I'm autistic. My (17M) Best Friend (16M) is being rude to me about my interests, and it's to the point where I can't tell if he's being serious or not. How do I confront him? Do I continue to be his friend, or cut him off?

Before this post begins, I'd like to say some things. I go to a mainstream high school, with a shortened schedule & 2 special needs classes so I don't get overwhelmed. My friend is completely neurotypical (non-autistic).

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I usually don't have a problem identifying when people are joking. I can usually tell when people are being sarcastic or using hyperbole, mostly due to the fact that I was trained to identify those kind of social cues since I was a kindergartner.

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My friend, He watches a lot of anime and I think that he thinks he's also an anime character. He's constantly "jokingly" mean to me, teasingly punching me, and making fun of my interests- I take a stuffed animal to school often times because without him I have sensory overloads and panic attacks. He often times squeezes the stuffed animal's head and throws him on the ground. It makes me really upset, but often times I just try to laugh it off.

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I'm very interested in cartoons. As you can tell from my username, I really love the 2002 Nicktoon "Chalkzone", and I draw characters from it when I have free time. My friend often times points to my drawings and laughs, even when I'm really proud of them.

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I love legos as well. I like to build them, and he makes fun of those too. He takes apart my lego figures, which makes me distressed.

I have distonia, which makes my muscles weaker. He makes fun of my skinny arms and how slow I walk, but he does it in a joking way.

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I'm especially sensitive to this kind of teasing because my Special Interests are very important to me. How should I confront him to tell him to stop? Can someone please give me a little bit of advice?

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Please refrain talking to me like a child. I'm autistic, but I can think for myself. Sorry if that last bit came off as aggressive.

TL;DR : I'm autistic. My non-autistic friend makes fun of me in a joking way, which makes me very upset. How do I confront him, and do I even continue being friends with him?

Submitted March 05, 2020 at 07:11PM by chalkzonefan22 https://ift.tt/2v0f6PJ