Best friend self-sabotaged our friendship two years ago now (TW: potential abuse)

Hi all. This is my first post here, and it's going to be a bit lengthy so please bear with me. Trigger warnings follow: potential abuse.

Two years ago I met a young woman in my college classes (I'll call her K for short as that is her first initial). K was hard of hearing like me, and took advantage of some of the same accessibility services that I did (my hearing is not good enough with a hearing aid in to understand certain types of speech, so I used sign language interpreters while she used an open-caption/open subtitles machine to have the real-time transcript of lectures sent to her in class).  I was very nervous about approaching her in class (she seemed lonely to me, rarely talked to anyone in class). It took a few weeks before I mustered up the courage to send her an email through our university's online class platform, Canvas; she responded the same day and that began a friendship that was only to last until the end of that semester in which we met, for reasons I will explain in a few moments.

We sat next to each other in class in the front row, and we were able to figure out that we were both hard of hearing, but that our primary hearing loss in in opposite ears (for me it's the right ear that is profoundly deaf, the left is partially correctable with a hearing aid but for her it is the right ear that is hard of hearing). So for understanding each other better she would almost always walk on my left side. I got her phone number a few weeks after we first started engaging with each other, and that began an almost daily routine of texting each other and otherwise staying in touch.  Even though we saw each other twice a week for class, texting worked very well for us as we could communicate without each other's hearing issues getting in the way. She also had physical disabilities requiring the use of a cane (for balance purposes, not walking assistance).

I learned over time that her family engages in verbal abuse of her, frequently yelling at her when she is unable to hear them properly. I do not know if they engaged in other forms of abuse.  As I got to know her over the course of several months, I found out that she had an autistic sibling (a younger brother).  That was when I felt safe enough with her to disclose that I am autistic myself (a level one autistic). That really surprised her but at that point she also felt safe to disclose that she believed herself to be autistic as well (it tends to run in families) and based on my own observations plus things she told me, that it is probably 100 percent likely that she is indeed autistic; she wanted a diagnosis but she didn't know how to get one or pay for one (and I didn't know her well enough at that point in our friendship to think about asking if she would like me to look into if her own insurance might pay for autism testing).

Fast forward a bit, and I learned that her prior friendships all ended pretty much the same way. While she blamed the other friends for the friendship ending, what I didn't know or realize at the time that the common pattern in those friendships was her engaging in behavior that I now know looks like self-sabotage. I knew K was something of a perfectionist but it seems she brings that into friendships. That can cause her to get upset when someone makes a very human mistake - and it's what happened with me. I knew also that she had pretty low self-esteem and that she would sometimes criticize herself when she herself said or did something that she thought I wouldn't like (I'm pretty tolerant of other people's misstep); I always told her it's ok, I don't mind if you make mistakes as we're both human and learning what each other can and can't accept in each other). She even expressed her worry and concern one day when I was out hiking by myself near where she lived; my phone ran out of battery mid-way and so I wasn't able to even call an UBER or LYFT; I had to physically walk out of the state park I was hiking in and find my way to a coffee shop using only my iPad (I had downloaded a map of the area so that directions worked offline); during that time she was very worried about my safety.

K had a lot of trouble being vulnerable enough to talk about certain things once we began to develop some closeness. I had an inkling, however, that she has some sort of trauma that she would not talk about or discuss, and it seems to surface under specific conditions, but I didn't pay enough attention then to pay attention to the changes in her personality when the trauma surfaces and her unconscious reactions take over. She'd once shared a link with me about the "Dark Side of Introversion"; whether that was her way of hinting she had some demons inside her she hadn't dealt with, I don't know. that's how I know she's perfectly capable of deep empathy and compassion when her trauma is not at the surface again. 

Now we get to the point where the breakdown happened (this happened twice).  We had become close enough near the end of the semester for us to talk about doing things off campus together and it was K who suggested that we go to the history conference on campus that was being held at the conference center there - it was something I'd planned on going to myself, so we worked out the logistics. I lived on campus at the time, across the street from campus on housing that was off-campus but for university administration purposes it was considered to be on-campus housing. The conference center was at one of the highest locations on campus and would have required me walking up a bunch of hills; she had volunteered to pick me up and take us both to the conference in her car; this led to us playfully joking about me finding out just how a tiny person can drive (she was very very small for her age, about 4 foot 5 or roughly 134-135 cm in height in shoes).

About a week before the conference is when things broke down.  We'd gotten to know each other well enough for me to ask about having her come to my graduation ceremony on campus for receiving my Bachelor's in History; she told me she had to decline because culturally for Japanese, graduations are only for family, not friends. I had asked partly because I didn't know if I would ever see her again after I graduated.  My version of autism also includes ADHD; in my case it means I can be impulsive and a bit pushy under certain circumstances (this happened here as I tried to convince her it would be good for her), but eventually I dropped the matter and apologized, and she did too.

The next day things seemed plenty normal, we talked a lot that morning and eventually she had to leave to take relatives to a family market nearby, but at that point eventually she stopped responding; I later learned it was because she'd accused me of creating a "communication clash"; without her defining what that was. I think she was referring to the graduation incident, but honestly, is that something to get upset over? I know it was my fault for being a bit impulsive about it, but losing her to graduation would have been hard for me (I should simply have asked when SHE was graduating; that was to be the following year). She could also have been referring to thinking that I wasn't listening to or even ignoring her when we were in person and talking normally, because in addition to being hard of hearing, I also have auditory processing issues on top of that, which can result in my brain interpreting someone's speech as gibberish even if I can hear them well - so even if I can hear you clearly I might not understand you at all.  I never got the chance to mention that.  It would be almost three months before we spoke again; at that time I had asked our professor if I could finish the semester remotely due to how traumatizing her break was with me, which was granted.

I thought at that point I'd never see or talk to her again; I'd even written her a letter explaining my reasoning about what happened, apologizing for the "communication clash", etc. Well one day about a week before the end of the semester (I was still very depressed over losing her), I decided to go to a history club meeting.  I knew she generally hated large crowds and there was quite a few people there so I figured I wouldn't see her.  So imagine my surprise when I saw that tiny Japanese girl with a cane come strolling in, giving a double take when she saw me, and then we both ran to each other and hugged each other tight. It is at that meeting that my only tangible memory of us is preserved - in a selfie I took of us sitting at the desk in the history club room with her seated, feet dangling off the floor, and me on my knees in order to be at her level (I'm five feet 10 inches or 178 cm so that was really the best way to get us both in the shot). There's no inkling in that photo of what would happen two days later when the final break occurred. That day I did not have my hearing aid in as I didn't expect to see or meet anyone for whom I would be talking to, and she understood that I didn't plan for running into her, and she told me she'd go to the other meeting two days later and asked me to go (it was a guest lecturer who was speaking).

So two days later is the last time we ever spoke. She seemed perfectly fine, we even talked about what she would be doing that summer (vacation to Colorado) and I'd hoped we could stay in touch while was there.  Somewhere between the end of the meeting and when I boarded the shuttle back to my apartment is when her trauma, whatever it is, resurfaced and she had her complete break with me. She was walking me to the shuttle and during that she suddenly told me she's scared...of me?  I didn't realize it at the time, but in her eyes I could see the trauma from her past, whatever it is, taking her over - the same thing that had happened a couple of months prior, but the prior time because I wasn't there I didn't see her eyes display the same thing. I'm like, what is there to be scared of, K?  I'm here, I would never hurt you and you know that. But she insisted something was scaring her (I wonder if she'd happened to be physically abused somewhere in her past and the specific location and circumstances in this place brought it back up unconsciously for her) and apparently in place of the trauma being the scary thing, because I was there with her, I got replaced with whatever the trauma was and subsequently was accused of being the scary thing or person that had created her trauma. 

I never got to talk to her again after that.  A few weeks after that, I  got hauled into the school's Equity and Compliance (OEC) office with a complaint from her regarding the "communication clash".  I still didn't know what she or that office meant by those words - they refused to explain to me the terminology and definition.  I also got dinged for hugs without asking (and yes, that's on me, because the first time I hugged her, I didn't ask - growing up, my grandmother had told me that everyone likes hugs and being the autistic person I am, I took that very literally).  I'm like though, if she didn't like it the first time, then why did she hug me so giddily when we ran into each other again at the history club meeting? It doesn't make sense - if you don't like hugs, you don't, but then you need to tell me so I don't so it again.  That kind of contradictory message is confusing as *** for autistic people.

The OEC was completely unfamiliar with autism and didn't believe my explanations about most of my autistic traits causing the potential communication clash (remember, K is undiagnosed autistic), and didn't believe me either about the taking literally of what grandma had told me about hugs.  I wasn't even allowed to have an autism advocate with me to help the department understand these things.  K's complaints, such as they are, were in my opinion better served by having us both see on-campus counseling so we could work through the communication clash and work on signals to help her tell me when hugs are ok and when they are not with regard to K. Obviously, the department did NOT take my side of the story into account, and we weren't allowed to contact each other until I'd graduated with my bachelor's and subsequently, with my master's degree. It's very unfair to not have your side of things believed or considered at all, especially since autistic person are almost always going to be truthful (I have no reason to lie to anyone).

I was allowed to text her in May following my master's graduation, I sent a profound apology for everything that happened, but we still haven't talked in that two year period.

I only recently discovered the concept of self-sabotage as it pertains to friendships and relationships, and looking back, I can see she essentially self-sabotaged all her friendships in her life, including the one we had - the one I knew had meant the most to her because I had accepted and tolerated all her faults, yet the same break with me occurred that had occurred in other friendships she has had.  My understanding is self-sabotage of friendships usually has a couple of definite causes:

• Low self-esteem/self-worth (she had this in spades)
• Fear of vulnerability (as said above)
• Past trauma (the primary cause I think).

I also realize now she likely didn't possess very many conflict resolution skills, if at all. I think she also was afraid of being abandoned or rejected (both things I have personal experience with as an autistic person). But why would she do this to the one friend she'd ever found who truly understood her on her level? We were planning to do so much together and it's all of a sudden, she snapped, whether due to trauma or because she doesn't have the conflict resolution skills to handle even missed communication. To this day, I believe she still has no friends.

K, if you're reading this:

I would never have hurt you and deep down you know this. Whatever you called a communication clash, you never defined what you meant by that, and without that it's hard for me to pinpoint what exactly I might have done that would result in you having that break with me. I fully believe any problems could have been resolved without us being forced apart, even if we needed to see on-campus counseling together. I struggle with understanding speech sometimes, even yours at times, and that is not my fault, as a hearing aid only amplifies what hearing I do have, it doesn't make me automatically understand what is being said.  I probably could have used the Live Transcribe app on my phone to help with understanding you at the times my auditory processing issues interfered, but I also wanted to ensure when we were together in person that we had each other's undivided attention - so I didn't use it as it was in Beta testing at the time, as it is. I should have told you to repeat yourself if I couldn't understand you, or asked you to text me what you said, or even write down that in the little brown book you always had with you to help facilitate communication sometimes. Hugging you without asking is also on me, but you could also have asked me later to not hug you again without asking you - is that so hard? I struggle too with reading even other autistic people's non-verbal cues, and I don't have good proprioception, so that I actually don't know how hard or how soft to hug someone. I should have let you know that, too. I can't tell often if something is not welcome unless you tell me in some way through words, not body language I struggle to read.

I miss you deeply each and every day, and wonder what might have been if we had not had what happened, happened.  You told me you'd be a terrible friend at the outset - but you never were. You were the most loyal, dependable friend I ever had, and that should prove to you that you indeed can be that sort of person to someone. Cutting someone off because of unresolved past trauma on your part HURTS, K. It hurts not just me, but it hurts you and any chances you have of having friends. Why didn't you tell me about these demons inside of you?  Maybe we could have figured out a way to help you get through those periods when your demons decided to surface. I know what those feel like, because I've struggled in some way with that too - but together, we actually forgot about those, didn't we?  I called you by the nickname "little corgi", because you are indeed corgi-sized, and you were tickled pink by that nickname and liked that. I loved you to death, little corgi, and I still do, even a couple of years later. 😭😭😭