Friend saying she has ASD too

[FlamingoYellow]

I was diagnosed with Aspergers a few years ago and when I told my friend about my diagnosis she looked into it and told me she also had it. I've tried to be supportive as I know how frustrating I've found it when people have expressed disbelief at my diagnosis, but I feel a bit annoyed and like she's minimising my problem by claiming she's got it too.

I've known her since we were 6, so we grew up together. I was always jealous of how she effortlessly made friends (and kept them!) where ever she went, whereas I've always struggled forming friendships and any I do make are usually very superficial and fall to pieces pretty quickly. My friendship with her is the only longterm friendship I've ever managed to maintain.

Every birthday or chance for a celebration she has a big party or a night out; for me parties, etc have always been extremely challenging - the noise, the socialising, etc and I'm physically incapable of attending things like that on a regular basis like she does.

She is very charismatic and has always done well in job interviews, whereas people don't normally warm to me. When we were late teens/early 20s she got me jobs a couple of times in places she worked. It infuriated me that she had the executive functioning to organise her time and do her work successfully with minimal effort, while I tried my hardest but always ended up getting fired because I couldn't plan my own time, had poor working memory, couldn't understand complicated verbal instructions, completely missed various unspoken social rules and was disliked by all my colleagues 😳.

She loves adventure and new challenges and has had an amazing life travelling from place to place with no real plan and often not knowing where she will be or what she'll be doing from one day to the next. I have to have every moment of my day carefully planned out and do everything the same way at the same time every day because my brain struggles to keep up with sudden changes and I'm easily overwhelmed. I have had necessary shopping trips completely abandoned because the shop layout has changed unexpectedly and it's triggered a meltdown; I can't imagine ever being able to just pack a bag and see where life takes me.

So after having a whole lifetime of trying to keep up with her social skills, charisma, flexibility, effortless ability to excel at whatever she turns her hand to, finding out that there was a reason I struggled so much with all of this was very comforting. Now she is saying she is also an introverted autistic who struggles with all the same things I done, I feel like my 'excuse' has been taken away and I'm back to being the weird friend who clearly isn't trying hard enough 😔. I know ASD affects everyone differently and she may just be very, very good at masking, but there's no way I could mask to that level. I'm also aware that other people with autism will be struggling more than me and would probably think I'm doing great in life. I hope some of you can maybe understand why I'm feeling like this though?

You don't have to be open-minded and accepting and understanding if it's really, truly obvious that someone's bullshitting. There's being open to the fact that many women go undiagnosed and get through life by masking, and then there's this. I don't think that accepting there's different presentations of autism means we have to just take someone's self-diagnosis at face value when it flies in the face of everything we know about them.

I mean, if you want to keep her as a friend, there's probably some diplomatic way to go about this or pretend that you think she's autistic too, if that's what you want to do.

I can understand how you feel. It's a bit like when the popular 'mean girl' from your school who bullied you reinvents herself in later life as the misunderstood loner because she thinks it sounds somehow 'cool' (not suggesting your friend is a mean girl, just that it come from the same stable of behaviour).

As you say, there is an outside chance she is expert at masking. As Clumping says, if you want to stay friends it's probably best simply to accept what she says without too much comment. Don't let it make you feel bad. There are so many different levels of functioning within autism, even if your friend is autistic, it certainly doesn't invalidate your struggles.

Is your friend aiming to be professionally assessed? A properly qualified expert will be able to detect very subtle signs (or absence thereof) beneath any masking that is going on.

Basically, as autists we're kind of known for our gullibility/trusting, honest nature [delete as preferred]. Plus, late-diagnosed people have experienced what it's like to go through life feeling different and wrong and then finding this thing that seems to explain so much but not yet having a diagnosis. So we naturally empathise with someone who thinks they're autistic and want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But I think there's a fair few chancers out there who see it as an excuse or a way to get attention, plus quite a lot of people who look at the more Barnum-statementy aspects of autism (i.e. statements that most people will think are particularly true of them, like "I always felt different to other people" and "I feel I have to act a certain way to fit in") and think that's all there is to it.

Thanks. I do want to keep her as a friend as, really, she is the only friend I've got , so I've got to keep hold of her😂. I would never say anything to anyone about this in real life because if she is autistic and found out I wasn't supportive she would feel awful.

She did ask about how I got my NHS diagnosis and I explained the process and that the waiting list in our area was 2.5 years, so she decided she didn't want to pursue that. She has been talking recently about getting assessed next year. I know another of her friends got an unofficial diagnosis from a therapist who had an interest in autism, so she might be planning to go down that route too. The assessment her friend had was just a 45 minute Skype call though, which doesn't sound very thorough to me.

She showed her parents a checklist of asperger traits/statements and they agreed lots of them described her and she has told me she has only ever been sociable because her family are and it's what she's been brought up with. On the other hand, she planned a weekend long party recently for 15 of her closest friends, with loud music a day and night, dancing and team games - I have never met a diagnosed autistic person who would enjoy something like that. <waits for all the autistic MNers to come on and say they LOVE stuff like that>. I think even if she had an NHS assessment she would present a very different side to herself than I've ever seen.

Mm… she may have ASD, or she may not. I think that although it's unfashionable in many parts of the online autistic community to say this, it's totally okay to be sceptical of someone's self-diagnosis (especially if that's entirely within the privacy of your own head). Some people would have everyone required to affirm everyone's self-diagnosed autism as valid, whereas I feel there has to be some kind of limit to the credulity.

I know exactly how you feel!!! I've got this problem too. Someone who's an absolute attention-seeking drama queen and is now on Mumsnet claiming she's struggling so much, has no friends, etc. etc. And she's claimed to me in real life that she 'might have autism' - bollocks she doesn't. She has plenty of friends, a good social life, doesn't struggle in any social situation (well, except for taking an interest in other people and that's more a recent thing now she's got another reason to demand attention)... Fucks me off a treat because she has the opportunity to actually make my genuinely autistic life that bit easier and refuses point blank. For me autism is a disability. For her it's another attention-seeking ploy. As if she doesn't have enough already. Really, really pisses me off (if you hadn't noticed!!) So you have my sympathy!

@doilookremotelyinterested that does sound infuriating! I take it she's not a friend of yours (and hopefully doesn't know your MN username!)?

I don't think my friend is a drama queen but she is the sort of person that always has to have what other people have iyswim. So if her friend moves to New Zealand then she will announce that she's moving to New Zealand too. If someone says they're joining the army then she will say she's signing up too. This feels a bit like that to me.

No, she's an acquaintance but someone I can't easily avoid. And no, she doesn't know my name on here but I'll have to keep changing it in case I post something too obvious that would identify me! I'd love to post an example of just how attention-seeking she is but it's massively outing and she'd know it was me 😁

Good idea. I'm sure she'll be lurking on this board if she believes she has ASD so could see your post.

Were it not for the fact that I have an actual NHS statement (Asperger's 2011) in my metaphorical hand, OP, your friend might be me.

I'm the poster girl for 'oh, but you don't look autistic!', or, as I call it, 'Barnum Syndrome'. I mask like a good 'un, even to other NDs.

Yes, I get that bandwagon-jumping is irritating, but it's not the be all and end all.

That's interesting @AffIt . So do you also have loads of friends, a busy social life and enjoy parties? Do you struggle living like that or do you manage ok?

I can mask extremely well but it has a knock on effect on my mental health - so I could mask through a night out in a busy pub, for example, but I would feel awful for days afterwards, so I wouldn't plan a night out in a busy pub. I don't see why anyone who found that difficult would put themselves through that? I just don't understand.

But the problem is (or part of it) that if someone who has absolutely no apparent struggles says they're autistic publicly then everyone goes 'oh well, what are you complaining about then, she's autistic and she copes just fine....' and all of a sudden you're back in your shit-person box still struggling and still no-one cares. And if that person doesn't even have autism but has decided it sounds 'cool' and they love the attention then it's even more of a slap in the face.
I masked my whole childhood ('oh she's shy'), my 20s and my 30s and my mental health got worse and worse. I was obviously different and it didn't matter how hard I tried to fit in it just didn't work. Now I'm at a stage when I'm really struggling and the one place I do go and can be myself a bit more and bugger me there she is doing the whole 'oh I'm so quirky and neurodiverse' and to really put the boot in, she could make life easier for someone who really is ND but chooses not to.

And I don't have friends or a social life and I'm getting stressed at the thought of going to the baker's this morning because it's a new place and I've never been there before. Not sure I can face it. That's autism = disability. And it sucks.😡

Yes that is my experience of my own autism exactly @doilookremotelyinterested . I can mask very well, I think, but the last time I attempted to keep up a normal social life in line with the NT people around me I ended up in a psychiatric unit for 2 months due to burnout. So I only mask for things I absolutely have to go to - like a work event or a close family members wedding. I don't understand why anyone would choose to put themselves in situations where they have to mask if they didn't have to.

That sucks! (minor understatement!!)
Life is too short to put yourself through masking when you don't have to.

She could be sensory seeking. Or copying as a way to mask.

But bloody hell it must be bloody irritating for you.like she is doing autism better than you. And yes to the poster up thread who points out the danger of self diagnosed not autistic people to autistic individuals.