with it.

@Wolfiefan I think you’re being unnecessarily harsh to someone in need of help. We’re actually making similar points but you’re coming across quite aggressively.

Unfortunately when distress gets to a certain point people who don't understand it don't know what else to do, it is beyond their comprehension. I do feel that when you are that individual, as hard as it is, you need to take some responsibility in seeking help elsewhere rather than blaming the people who can not cope with you. As horrible, horrible that feels.

Op, I think uou understand your perception of situations may not be based in reality. Your interpretation of others reactions may not be right.

Yes these people were socialising without you. Yes maybe it had become too much for them, as sad as that is, it's very difficult when dealing with someone very ill. Every situation becomes about them and their needs. Supporting them. It can become stressful, exhausting, disturbing.

Whatever happened to cause them to call the police would have been significant. The fact you were hospitalised shows that to be the case. I know you argue if you'd been let in that wouldn't have happened. But again you were asking them to make their social occasion about you.whether you knew it or not.

Sometimes even with the best of intentions people can reach the end of the level of support they can give. They need to protect themselves and their own mental health,

Them looking at you "coldly" or like you were no longer human, was probably shock at the situation that suddenly occurred . And fear. Fear of what was happening and what you were going to do. Fear and lack of understanding of your behaviour. You were in pain and distress in your own words. Sometimes that can be scarey for people to deal with. It seems from calling rhe police they were scared. Scared for you. Scared for them.

I know you can't move past this, but I think you maybe have to try to see if from their perspective and understand that they were likely not being cruel or evil. They were just scared and unable to deal with it.

Lots of people are just a bit useless and unable to deal with difficult situations/emotions. It's horrible when you're on the other end of it, but a lot of us will have been useless ourselves in the past, especially when younger with less experience of life - if I recall correctly your friends were in their 20s?

They were unkind and they should have dealt with the situation better, but unfortunately that's humans for you.

Hope you feel better soon.

Oh OP, that does sound very hard to take. I'm really sorry your friends weren't able to support you

.

I think the fact that your friend is on the spectrum herself makes it likely she could have got the wrong end of the stick when it comes to telling you what went on with your group of friends (their decision regarding you). She also told you years afterwards. Time can have an impact on memories.

Wrt the friend who shares with you when she is low - it's important for people with porous boundaries to resist the impulse to become so important to someone else and to let someone else become so important to you.
I just cant look at someone in pain and not phsycially feel the ache in my chest myself. This is going to drag you down. It is a problem you must seek help for. It's not a positive.
It is especially important not to let the sort of symbiotic relationship that you seem to crave take the place of the support of the mental health services that are out there.

You are looking for something that MH services very rightly can't and won't give - a hug and someone who cares. You are looking for a sticking plaster, someone who will enable you to remain the way you are, not someone who will challenge you to confront habits of mind associated with a personality disorder, or someone who wants you to practice healthy thinking habits, or take medication.

You have a fixed idea that one way of doing things (yours) is good, and other people's ways are evil. This is a barrier to moving forward.

Jesu Do you reallythink I was cruel, evil and heartless ? I’m not like that, that’s not me and I thought I was doing the right thing.

Well it doesn't sound like you were cruel and evil to me, from what you've said. It's complicated though - there's not a general rule, more like a mathematical formula taking into account other factors...

Eg. I looked after a suicidal person, one-on-one observation basically, for several days. This was in another country (neither him or me from that country) so the stakes were higher as no mental health team to send him to, no close friends or family around etc. So from that POV/part of the "formula" the responsibility fell more to me. But being in that country/situation also meant I was not in paid/regular hours employment at the time, and no children, so was able to "drop everything" - another part of the formula, as it were.

Obviously in the situation you describe these things were totally different - childcare responsibilities, employment/looking after a home, etc., to some extent potential help from mental health services etc (this obviously varies massively). Does that make sense? Also, he wanted to spend time at family events etc which is totally different from my situation (unless he had a long history of being "part of the family" I suppose) which was a group of us who (very) regularly spent time together. And it sounds like pre-arranged times wouldn't have worked for him, whereas it would have been massively helpful for me (if I'd been invited - as I normally would have been - to dinner earlier in the day, I'd have been able to use looking forward to it as part of coping and would have been able to be all chipper later on, even if I didn't totally feel it).

Hey op, I think this thread might get a bit circular as people are, fairly enough, trying to help you by explaining alternative perspectives. But, I’m not sure that’s helpful to you as you’re in the middle of it.

I had ptsd (I’m not autistic) and when I got to the top of the waiting list I found the mixture of clinical psychologist intervention and psychiatric very helpful. I’m just saying this to encourage you that in the end the waiting lists can provide something helpful (as you said you’re on a waiting lists).

It’s be Worth revisiting you gp and asking if there are out of area autism services you could go on the waiting list for. I used to work for one (NHS) which takes people from across the country. But the waiting lists are very long.

I hope things improve for you.

You've said that you were in a desperate place so I'm wondering if you've maybe misunderstood or forgot how you came across to them? There is definitely something else gone on that you are oblivious too.

IMO the need to 'one to one' a suicidal person is massively inappropriate for anything more than an emergency amount of time. Your expectations of others are therefore way way too high.
ASD or not, there is no 'formula'. You give what you can. You say no when you want to.
That is the right thing to do.
Just because you wouldn't say no doesn't mean others aren't allowed to.
People have tried to explain but you are rejecting everything which doesn't fit your worldview.
I don't think that you will get better until you are able to try and consider the needs and feelings of others because currently you think people should act how you think they should. That will never happen so you will always feel disappointed about being with people.
How did you get on with the crisis team?

IMO the need to 'one to one' a suicidal person is massively inappropriate for anything more than an emergency amount of time. Your expectations of others are therefore way way too high.

Are people deliberately being obtuse here?
I didn't say I expected anyone to do that for me. I was using the fact that I did it for someone else to illustrate my point - I was able to give far above and beyond what I would normally think someone could, precisely because of the wider situation/no demands on my time or energy, in contrast to the situation Jesu described. Because I stupidly thought she was being genuine in her quesion.

How did you get on with the crisis team?

If that's a genuine question - they just asked me what I thought would be helpful for them to do. And pointed out there might be some therapy in the pipeline. I don't know the answer to their question, what should I say?

Just wanted to say I think you can move on from this, OP.

Your 'friends' sound like they made a cruel and misguided decision which was carried out in the worst possible way. No one can know how unkind it really was because we don't know their justification. Of course you're not wrong to think friends shouldn't cut each other out, as a group, without warning. But it's hard to judge how out-of-step you might have been with the pace of a normal friendship. There's nothing to say for sure that you were ever difficult to be around before their decision to freeze you out.

Sometimes a group turns against one member for no reason and it is horrible. Stigma about mental illness does lead to cruel and prejudiced behaviour sometimes. Sometimes a group of people can talk themselves into a more brutal and less morally accountable position than they would come to as individuals. You shouldn't have to prove this to anyone on the internet. There's also the possibility that it was much harder than you realise for them to feel they were standing between you and total despair, even if you don't perceive that as pressure when you're the one offering support.

I understand how you're haunted by the memory of the looks you were given. They were free to cut you out but that doesn't negate the reasonable expectations of a friend. To rely so much on friendships, only to find them all unexpectedly extinguished in one fell swoop, must have been hellish. You were at least owed an explanation - but these girls were young and probably didn't know how to say anything directly without causing an emotional fiasco. At the time of their 'horrible looks', they were almost certainly shitting themselves apprehensive, having decided to exclude you without anticipating an actual confrontation that evening. What you saw could have been bravado masking other emotions, like an immature boyfriend trying not to bottle his 'we're over' speech. It's no reflection on your worth but you know that, I think. That's why you're so angry.

It might help to consider why they might have been angry, though. People do get angry when they feel their boundaries are being crossed. A friend doesn't always have to provide 'a natter' - not if they're busy, or tired, or feeling like being alone. If you try to force them, they will get angry. Such is life. I don't know how much this could have happened without your realising it at all. When you're anxious, it can be hard to pick up cues. When you were feeling yourself going down and looking for a life raft, could there have been a driven quality to your nattering that reflected your 'I need this now' state of mind? Being absolutely honest, I would feel a bit claustrophobic in that situation, regardless of how lovely you are. And I know that's not fair to you and it's not your fault. But with the best will in the world, I would need to know it wasn't going to happen often, without warning.

Your friends were young and so were you. We have all let people down. Without diminishing how painful it was for you or how badly you were treated, I think this matters so much because of something that has nothing to do with those people. It seems like you can't 'breathe easy' without knowing someone is there to catch you if you're falling. That's not your fault. The appalling lack of psychological help out there is also not your fault. Neither is it your ex-friends' fault. Most 20-somethings are not used to being the last step between 'I'm coping' and 'I'm now in emotional hell'.

If you were in a better place emotionally, you wouldn't need emotional 'catching' and this might be easier to forget because it wouldn't represent the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. So do everything to let this incident go, because it's holding you back. Can you dry the tears of the abandoned little girl who is crying inside and give her a hug? Can you tell her that nicer people do exist, because you're one of them? As many times as it takes? Right now, you seem to be yelling at the universe, needing that sympathetic reassurance back from others. But it has to start with you. Trust your own judgement and make your own peace with this, if you can. I wouldn't trust my inner child to the internet.

Not being obtuse whatsover OP but I've been one of the more supportive posters on this thread and yet you have picked at one sentence percieving it as criticism and attacked it. You haven't absorbed anything else at all. No need for odd faced emojis to make your point-it was a normal and valid comment. Nothing strange and cannot see how you can see it as such.
People are being gentle with you because you arent well but you aren't returning the same-youre on the defence. Nobody here is attacking you.
There is no point saying anything else as you won't listen to anything unless it agrees with your inner dialogue. You need to challenge your own thoughts as they arent working for you and you wont achieve any kind of inner peace intil you realise that the way you view some things, is wrong. Yes of course it was a genuine question. What do you actually want them to do though? Any help or suggestions you seem to refuse or take as criticism and by doing that youre your own worst enemy. Wish you the best but leaving the thread now.

...it would have been massively helpful for me (if I'd been invited - as I normally would have been - to dinner earlier in the day, I'd have been able to use looking forward to it as part of coping and would have been able to be all chipper later on, even if I didn't totally feel it).

You are still repeating this part of your narrative as if 'coping' was a healthy way of living, and as if expecting a group of young adult friends to provide that crutch for you was reasonable on your part.

You are also still repeating the narrative where you go the extra mile to help someone else out (i.e. how you helped your suicidal friend), implying that others therefore owe this to you, and the only concession you will give to the concept of other people being unable to give you the time and attention you crave from them is the details about what did not hold you back - you had time, no work to go to, no children to take care of. It is perfectly reasonable for other people to feel they are exhausted by the demands of someone who is going through a mental health crisis. You do not believe this, deep down. You are not going to find release from the crisis associated with this event until you can accept that other people have the right to their perceptions and their responses and to say no.

Wrt the suicidal friend - you would have been perfectly reasonable to call the equivalent of 999 in the country you were in even though you had literally nothing else to do and nowhere else to go when your friend was suicidal. You could have called their family or close friends and someone might have been able to drop everything and go to take them home.

Most people who are not qualified to deal with mental health crises very quickly realise they are in beyond their depth, and that they do not have the expertise to deal with the problems. People who plunge in regardless - and also without regard to the fact that the suicidal person might really need expert medical care including medication - have a grandiosity problem.

I urge you to print out and bring this thread with you the next time you have an encounter with MH services or even if/when you visit your GP to try to get a referral to MH services. Ask them to read over your posts.

Are you on a waiting list for mental health services at the moment?

If not, I urge you to go to your GP and ask for a referral.