Underlying Ableism In Friendships
My mind is plagued by the people that have hurt me. A big and unexpected one was my best friend of 13 years. So, i was diagnosed when i was 15, I'm 18 now. This all happened in 2024, only months after i knew i had Autism. I'll call her Peacock. We had always had a very close-knit relationship, since we were 3. Things changed as we got to high school, being separated by classes and for the first time friend groups. We still stayed relatively close, were each other's best friends still (as far as i know, it will make sense why I'm sceptical). Up until this point, we were sitting near each other in what classes we had.
This is where it starts. History classes. i sat next to her in the front left of the class. It slowly started, the little bit mean comments, the making fun of me in front of her other friends. It happened a couple times, when it did, it was never anything like the normal banter. Some of the things actually hurt so bad in the moment i went nonverbal, that or it quite literally made me cry (i tried to not in class so i went to the bathroom or managed to just let a few tears slide). I'd come home from school crying. Now when this was happening, i was logical enough to speculate that if she could do it Infront of me she was probably doing it behind my back. I knew her too well, she spoke behind EVERYONES backs, even the other girl she called a best friend Aswell. And yes, she was doing this while actively calling me her best friend Aswell. I noticed the behaviour though, always Infront of other friends but never when it's us. it took me a few months of this, not wanting to let go because i truly did love her so much, she was one of my safe people. One day in History though, i walked in to find another girl (another friend of hers and recently mine but had started acting off with me for unknown reasons). i stood there confused and looked to her for an explanation and she looked at me and said: "You two have to sort this out". I didn't know what to do but i knew fighting wouldn't matter. I just turned and sat down across the class next to someone who was currently in my friend group but i did not want to be sitting next to because she had backstabbed not only me before but Peacock as well. I didn't sit there for long though because i went and sobbed in the bathroom.
That was that. we never had a breakup or anything, i was too afraid to say anything to her and even if i did it wouldn't matter because i knew deep down that would give her an excuse to end it. For the past few years i only speculated reasons, never truly knew why she did any of it. Until i found out from a now close friend of mine who was a friend, i suppose, of Peacocks as they were in the same class. Turns out Peacock was telling people multiple things. I found out one of them, a claim and a story.
The claim was that my Autism made me selfish. The story was, an attempt at an example i think, that when she had brought donuts to school i had complained that my favourite donut wasn't there. (16-year-old btw). Now for anyone that knows me, i love donuts; ill practically eat ANY type of donut, in fact i WILL (besides jam due to sensory issues but that wasn't a problem because i know for a fact that she would bring an assortment of basics, not including Jam. That's just the basic box the donut place sorts for a big birthday box.) and Aswell as i know myself, i wouldn't complain that someone else didn't bring my favourite donut for THEIR birthday. What i can only guess (im guessing since i don't remember anything of the sort but something similar of a discussion about which donuts we like the most where i found out her favourite one) what happened was that i decided to share what my favourite donut from that store was as an attempt to connect, either it was a massive miscommunication in the moment or it was her twisting it, im guessing the first would be the more likely hopefully.
Anyway, i don't know what else she was or maybe even is still saying about me but i know there were signs. A big one i even chose to ignore was the R slur being a part of her vocabulary at the time (no it wasn't a part of mine, she did not pick it up around me that's for sure). Also at that time she was doing all of that, i was in the process of painting a picture of us when we were little together which i was eventually going to gift to her, took me a few months after i made my decision to leave to get rid of it because it genuinely hurt to look at.
I guess this serves as a lesson and a warning to other autistic people.