“In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies...but the silence of our friends.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I misspoke in an earlier piece, where I said ‘broken people attract broken people’. The truth is, terrible people stay with those who don’t have the skills to get rid of them. That is especially true of us with disabilities affecting our social skills.
For example, when I was 15, I spent most of the summer at Columbia College working in the animation department, on a series of short cartoons. Here, I learned about the different mediums used in animation, ranging from hand-drawn to computer animation, as well as the different engineering behind light boards, stop motion cameras, and other accoutrements of the genre. The program culminated in two ways: four college credits (not bad for a high school freshman!) and a miniature film festival featuring all of the work we had done over the eight week period. As someone who loved art, films, and had her eyes set on going to university soon, this was an incredible experience to have.
When we left the theater on State Street in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood once the film festival had concluded, I turned to my friends that I had invited to watch the film festival, Chris, Allison, and Lindsay. I was hoping to hear praise about the short film I created. They knew that it took me most of that summer to make the five minute short, and that I spent countless hours drawing, sketching, and critiquing my work and others.
“What did you think?” I eagerly asked. Chris smirked, but with my nonverbal learning disability, I interpreted it as a genuine smile.
“I think it could have been better. A lot better. I could have done better. Heck, I should have been there in that program--I would have been such a rock star! Your drawings were not good enough.”
“Yeah,” Allison chimed, “It was really short. It didn’t make any sense.”
“It was pointless,” said Lindsey, “I thought it was going to be more, you know, purposeful.”
“That’s it!” Chris cackled, “It made no sense! It was so short, what was the point of even doing it? Why couldn’t you have done something different?”
I blinked back tears. If you guys wanted to tear me down, I thought, then why even bother coming to watch my work?
“Oh don’t be so upset,” Chris snapped, seeing my face, “We’re telling you these things to make you a better artist!”
“Yeah,” Allison added with an eyeroll, “Get used to it. If you don’t like criticism, then don’t bother with making art at all.”
I took a breath and the tears went away. They’re my friends, I reminded myself, they want what’s best for me. They say these things because they care about me.
However, it’s been 20 years, my visual art has been printed in textbooks and academic journals, and those words still sting. Because, even though my non-verbal disability caused me to interpret their cruel indifference as a form of feedback, it still hurt.
Like every person who has ever lived, I’ve had a fair share of nasty encounters and unpleasant moments with people, ranging from crazy phone calls with clients to a trashy shouting match at a fraternity mixer as an undergraduate at University of Oregon. We all have. Part of being a human is dealing with our species’ unpleasant natures, as both individuals and as a greater society on planet Earth.
But what do you do when these people are considered your friends?
People who struggle with nonverbal communication, such as individuals on the autism spectrum or with non-verbal learning disorders, such as myself, are especially vulnerable to this. We struggle with understanding sarcasm, eye rolls, and other such nonverbal social cues. Making friends, as a result, is really, really hard for us, and when we get friends, we automatically assume that if they’re hanging out with us, they’re doing it because they love and care about us. Even when they say and do mean things to you.
Friendship gets even harder when compounded with major depressive disorder (MDD), which causes brain fog, fatigue, and low mood, all of which are terrible by-products of my disability. It is also crushing when it comes to making and keeping close friends. You struggle to remember dates unless they’re written down, you’re often too exhausted to hang out after work or school, and attempts at humor often end up sarcastic or grouchy. Not exactly the person you want to have as a friend, especially if you need a lot of emotional support.
So you learn to put up with the terrible friends, because you are too tired and nervous to find new ones. After all, they’re hanging out with you, so that means they must like you, right? And you learn to adapt to terrible behavior. You invite them to events that you know they may not behave at. You smile when they act rude. You shrug off when they dismiss your successes, you nod when they tear you down at parties, and you save your tears for when the world is not scrutinizing every word and action that you perform.
Soon, you find yourself looking for that terrible behavior, thinking it is genuine, rather than recognize it for the insecure cruelty that it is.
You become suspicious of genuinely nice people, thinking that they’re making fun of you or are doing it because they feel sorry for you.
You accept brutal criticism from people who you think are your friends, thinking, “It’s all for the best. They want to make me better.”*
You listen to what you’re hearing, because your NVLD-riddled brain tells you to, even if your heart is begging for you to plug your ears and run.
You expect your friends to point out every single flaw and bad thing you do and have done, whether it’s a performance, an art show, a sports game, a grade on a test, an acceptance letter to a great university.
You internalize it, to the delight of your MDD, which fuels your low mood, making you even more depressed and awful to be around. MDD knows you don’t have the energy to find new friends, the MDD reminds you that you’re not worth it, and even if you did, the NVLD prevents you from acting normal enough to attract friends and keep them.
Your teachers write about what an uninspired grouch you are. You get sent to the guidance counselor’s office, where she wonders what is wrong with you, and you beg to just sleep on her couch. You are passed over for letters of recommendation and parts in production, because you lack the energy or the courage to take on bigger projects.
You take part in peer cruelty, through bullying and nasty remarks and practical jokes, because you expect it. It extends even to the professional world, because you start expecting cliques to form in your graduate school and anticipate bosses to be especially nasty to you.
You’re blind to the disturbing behavior of those you think love you, because you have never known anything different.
It is a vicious cycle, one that I lived in for years.
I’m lucky, though, and was able to beat this with a variety of different modes: the biggest of which was with to find new hobbies (even if someone is a massive jerk, if you’re cycling or playing tennis, you don’t have to listen to them!), make a list of things I was willing to tolerate from friends (You can make fun of my knitting, whatever. Mocking my academic accomplishments? BYE FELICIA) and things I were not.
I also became incredibly busy, a habit I picked up in high school and continued through to this day. If you truly want to be around me, expect that I’ll have to fit you in a very busy schedule, and if you’re not a jerk, I’ll let you in.
Because of that list of tolerance and that tight schedule, I’ve dropped a lot of would-be friends. Also, medication. Taking Zoloft made me sleep better, stopped my trembling hands, and helped make my brain fog disappear. It made me easier to be around, and I began seeking easier people to be around.
And I became better at taking criticism, as well.
*Though it gives you one hell of a survival technique for getting through a Ph.D program.
Dr Vogt Veggeberg writes from her hometown of Chicago, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and assortment of pets. A graduate of University of Oregon and University of Illinois at Chicago, she currently works as a nonprofit director and writer. Her work can be found at https://linktr.ee/krisveevee
*Audio Narration Coming Soon
Cover Photo: Andy Rementer