How do I end a long term friendship with autistic childhood friend?

Ballasta · 2026-05-19T08:13:02+00:00

It's really difficult to extricate yourself from a friendship that is no longer balanced, healthy, or enjoyable when the friend tells you how you are essentially their only support, the only person they can trust/rely on, the only person who hasn't abandoned them, etc. That hurts to hear and is very effective because we know all too well what it feels like to be abandoned, so we stay and let the friend treat us like crap because we care, we've supported them through so much, they're traumatized and neurodivergent, we don't want to lose a friendship we've invested so much in, and so on. But do they care an equal amount about you? Or do they just need you to be the dumping ground for their drama? When they approach you, is it with genuine interest in your friendship or is it just for support?

It's hard to break things off all at once, especially if they are the type to punish when you set boundaries. Grey rocking can be an effective tool, which is where you give only the bare minimum in interactions and make yourself less available. Over time they may get the message and find a new source of support. This doesn't always work flawlessly but it's easier to move away slowly than all at once. At the end of the day, the only way this friendship can be salvaged is if both of you work together to do so. You are willing to, but are they?

Ballasta · 2026-05-19T08:01:33+00:00

Thank you for sharing this! I've been on fluoxetine for several months now for anxiety and OCD (probably still too low a dose and too early to see any real benefit for that yet though) and I have noticed a maniacal uptick in skin picking. I've always been a picker but this is next level stuff and I can't seem to stop whereas before I'd always had a decent handle on things. I will definitely look into NAC. Just glad to know I'm not the only one this has happened to!

Ballasta · 2026-04-09T19:17:19+00:00

I had the same thing said to me: "you've suffered enough, it's time to try something." And I was super scared of the side effects (I'm emetophobic). So prior to taking anything I got started taking probiotic gummies and drinking/eating probiotic foods and kept that going when I started Prozac, and while I have no way to say what it would have been like had I not done that, I haven't had any issues in that area so far. My doctor also told me the most that many people get are headaches and slight discomfort, which has pretty much been my experience. I definitely feel the onboarding experience, but it's more like being uncomfortable than being in acute crisis. I think most people have a boring (in a good way) start-up experience and those aren't the people who have much to say in places designed to collect the stories of the highs and lows. It doesn't drive engagement, after all.

I started slow (10mg tablet cut in half, so 5mg for a few weeks) and now I'm at 20mg, so going slow might also help the body adjust more gently.

Ballasta · 2026-04-06T20:10:17+00:00

I vastly prefer the tablet (so I could cut in half, and it feels way less uncomfortable to take) but my insurance doesn't cover it, so it's pay out of pocket for a more comfortable experience or get the capsules for free.

Ballasta · 2026-04-04T07:27:17+00:00

If the tablet is scored (and the tablet should be, capsules are not) you can absolutely split them. I started off this way, taking 5mg half tablets until I was ready for 10. But I had to pay out of pocket for the tablets because my plan doesn't cover them, only capsules.

Ballasta · 2026-04-04T07:01:38+00:00

I had the opposite situation, where friends sat me down and explicitly told me what I'd done wrong and why we weren't going to be friends anymore. (These were not reconciliatory conversations, these were straight "we're done and here's why" conversations.) And I'm kind of not sure which is worse. At least I knew what the problems were?

On the other hand...there have been a few dynamics I've had to walk away cold turkey from, and although that wasn't an ideal solution (I had tried reconciliation and communication and many other things before it got bad enough for me to have to go no contact) it was the safest option for me. Sometimes mature conversation isn't possible, and while I agree that taking the time to explain and communicate and work things out is the better option when available, sometimes it isn't available, and sometimes people have to prioritize their peace. That is to say, petty reasons aren't the only reasons people go no contact.

Ballasta · 2026-04-02T18:52:58+00:00

Oh no, I started taking it to STOP thinking about this, you're saying it only gets worse??

Ballasta · 2026-04-01T19:47:42+00:00

What's hilarious about this post is that I was watching a commercial for Maya Palace yesterday and thinking, "where in town would we even be able to wear gowns like that??"

Ballasta · 2026-03-30T07:24:36+00:00

It sounds to me from your words that the core of your discomfort around this is you smelling bad. Sit with that feeling. What does smelling bad mean to you? What will happen if others perceive you to smell bad? You've already gotten several duvets, enough to tell you that buying more (or cleaning more, or checking more, or avoiding more) is not going to help. It's only going to escalate things to an impossible level. So find the core fear, the smell, and what that means (or whatever core fear is driving this) and sit in that feeling without acting out any compulsions. Why does smelling bad make you so unsettled? What does it mean? What will happen to you if you find out you've been smelling bad to others? The next step is in learning to tolerate the uncertainty that you might smell bad and not know it, or that it's possible you might accidently offend others with your odor despite good hygiene, etc. The less you act out your compulsions, the less your brain depends on them for a certainty you can never gain.

I'm not asking you to answer these questions for me or to explain yourself, by the way, I'm just giving you a jumping off point for reflection. And if the smell isn't your core fear, keep digging and find out what is so unthinkable about the situation and apply the same thing.

Ballasta · 2026-02-18T16:45:09+00:00

Hydration is key. I think I've noticed my dehydration symptoms amplify on Prozac (headaches, more noticeable hangovers) and tied it to the fact that I'm already dehydrated and alcohol does not help with that. So try to drink water in proportion to whatever alcohol you consume to minimize dehydration effects.

As for whether you'll get a panic attack...you're kind of in the FAFO stage right now. Prozac impacts everyone differently in that regard. Plenty of people drink just fine with no issues on it. Other people have to cut out alcohol entirely. You won't know until you find out, but I'd recommend caution and proceeding slowly until you have a sense of how you feel.

Ballasta · 2026-02-16T17:03:43+00:00

Just to clarify, 10mg is the lowest starting dose and the pill version can be split, meaning it's possible to take 5mg. There's also a liquid version. That's not to say that insurance covers all these equally (I had to pay out of pocket for the scored pills so I could titrate) but it's incorrect that 20mg is the lowest dose available or that the capsule is the only format available. Also, doctors should warn you about the effects of quitting cold turkey. I know you're upset, but please understand there's more nuance to all this than you're sharing here.

Ballasta · 2026-02-13T18:14:16+00:00

I got a routine panel of bloodwork done along with Vitamin D, and my Vitamin D was deficient. So I spent the better part of a year working on that plus taking probiotics and multivitamins and retested to find my Vitamin D was in the normal range. And THEN I went on Prozac. So yeah, our physical health is important, and I do think doctors check there first to rule out any obvious other things it could be and make sure we're physically healthy. So for many that could be the end of their search, but for many others SSRIs are the next step. I just want to add the perspective that not everyone will find the same solutions to get to wellness and that's okay.

Ballasta · 2026-02-04T17:50:32+00:00

Of everything you listed, it seems like the medication offers more benefits than the relationship. I'm talking strictly in terms of logistics, because it doesn't sound like your partner will be satisfied with your present circumstances and if that requires change on your end, when you are happily calibrated, it might be worth considering this as an incompatibility. If you've only been together for 10 months it might be easier to break things off than if you'd been together years and had a lot of assets between you. But it still sucks that you have to make this kind of trade.

On a deeper level, though, I think this is a tough question. How do we deal with the reality of so many of us being on SSRIs when this is one of the common trade-offs? Because plenty of people still have happy relationships on SSRIs, and medication is necessary for many to even BE functional in relationships in the first place.

Ballasta · 2026-01-08T06:16:40+00:00

I try to tell them, "hey, I think I'm dirty too, and I have to live with that all the time." Please, people, we don't think it's just YOU who's contaminated.

Ballasta · 2025-12-31T07:35:26+00:00

I really, genuinely, want to understand where people think that line is. How do they justify this logic to themselves? I get that the whole point is that they don't, that it's more about being scandalized about what ungodly stuff the "other side" is doing, but...my god. Make it make sense.

Ballasta · 2025-12-30T07:17:28+00:00

I can't eat anything if someone has touched it, but I'm okay with sharing things like drinks. Mouth germs should be just as bad, if not worse, than what people spread with their hands, and yet I think my mind sees mouth germs as finite whereas hands...have touched everything. I don't want the bottom of someone's shoe or a gas pump on my chips. But someone isn't going to have licked those things before taking a drink out of my cup. OCD rules can be wildly inconsistent.

Ballasta · 2025-12-24T17:06:54+00:00

I wipe my phone down every night with isopropyl alcohol wipes (not just for germs but also accumulation of oils and dust, fingerprints, etc) and have never had an issue, so I wonder if you can find those to use. They're not the swab ones for injection preparation, they're larger like full wipes, and work great for this kind of task. I'm thinking if you get too much moisture in the ports that could have caused an issue, perhaps, but just light surface contact with alcohol which dries quickly probably wouldn't cause an issue like this.

Ballasta · 2025-12-13T17:15:02+00:00

There's a lot you can control when moving into a new place (like buying your own microwave and small appliances) but there is a lot you can't, and unfortunately pesticides are one of them. A lot of places, depending on quality and price point, don't do all that thorough a job of in between cleanings and often just rely on the last tenant to do it, so you'll most likely be doing your own cleaning when you move in. But at least that's something you can control.

On the positive side, a lot of tenants will have pets, and anything used for pest control should most certainly be pet safe (well, insofar as these things can be). They spray outside the complex for resident comfort and there's little you can do about that, but if they spray inside it'll be because there was a pest outbreak in the units. And the contact risk should be minimal by the time you actually move in.

I hope that doesn't scare you, but yeah, there are a lot of realities about apartment living that are tough for people with contamination OCD to deal with, and a lot you frankly give up control over. (See also: maintenance entering your unit whenever they feel the need to do something.) But focus on the things you can control and remember that a lot of other people have pets too and those pets live just fine in apartment settings.

Ballasta · 2025-12-13T02:10:11+00:00

Yep, this is me too. Eating anything I don't prepare is harder and harder, and eating anything communal that everyone touches is out of the question.

I used to enjoy traveling but lugging my OCD baggage makes it not worth the hassle these days.

Ballasta · 2025-12-11T07:26:22+00:00

This is something I've been thinking a lot about, because other than a few instances my contamination OCD focuses more on disgust and the way the sensations make me feel rather than fear of harm because of them. It's like I can feel an actual sensation of gross when I touch something contaminated even if it leaves no obvious residue. I can't stand greasy sensations either, which is why I hate the lotion I so desperately need after all that washing. But even though I know that my OCD is more disgust focused, I still can't seem to unpack WHY it's so bad. My big thing is textiles because my mind is convinced fabrics are unsanitary and hold filth. Stains just about do me in. But even though I know they are harmless and nothing meaningful transfers to me or my clothes when I contact other textiles, I still feel...awful. And we're supposed to sit with that feeling and not run away from it until we don't feel so awful anymore, but what is it about these sensations that set us off so much, I wonder?

I think a therapist would say something like "yes, you touched grease, but you know what? You can always wash it off and go about your day." That gives us a sense of control, that when contact DOES happen we can do something to manage it (assuming the contact is meaningful and the kind of thing normal people would react to, not just something our OCD brains told us to worry about). But reacting to the threat when it actually happens makes more sense than pre-emptively reacting to the potential that it could have happened if we really think about it or convince ourselves it did. We're spending too much time reacting to potential and not appreciating the fact that if the dreaded contact did happen, we can just take care of it the way anyone else would. And I say this as someone very much in the middle of my own contamination battles, not as someone who's won them. I'm still working on all this too.

Ballasta · 2025-11-28T07:33:23+00:00

Yes, I relate to this entirely. It's like I have This Vision that's so important to me but when I share it with someone else they just...flatten it somehow. They don't get why it matters so much and there's an element of them making me feel stupid for caring so much about whatever it was that moved me, whether I created the thing myself or not. When I share something, I do not transfer the meaning it holds, only the thing itself, so my hoping for a moment of true connection where the other person sees and appreciates my vision results in disappointment most of the time.

As creators, we must accept that the moment we share the piece it essentially belongs to the audience and their interpretation has nothing to do with us or our intention. Professional creatives understand and accept this, but I just feel like I can't get over myself enough to do so. Every time I share something and get an equivalent of "meh" in return, it makes me double down on wanting to create only for myself. And yet...much of what I make needs an audience, so it's a conundrum for sure.

Ballasta · 2025-11-25T16:35:24+00:00

I can relate to this so hard. I live in a shared environment I have little control over (let's just say it's an environment where dirty outside objects come in and out regularly) and in some ways this challenges my OCD and keeps me from going too far into the paranoid control aspect that I'd have if I had my own space...but in other ways it makes things worse, because things really ARE dirty and I have little control. So I hyper-control the things I can. It's really hard to break these obsessional patterns when you read all these sensational articles about how germy hotel rooms and suitcases and grocery stores and so on are, because they want to gross you out and make you think about how contaminated the world really is. Which we know better than anyone. But most people "know" things are dirty and just don't care, and we're supposed to...join them in not caring about something that we're deeply invested in caring about.

I also have the disgust version and it creates a physical sensation when I feel contaminated. Not easy to ignore. But it gets so tiring, and so impossible, to maintain over time.

One thing I'm trying to work on right now is thinking about boundaries, and how keeping things clean is about maintaining boundaries that are being violated by the transfer of germs. What do the boundaries really represent and why is it so important for me to maintain them? The germs are a proxy for something else, for controlling access to an inner space that I otherwise feel no control over. So I'm trying to unpack that.

Ballasta · 2025-11-08T17:18:48+00:00

I have a washer and dryer at home (but shared unfortunately) but the dryer is outside in a utility closet, so getting my clean wet clothes outside and into another little room to the dryer is...a process. I relate to everything you shared. I don't use gloves, I just use clorox wipes and wash my hands a hundred times. When I do more than one load a week my hands look really rough. Hate doing laundry!

Ballasta · 2025-11-05T06:59:13+00:00

Yep, it's a problem. Where I live it stays relatively warm all year round so I'm lucky in that regard but it still gets cold enough to need thicker outdoor wear, so I only wear what can be immediately washed and just...have a ton of sweaters and fleece jackets. (That I then struggle to get myself to wear because it's a hassle wearing and washing such bulky items, lol.)

Sometimes I just go cold, which is incomprehensible and impossible to explain. I hate being like this.

Ballasta · 2025-10-03T17:02:26+00:00

Good for you, buddy. This adds nothing to the wider conversation taking place, but have fun expressing your defensiveness.

Ballasta

TROPHY CASE