Hi Paul,

Thank you for reading and responding to my article. Please forgive my taking a day to respond. I needed a bit of time to clarify and organize my thoughts on the question which you have presented me with.

To begin my response I want to clear up a very common misunderstanding about people on the autistic spectrum. It is commonly believed that autistic people have no emotions or feelings. This is anything but the case. I did not know that I was autistic until I was 41. Prior to this my adopted family thought I was a raging lunatic because they thought that my emotions were out of control. They saw me have meltdowns which they thought were temper tantrums on a regular basis. They saw me go from being exceedingly happy to raging mad within minutes because of something someone would do to trigger me. My family did not understand the difference between a temper tantrum and a meltdown. There is a key difference to these two things and it is at the core of understanding the emotions of an autistic person. Temper tantrums are manipulative. Tantrums end the second the person throwing the tantrum gets what they want. Meltdowns are not manipulative. A meltdown is a response to sensory overload and can not end on the spot. The senses must calm down completely before the meltdown is over with. A sensory overload CAN NOT happen in a cold and unfeeling person. Sensory overload can only happen in a person who has very hightened senses, who feels things very deeply. I feel things very deeply. I melt down a lot. Have I learned to control where and when I melt down? To a degree I have, but that does not mean it still does not happen because it does, and frequently.

I want to double up on this point, just to make sure that it is overly clear. When I first met the ex-gf, the one who opened my eyes to the fact that I actually am autistic, I asked her the same thing: Aren’t aspies supposed to have zero emotions? After spending even a little bit of time with her I began to realize that she felt very deep emotions. So when I asked her she was very open and honest in her response, which is a very aspie thing to do. She said she feels things very deeply, sometimes so deeply that she can not deal with them and that is when she melts down. I distinctly remember the first time she posed for an art class. We had practiced for a week for this time and yet when we got to the class she emotionally froze. I asked her if I posed with her if it would help her and she replied yes. So I posed with her for the first 10 minutes or so of the class and then she said she was fine to finish. After the class though, she sat in my car cold as ice. I asked her what was the matter and she said she was having a meltdown but that her meltdowns took a very different form than mine did. I asked her what to do and she responded that I should help get her to relax. This woman loved me deeply and trusted me to show her vulnerable side to me. So I took her back to my place and gave her a very gentle back rub until she calmed down. At one point she smiled and said she could sleep in my arms for hours, which I encouraged her to do so. Again, this is not a cold hearted being we are talking about, but someone who feels things very deeply.

We aspies come off as being cold and emotionless because much of the time we simply can not handle the emotional and sensory input that we are receiving. We feel everything very deeply. We notice everything very deeply. We experience everything very deeply. Our senses are heightened. It can be and is very draining. And thus many of us have learned to just not receive what we are being exposed to, when we are able to control it. This is why we often come off as cold and standoffish. It is not that we are cold, it is that for our own survival we have to pick and choose what we receive, when that is doable. That is only doable some of the time. This is why many of us avoid eye contact. Have you ever made eye to eye contact with someone for more than a second or two? It can be very intense. When I have done it with people I have felt like I could see into their soul. It is the same thing with letting people touch us. I only let a few people hug me with anything more than a quick cursory hug. Why? Because I feel it so deeply and so intensely that it often is over powering to me emotionally. So the first thing that I hope for you to take away from this is that your friend the aspie is not cold and emotionless. On the contrary, if they are anything like me and I am nothing special, then they feel things very deeply. And they probably miss your friendship.

So on to your question. How do you repair a broken friendship with an aspie or other person on the autistic spectrum? The first word that comes to mind is honesty. Because those of us who are on the spectrum feel and sense things very deeply, we can almost always tell when someone is “being less than genuine with us” to use a quote from a press conference that Steelers coach Mike Tomlin used earlier this week when discussing his intentions for a trade with the Dolphins. We can sniff out fakeness with the accuracy of a bloodhound. So be truthful with your friend. Don’t come off as being pretentious because that will only backfire on you and make things worse. If there was bad luck, then admit that! If you made mistakes, admit that as well! Also, admit to your friend that you value their friendship because of who the person is and that you miss being their friend. Honesty is the #1 condition to curing much of the worlds problems and is even more so when you are dealing with a person who has aspergers, is autistic or on the spectrum, however they choose to define themselves.

Along with honesty, most autistic people seek out acceptance for who they actually are. Acceptance not for “who we can be” which is what my estranged legal mother tries to push on me, but acceptance for who we actually are. I will never be the person that the woman who adopted me wants me to be, and I honestly wish she would get over that hallucination. It took me until my late 30s to begin to accept myself for who I actually am, and until my early 40s to see myself as being a perfect, amazing person who has much to offer the world. Do I have flaws? Yes, I have tons of flaws. But God, my creator, made me like I am and he does not make accidents. And so acceptance for who an autistic person is the second thing that comes to mind for how to repair a broken relationship with them. They want to know they are accepted and not rejected. Believe me, they have faced more rejection in their life time than anyone could ever understand.

I am sure this person notices that you are not actively their friend and I am sure it weighs heavily on their mind. So when you approach them they are going to be wondering why are you approaching them again now, after all that has happened? Honesty and acceptance are the first two keys and then understand that your friend is wired to be autistic. It is not something that can be cured, changed or fixed. Most of us who are at peace with the fact that we are autistic do not want to be changed. My legal mother wants me to be “fixed”. She has tried my entire life to fix me and it has done nothing but infuriate me toward her. She and I will never get along until she comes to an acceptance for who I am and learns to see that in spite of my flaws and struggles in life that I am exactly who my creator, God, made me to be! If you want to repair the broken friendship you must be at peace with accepting the fact that your friend is autistic and accepting of all of their imperfections. They won’t change. They can’t change. So do not expect them to change.

My last thought on how to heal a broken friendship with an autistic person is that you honestly value them for their friendship. Autistic people just like everyone else in the world want to know that we are valued for who we actually are. That our presence in the world and in the lives of others matter. Your friend wants to know that you enjoy being their friend, in spite of the unfortunate things of the past. Your friend

I actually don’t think your job is as hard as you think it will be if you approach with: honesty, acceptance and value. However, it may take time. I had the first of 3 concussions in 2015 which caused me to break up with the aspie girlfriend 4 times in the month of December. I hurt someone who I loved deeply very badly. When I finally confronted her about what had happened at first she was furious with me. She wanted to forgive me but was angry that the concussion had made me go from being someone sweet and loving to being someone who hurt her so deeply. It took her a month to finally begin to accept and forgive me. So don’t expect things to change over night. They won’t. It takes me a minimum of 18–24 hours to fully recover from a bad meltdown. A broken friendship will take much longer than a few days or a couple phone calls to repair. But IT CAN be done! Just be patient!

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. Always remember that no matter what books or blog posts say about autism, they are only the opinions of one person or at best yet a group of people. Autism is different for every person who is autistic and while some approaches may work for some people, other approaches may be required for others. The approach that I gave you is one that I see as being authentic and respectful and these are two of the key ingredients for interacting with anyone, but most especially an autistic person.

Michael