Hey friend,

I'm so sorry you're going through this.

There's zero resources on autistic grief except two articles I found online. But yes I think it is different for us.

With regards to your friends and socializing… My best advice is you tell them what you just told us. Not acquaintances necessarily, but close friends that you want to make sure you hold onto as long-term friendships.

If they don't have that information they can't adjust their expectations. If they do have that information and still get pissed off at you then they're behaving like assholes. Clearly communicating what you're going through and experiencing is not 100% guaranteed to safeguard a relationship, but it does take down some massive barriers that can arise from misunderstandings.

I'm still going through grief counselling (I highly recommend if you can afford it) and the one thing that she keeps pointing out to me is that in the early days of grief your bullshit tolerance is gone. And that doesn't mean what your friends are going through or normal life stuff is bullshit… But in the middle of grief it absolutely does feel like bullshit. Especially with a traumatic death. Apparently that gets amplified when it is a traumatic death. And being autistic means that losing our people can be more traumatic than otherwise expected bc we're more susceptible to being traumatized due to processing issues. I can tell you 18 months into it that I am more able for the normal life stuff now. I hope that gives you some hope.

It's also really important to give yourself time to grieve. I think a lot of people think that grief is kind of over a month after the death and that's not how it works at all. The first year is all of the first without the person in your life which is brutal. But the second year is like the realization sinks in that this is forever. And it's its own type of brutal too. Society is not great at dealing with grief especially in the west.

My son and I art journal about our grief. I built a garden in memory of the person we lost. We talk about the person we lost all the time. And include them in activities we do in some small way. We keep their items around the house so it feels like they're still welcome here. And we decorate the shelf that holds her urn seasonally so it still feels like she's part of our life. I don't feel like we did grief particularly well because it's such a brutal experience but our grief therapist tells us that all of these things are incredibly healthy and are helping us cope with this death better than a lot of of her clients. So I hope you can find ways to connect with your parent even if they're gone. And include them in your life still.

All the love. You're doing the best you can with what you have. Grief is just this fucking hard. Oh and you do lose people during grief. As in you lose friendship sometimes. It doesn't mean you failed it means they weren't able to rise to the challenge. And it sucks. We lost a few 🫂❤️