Defense by proxy

I don’t know if this has an official name. I’ve never found one, so I’m giving it one.

You come to someone you trust. You tell them what happened, and you’re hurt. And they say: “Yeah, but have you thought about their side?”

Right there, live, the person who’s supposed to be on your side is arguing for someone who isn’t even in the room.

With a stranger, you wouldn’t care. This only hurts because it comes from someone close. And I think that’s part of the explanation.

When you’re neurodivergent, misunderstandings happen a lot. You say something directly, and it lands as harsh. Someone else says something, and you take it literally. With close people, those moments pile up over the years. And at some point, I think, they stop hearing what I say as new information. They hear it through everything that went wrong before. So when I tell a story about someone else, they don’t just listen. They step into that person’s shoes, because somewhere along the way I became someone whose version has to be double-checked.

I can’t prove that’s what’s happening. Sometimes it may be that they see themselves in the story, and they’re quietly asking: “Would someone say this about me?” Sometimes they’re just trying to be fair. And the misunderstandings go both ways. From the outside, you can’t always tell which one it is.

But the effect is the same, and it goes one of two ways.

Either you start doubting yourself. Was I exaggerating? Did I overreact? You were there, you know what happened, and you still question your own memory.

Or you push back. And now you’re not talking about what happened anymore. You’re fighting with the one person you came to for comfort.

You might be living this if:

• You rehearse how to tell a story so it won’t sound too harsh.
• You came for support and ended up in a fight with the person you came to.
• You leave out details because you know how they’ll land.
• You feel lonelier after talking than before.

I don’t have a clean solution. I’ve said it out loud, more than once, and it didn’t change anything. What I do in the meantime is refuse to let one person’s reaction be the only measure of whether I’m reasonable.

If you recognized yourself in this, you’re not exaggerating, and you’re not alone.