Trautism

My life doesn’t have many people in it right now, so against my better judgment, I welcomed a presumed fellow autistic back into my orbit – and we lasted less than two months. Here’s a toned down metaphor for how my sensitive mind rendered the ordeal: someone kicked in my front door, trashed my living room, and then smashed my back window on the way out, tossing barbed words over her shoulder while disappearing from view. Let’s call her Ruth.*

Ruth and I know each other through a previous job, but not very well, and our working relationship struggled. Our roles were similar yet poorly defined in a chaotic and resource-constrained environment that lacked leadership – so we were constantly getting in each other’s way, flanked by high tempers and higher stakes. But I respected her background, and I’d noticed our minds functioned more comparably than anyone else I’d met in the business world, so I tried to get close to her. Professionally this made sense, so we could each define and stay in our own lanes, but I had personal motives as well. 

I’d never really had a mentor, and that was a notable factor in my successful career hitting some big speed bumps. Partly I had been too busy and unaware to recognize that need for myself, but subconsciously I probably thought nobody worthwhile would want me anyway. Many people had been more than happy to put me to work, but I didn’t know anyone who had ever seemed up to the task of guiding me very much. Maybe this seemingly similar woman would be different? 

I ended up asking Ruth if we could set up weekly one-on-one meetings, but that failed almost immediately. We might have successfully met once at our scheduled time, but we had trouble syncing up, and our conversations were almost always frenetic. Within a few months, circumstances made the meetings unreasonable anyway. As her time with the company came to an end, I can see in our text messages that she took a stronger interest in relating to me, but I was over it by then. We were wrapping up our working relationship, and the misalignment in our personalities seemed too great to overcome by that point, if it ever was. My last messages to her wished her well and confirmed that I had completed her request to remove her birthday from the company list and calendars. 

Ruth didn’t text me again until almost a year later, while I was traveling with my daughter. I got the message on a Thursday afternoon saying she would love to catch up and asking when I could chat. She also ended it with a blessing.

I’d been praying all year for connection with my true people, and I thought my prayers might be getting answered by this outreach. Our personalities and working styles were quite different, but we had shared faith, and the fundamental hardware of our brains seemed undeniably alike, so I reasoned that maybe our previous tension could be attributed to the challenging startup environment where we met. I took a chance and answered her the following night, telling her that it would be nice to reconnect and I was currently free next Wednesday afternoon or Friday.

But she didn’t respond until almost a full week later, the following Thursday afternoon. First she asked me if I could meet at 10:30am PT the next day. A few hours later, she asked if I could do 11am PT. The delay in response and waffling on the time was off-putting and indicative of our previous challenges, but ever hopeful, I agreed anyway. 

After having some issues sending the invite to me, Ruth was a few minutes late to our first meeting, but otherwise we had a nice time. We discussed our job searches, updated each other on what we knew about our former employer and colleagues, and prayed together. She also asked for my resume to share with a friend at a nearby company. It felt positive and encouraging. Towards the end, she confided that she had found herself wanting more social support, and she asked to meet weekly. 

I hesitated. I may not have many significant contacts right now, but my life is still very full and challenging, and I doubted that I’d have weekly space for someone who had demonstrated so much emotionality and unpredictability with me. I explained this to her at a very high level but also acknowledged that I had recently asked a friend for weekly coffee dates. I too had realized I needed more connection as I’m rebuilding my life, and since I like to make solid routines for things I rely on to function well, Ruth’s request hit a particularly soft spot in me. I could definitely relate, and my heart caved as it tends to do. However, since I’m learning to better identify and understand my own emotions and needs (instead of just those of everyone around me!), and to better balance them with external forces, we agreed to meet for 30 minutes each week instead of an hour. 

The next several weeks involved meetings that were rescheduled, started late, or didn’t happen; invites that were wrong or not sent; and texts, emails, and LinkedIn messages that were often repetitive or hard to decipher. I took it all in stride, though, as I vaguely knew she too was dealing with a lot in life and trying to regain some traction, which is often messy. And I recognize that I share some of the responsibility in our escalating dysfunction – I didn’t seek clarity as often as I could have, and in one case I’m the one who asked to reschedule on short notice. 

It was the night prior when my daughter asked me to accompany her to a doctor appointment that conflicted with Ruth’s meeting. But even so, I offered to do a quick 10-minute phone call instead of our 30-minute video chat, and Ruth said she’d call me. This may have been the first indication that our calendars were not synced properly, but I didn’t hear from her until more than an hour and a half after our scheduled time, and by then I was driving my daughter to visit her extended family – so even if Ruth and I both had the time right, she would’ve been several minutes late to a 10-minute phone call. I said I’d try to get in touch later that day, but then my afternoon got buried in heavy Friday rush hour traffic, thunderstorms during my much anticipated riverside walk, and then general overwhelm as I took refuge from the rain in a crowded restaurant. I let her know my status and offered to talk Sunday, but she said Monday was better and asked for my availability. I gave her a two-hour window almost right away, but she didn’t respond or schedule a meeting… which was curious and disappointing, but I was still willing to roll with it. 

Getting in touch with Ruth prior to Monday afternoon was particularly important to me though, because she had encouraged me to attend a networking happy hour that evening. We were going to talk about the organization hosting it and some introductions she hoped to set up for me to help me feel more comfortable getting involved. But as excited as I felt about the event, I didn’t feel compelled to follow up with Ruth about the lack of meeting invite because 1) I’d been unsure about attending when I was still so emotionally raw, so if she failed to connect me with people there then I’d see it as a possible sign not to go; 2) she still seemed quite frazzled since we had restarted our relationship, and I didn’t want to add to her stress; and 3) her consistent lack of attention dug into my wounds and inspired fear that I might again be getting baited by a narcissist, whose confusing behavior is a subconscious way to drag kind-hearted empaths into a self-involved world. 

I was grateful when Ruth finally sent an email introducing me to some people at the organization, but it was within a few hours of when the event started, so the impact was minimal. Only one person responded and said they would not be attending. Fortunately I ended up meeting some people anyway, so that was great, even if nobody present knew to expect me there. 

As soon as I got home, I thanked Ruth via text and asked if we could debrief the following day, giving her a 4-hour window of availability. She had a conflict and asked if we could meet later, but I reiterated that I was busy outside of the hours I had provided. I also told her I’d be traveling with my daughter again starting on Wednesday and declined the invite for our meeting that Friday. Nevertheless, after I’d finished packing on Tuesday night, I reached out for an update and to tell her I’d been praying for her and sending her energetic hugs about 20 minutes prior to her important meeting. We exchanged a few nice messages the next day, with her sharing memes about culture vs. strategy, and me sending a photo of the beach.

When Friday arrived, however, she tried to meet with me anyway. And I can tell based on the timing of her texts and missed call that even if we had still planned to meet, she was running late yet again. But seeing her messages a few hours later, I didn’t think much of it and just reminded her that I was away with my girl. She acted friendly and gracious as she often did, and we agreed to meet Monday at 1pm ET instead. 

It was fine but not ideal timing – the day prior I’d driven 10+ hours returning from my trip amid sheets of rain, rivers of brake lights, and waves of teenage angst. Then right after filing my unemployment claim for the week and unpacking, I took my estranged husband out for some drinks and a nice celebratory dinner. It was a long day and a late night, but I was eager to talk with Ruth after missing each other so much the past couple of weeks. So on Monday I pushed through my fatigue, arranged my schedule and family around the only time I’d be on camera for the day, and then proceeded to wait for Ruth to show up. 

After 10 minutes of sitting on the meeting link, I texted her to see what was up. She explained she had slept in and asked if we could talk later. I let her know that my afternoon and following day were booked but that I could do the same time on Wednesday. She said that worked and updated the invite. 

But two days later, she stood me up in exactly the same way, with me texting at the 10-minute late mark and her telling me she’d had another rough night of sleep and wanted to talk later. My afternoon was busy and my schedule the next day was uncertain, so I asked about Friday. Specifically, I asked if the same time worked, or I offered later in the day on Monday if 1pm ET was too early. The subtext of the latter part of the message might be “I’m tired of you missing our meetings because you’re struggling to get out of bed on time, so let’s schedule a later time if the alternative is you missing the mark. Her response was simply “Friday” and it garnered a thumbs up from me.

As I went to bed on Thursday and checked my calendar for the next day, though, I noticed our meeting was scheduled for 12:30pm ET instead of 1pm ET. I texted her to ask her about it, saying I’d try to be available at 12:30pm but it was tentative, and I’d definitely be there at 1pm as we had planned. I didn’t hear back from her and showed up at 1pm anyway, but she didn’t. Again. For the third time in a week. This is where it all falls apart. 

We’d repeated the pattern from Monday and Wednesday of that week, with me waiting on our meeting link before texting her at the 10-minute mark to ask if she still planned to join. This time she didn’t respond until 45 minutes later. She told me me her calendar showed our meeting at 11am PT but asked if we could meet at 1pm PT because she yet again hadn’t slept well.

Okay so now we know neither of us has the correct 1pm ET slot on our calendars, but we have strangely different times, and she’s the one who has been handling the meeting invites. Also she’s asking if I can meet later – so she’s again not ready for our call even if it were being held at the 2pm ET time showing on her calendar. Instead she’s asking for 4pm ET on a Friday in the summer after we’d talked about our preference for ending workweeks mid-afternoon to get a head start on lovely weekends. I try to explain the situation as patiently as I can, but I’m disturbed by all the confusion.

I remind her that we had talked about meeting at 1pm ET that day, as that was the same time we were going to meet on both Monday and Wednesday. I also point out that while we had planned for 2pm ET on Fridays before this week, the night prior I noticed the invite said 12:30pm ET. However she just reiterates what’s on her calendar and says she’s really busy too, emphasizing the need for flexibility and grace.

With growing anxiety over the situation, my mind scrambles to make sense out of her perplexing behavior. Is this a robotic autism thing on her part, a blind narcissist thing, or something else? If I could slap an appropriate label on this, I’d feel better equipped to deal with it. Because I understand what the calendars say, but I also know what we had talked about and when we had tried to meet twice already that week. I do my best to focus on constructive language, but I’m generally fed up with all the nonsense by this point. Back in your box you go, Ruth, although I’m not closing the lid.

I told her that I love the idea of mutual support, encouragement, and fellowship, but it didn’t seem like we were aligned enough to keep the weekly scheduled dates. She then tried to call me, but I rejected it because I was walking out the door and would be tied up all afternoon, which I conveyed to her via text. But apparently that was an unacceptable reaction.

Her next series of texts accused me of judging the last few weeks harshly and texting drama, so she asked me to call her if I wanted to talk. Fifteen minutes later, she tried to absolve herself from responsibility over the confusion by responding to my text where I asked if the same time on Friday worked. She reiterated that’s what we discussed and again insisted that her calendar was accurate but mine was not.

But no, Ruth, no. Your perspective still doesn’t make sense. If you agree that 1pm ET is what we discussed, and you’re also saying that your calendar is showing 11am PT, that’s 2pm ET, so your calendar is still wrong. And you’re the one who insisted on using your mail client when the calendar was being janky and wouldn’t send an invite to my mail client or properly sync to it. And again, you’re the one who asked for these meetings so it’s your responsibility to manage them properly. But I don’t say any of that, because I’m not interested in tangling over details at this point. We tried but failed. 

When I got back home that evening, about six hours later, I responded in an attempt to smooth things over:

Hey it’s all good. I’m just super busy/buried too, and these meetings don’t seem to be a priority for you. I’m not upset at all though, really. It would have been nice to talk more, but I totally get being overwhelmed and truly hope it gets better for you. Maybe we can try monthly meetings if we can stick to the schedule and honor each other’s time/capacity. Enjoy the weekend! 

Failure again. Within 20 minutes, she’s telling me I’m wrong, that sleep is a top priority for her, and she’s sad that I’m being extreme, unreasonable, and judgmental – while she “always” holds space for grace and friendships and “never” holds resentments.

Have we now arrived in toxic baiting land or am I being paranoid based on my past trauma? What am I wrong about? Did I dispute the value of sleep, or did I question where I fit into her priorities? Where is her grace and flexibility in accepting my offer to meet monthly instead? She’s sad, and I’m being extreme, unreasonable, and judgmental by calmly saying that this isn’t working for me after being stood up and feeling jerked around? It’s not like I completely cut her off either. I just wanted to make some space for myself in the circus that she was creating around me with all this variability. I’m feeling pretty crushed by this point, but again I do my best to stay upbeat, professional, and focused when I reply:

[Ruth]… you don’t know me very well, and you know almost nothing about my life or what I’m going through. I would appreciate some grace and flexibility as well. 

I was hesitant to schedule weekly meetings with you given everything else I’m dealing with, but we both understood it to be important. However you’ve repeatedly had other stuff going on, and the schedule changes and no-shows have been disruptive to me – but again, I get it. I’m not mad, sad, or taking it personally. I even offered monthly meetings. But I’m not willing to keep trying when it’s not working for me, and I don’t appreciate how you’re talking to me about my decision. 

Please respect me and my boundaries without being accusatory or inflammatory. It really doesn’t need to be so intense. 

And good luck with your sleep. I know how important it is. I follow some pretty strict sleep hygiene measures to get proper rest. You may want to look into that for yourself if you haven’t already. 

Sadly in my quest to be kind and fair, apparently I came off as too lofty or condescending. While saying she doesn’t hold any bitterness, she then accuses me of thinking I’m perfect and coming down hard on her. Furthermore, she will not recommend me for the job we talked about because of my reported sensitivity and inability to flow with the nature of life and the business world. She again tells me that I’m the one who started drama and that she has never had a colleague behave like this or had to deal with communications like this.

I was floored. Who talks like this to anyone, let alone a work acquaintance who you barely even know – and one who went out on a limb to do a recurring favor for you every week, even after you were a distant, difficult colleague? That’s one helluva message for someone who isn’t holding any bitterness. How did I come down hard on her? It’s clear to me that I talked to her like a mature business woman, yet who heard me was a sad, angry, and frightened child. And I “started the drama on text” – what are we, indignant teenagers? It’s not drama, and I would’ve delivered this news to her face if she had showed up for our meeting that day. After experiencing how she handled this, though, I’m grateful I wasn’t any closer to her emotionality. Vibes are even more contagious via phone or video, and she might have taken me down with her just like she did during the last major outburst of hers that I witnessed. It had sent me reeling for days. And while I still feel compassion for her, trying to help has mostly just allowed more water in my ship. I sent a final text agreeing that it’s over: 

Well this has turned into a bummer. But I respect your feelings and your decision, and I wish you all the best.

That’s it; we’re done. I wouldn’t say this experiment was a waste, because it served as a great exercise in recognizing when my boundaries are being crossed and protecting myself against it, but I wonder how much more of a price I’ll pay for it. It’s clear to me that Ruth is very upset – apparently oblivious to the impact of her own failings, taking my rejection of weekly meetings as fundamental rejection of her – and now I hear echoes of the old line comparing the fury of hell and a woman scorned. She might just be speaking provocatively because I offended her, but now I’ll be working hard to not worry about possible consequences to my reputation that I won’t have the chance to defend.

Ugh, what a ridiculous ride. Who wants to deal with such behavior from anyone, let alone an adult? Experiences like this are probably why many people, including fellow autistics, avoid interacting with people who have autism or are seen as too intense or otherwise too different. It’s a shame though. Since “crazy” is society’s shorthand for “acting unsatisfactorily for reasons deemed too complex to understand,” it probably includes a lot of undiagnosed autistic people throughout history, as well as others who have experienced major trauma or were misunderstood for other reasons. 

But importantly, while I know Ruth and I have both been called crazy, maybe that’s where our similarities end. I actually don’t know if she sees herself as autistic or has gotten a formal diagnosis as such, and now I’ve lost my chance to explore this subject with her. I can only describe my side and why I thought we resonated despite our differences. But if she’s in fact trautistic (traumatized and autistic) like me, then she’s a different vintage and varietal of it, and apparently we don’t mix well. This disappointing situation makes me wonder if any of us who seem so similar can connect with each other, or if we’re each bound to walk alone.

And Ruth, if you ever read this, I hope you’ll understand that I do love you and genuinely hoped for our success together. I did not at all intend to hurt your feelings when I enforced my personal boundary; I protected myself as politely and kindly as I could. And you got the reaction from me that you did because you exploited a huge weakness that I’m actively learning to strengthen: I love and care so damn deeply and earnestly – and I’ve been so socially inept – that I’ve given away almost my whole life to people who weren’t respectful or loving me back. Both personally and professionally. And because of how my wiring and trauma functioned under the banner of committed teamwork, I didn’t see my people’s treatment of me for what it was: a signal of how little I actually meant to them as a person. Maybe you’ve had relatable experiences; I had hoped to ask you about that too.

So yes, maybe I was a little overly sensitive to your disrespect, but that’s where I am. If you wanted me in your life for benevolent purposes as I wanted you in mine, and if you were practicing the grace and flexibility of our faith that you were preaching to me, you would have accepted monthly meetings. But you didn’t, so I take comfort knowing I got away from yet another situation that was not honoring me as a real, whole person with needs and boundaries. Thank you for inspiring this practice and reflection, and I hope we will separate in peace. 

*Names and other details have been changed for privacy.