#(my identity as a lesbian was shakey in highschool- i was figuring things out)

[crvstybowlofcereal]

this is a really specific vent(?) post. im processing things by putting them in words. its not serious, feel free to ignore me lol

i just want to say that a couple years ago when i was in the beginning stages of researching autism (and would soon realize i am most likely autistic) i was in a relationship. and communication in a relationship is So Very important to me. I would constantly ask how he was (obviously it was more specific to whatever situation was going on) and he would always say he was fine. If I had even the Slightest hint that he wasn't actually Fine (like 19 times out of 20) i would continue asking if he was sure and if he wanted to talk, and he continued to say he was fine. half the time i assumed he meant it and i read the situation wrong, the other half of the time i assumed he didn't want to talk about it.

he ended up breaking up with me because i

"didn't pick up on some things"

"what kind of things?" i asked

"idk, just, things."

and he had been talking to my friend (U) about our relationship, and telling her that i wasn't picking up on things. she got mad at me and we had a "fight" for a short time, she thought i was being a bad partner, and her sister (M) (who is toxic and possessive) felt like i wasn't spending enough time with her, so she complained about it to their mom, who got mad at U for it for some reason? so U also brought all that up, telling me M felt left out. (i wasn't leaving M out of anything, i was sitting with my partner at lunch half of the time, she was welcome to join, but didnt, looking back i think M has RSD and maybe i should have been more direct when moving to a new location to explicitly invite her) (U was also not in school at the time due to covid, so its not like i was spending more time with her over M, which is something M would get so upset about if she perceived it to be that way [she was incredibly possessive of me as a friend and the extent of it made me feel like an object tbh])

U never brought up the issues my partner talked about, because that's how we are, we don't make it known someone was venting to us, to respect their privacy, but it fueled her emotions during our "argument" so i really only heard her being mad at me for not including M, (which i later learned is because M's emotions were made to be her problem when they shouldn't have, this has been a running problem so it wasnt that surprising to learn) so i started spending more time with M, but it was school, and i had work, so schedules only allowed so much time, and any time I was with M (lunch and one class) was when i was also with my partner, but i had other classes with him so i assumed it was fine, but he started drifting away (also around a time i attempted to communicate something important about our relationship, which ended up making him uncomfortable, but he didn't say anything about it until we had a conversation after breaking up)

i was stuck in a place where i felt like no one around me communicated how they felt and still expected me to understand them and do what they wanted me to do

U and i recently reflected on this and realized my ex was a shitty communicator (he and his next partner also broke up because he didn't say how he felt and expected them [also most likely autistic] to... just kinda know ig?) and that she should have gotten my side of the story (she had no idea i was frequently checking on him and trying to get him to talk to me)

and that she wasnt actually upset at me about M, she was upset that people were making it her problem, and she was especially upset during this reflection to learn that M was not being left out at all, she was just doing That Thing again where she wanted me to be Her friend and Only Her friend.

U AND I ARE NOT MAD AT EACH OTHER FOR ANY OF THIS, I WAS NEVER MAD AT U AND U WAS ONLY MAD ABOUT HER PERCEPTION OF THE SITUATION, AND ONLY FOR A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, EVERYTHING IS FINE

so basically i went like a year and a half thinking that people were rightfully mad at me and i was too self absorbed to pay attention to other peoples' emotions and i started learning how to read people again (clearly my body language research from middle school wasn't cutting it anymore) only for me to realize i just need people to be a little more direct that allistic people typically are, and those specific people were just being dogshit at communicating, (even for allistic people, relative to my needs)

anyways highschool post-covid was Really Fucking Weird and socially stressful for me

TL;DR reflecting on my communication needs not only not being met, but being far undershot for even a "normal" persons needs and how i was convinced I was the problem because of circumstances