#their unconditional love makes me sick i'm gonna throw up

[bean-spring]

"Jayce will understand" Jayce would do the exact same thing. Jayce would do anything to keep you alive. Jayce would still love you after everything you've done. Jayce would not give up on you. Jayce would love you, not in spite of your "imperfections" but because of them. Jayce would kill himself just to die with you. Viktor, Jayce probably is the only one here who'd understand you.

[serenity-bitty]

THIS. ALL OF THIS. My metaphor for it was that each person has a scale, like one of these kinds:

Every time you do something nice, you get a pebble on one side. Every time you do something that inconveniences them, something they don't like--whether you know about it or not-- you get a normal-sized ROCK on the other side.

If the scale tilts all the way to the wrong side, they leave you. They decide they're sick of dealing with you and you lose everything again. This is the thing that's happened with my roommates while I was desperately struggling to survive after my mom threw me out, so the scale tipping at this time???? Was absolutely detrimental to my survival. I became a huge people-pleaser. I overworked myself both at my job and at home, masking my autism for so long that I don't even know what I'm like without it anymore. I desperately did everything I could to make them happy, but the exhaustion that followed was always far too much. I'd exhaust myself getting 10 pebbles a day, only to wind up with a rock that weighs 7 pebbles on the other side. If I stopped for even one day, I knew it would all be over.

Again and again, this cycle continued. Again and again, I failed.

Eventually, I wound up suffering from autistic burnout so bad that I was practically bedridden for a year.

But, I got VERY lucky. I found people who actually didn't fall in to my scale rule. It was terrifying, at first. I felt so much tension at the time, waiting for some "gotcha!" moment where I'd find out it was all another lie and that the scale is still there and they're still gonna throw me out eventually.

It never came.

And when it never came, I had to rework my entire life. I had to remember how to live outside of the pattern of people please, work, collapse and repeat. I had to remember what amount of activity was reasonable and what wasn't, and even then I had to find out how to deal with my new, much-lower energy levels and what amount was reasonable for THAT too.

But I did it. Things aren't perfect right now, no. But I'm finally safe.

Not all of us can be that lucky. If you have an autistic friend or loved one, whether they're struggling like I was or not, please. Remember to remind them that your care for them is unconditional. Remind them that you don't just want them around for what they can DO for you, but for who they are as a person. It's so much more important than you may realize.