A family friend who isn't Mormon and won't join the church despite my family trying to convert him repeatedly. I have had discussions with him at length about religion both before and after my apostasy, and he and I agree on most things these days. They all drove up to Seattle to see it and just forgot that I might like to be there for him too.

I'm upset. I don't know how to process this or who to talk to about it. There have been Mormon weddings I missed simply because they wouldn't let me inside anyway. I would have loved to be there, though. I'm awkward at the reception, because I feel second class and I know everybody knows I don't believe anymore and that they say things about me behind my back I can't hear. I would love to be part of those talks and to clear the air of so much ignorance about what I think or what I'm about these days, but they refuse to give me any of those opportunities, and instead I get this.

I have asked to be left alone more, but I'm not declaring my hatred of all human company all the time when I say that. I learned about the wedding from a text from my mother that shows no sign of any awareness on her part that this would upset me. Why wouldn't I want to be there? Did the groom ask about me? What did they say when they spoke for me in my absence? I want to talk about these things, but the way I tend to express myself to them (desperate sometimes and too eager to see something, anything, break through to them) and the way they tend to govern their own emotions (barely, mostly by avoidance behavior) means they're going to see me coming a mile away in a negative spirit they don't want to partake in and I will be avoided emotionally. It will slip their minds that they screwed up, left me out, and hurt my feelings or that a description of the wedding and an acknowledgement that I would like to represent my own self to people we both know, not have them speak up for me, is all I would need to not be upset.

With my father as my bishop during all the years I should have been learning to socialize with my peers and my mother as the busy body she is, between the way they both used me to further their own Mormon reputations and left my mental health in a mess with their alternative medicine distrust of the medical establishment, and with the fact that I just learned in my thirties I'm mildly on the autistic spectrum, this latest insult really really upsets me in a way that's hard to articulate, and it's the smallest insult I've been offered of the lot.

I get to speak for me, and when they forbid me from attending weddings, that's not me saying I don't care about anybody: that's them being bigoted asshats. Also, my exhaustion with some people is not exhaustion with all human company: what a narcissistic ass thing to think. This wasn't even a Mormon wedding. What the fuck!?

When you ask to be left alone more and people then leave you alone, you can't expect them to be mind readers about when you would have liked to be included.

Send the friend a congratulatory note and gift with your contact info saying he should contact you directly in the future.

I agree. Send a congratulatory wedding card with a hand-written note inside, saying something like, "I was so delighted to hear of your wedding. Best wishes to you both. I'd love to hear from you when you have some free time." Then give your contact info.

It seems like you're caught in a cycle of explaining yourself in any and all interactions. It's probably part of you being on the spectrum. I don't know.

But maybe it's keeping people from including you in events where they don't want to have this come up. Weddings are such events where the event is to only celebrate the couple and their union and set aside all other emotions as possible distractions and discord.

Is is possible for you to rejoin your family and friends on negotiated terms so that there isn't the prolonged friction?

news that I was on the spectrum created a tenuous peace and I'm on speaking terms with my family again. They don't understand what aspie anxiety can be like, and I didn't know how to explain it until just now. I have spoken to my mother about it, and she didn't even realize I was going to feel left out the instant I saw photos of them up there in Seattle with a friend I would have very much have liked to support if I had known. It was a facebook announcement; the family plans were last minute, but everybody went who could except me. I may be overreacting, but it just reminds me of so many times that they have simply made assumptions about what I want and then presumed to speak for me. I am very raw about them controlling the tone of my relationship with their Mormon social circle and the extended family, but when they begin to do that with even the non-mormon friends we both share, that's intolerable. I told her this. She understands, I think.

I just get so burned out with them, because when they will let me speak my mind and when they won't flabbergasts me. I mean, they never physically stop me from speaking my mind, but the social and emotional prices I pay for doing that vary depending on circumstances I don't understand. I don't understand the logic of when they will and will not listen to me... if it's the topic I'm broaching or the company watching. I can't tell when they're interested in what I'm saying or if they're tired of me and only humoring me. I can't tell if they will remember something and reciprocate things I reveal about myself in a positive way or if they couldn't give af. They keep saying they care, and they keep inviting me to be around, though. I'm tired of almost everybody I used to know going to them to get news about me. I know they're tired of my extreme emotional outbursts and resentful about how I have embarrassed them for the better part of a decade. The fact that they are very good at smiling for onlookers no matter what's going on is part of my inability to read them. What we have we have always imagined as a very close tie, but also it's a very codependent, helicoptery sort of tie. I struggle to define even to myself how this relationship between me and my folks works. I can't hold enough variables in my head to imagine what they're thinking sometimes, but they're my parents and they have at times been my best fans. It just got complicated when I stopped believing and said something about it.

"I have spoken to my mother about it, and she didn't even realize I was going to feel left out the instant I saw photos of them up there in Seattle with a friend I would have very much have liked to support if I had known."

Does your mom know how close you are with the married couple? If so, I don't understand why she would be surprised by your hurt at being excluded. Could your mom be on the spectrum too?

"when they will let me speak my mind and when they won't flabbergasts me. I mean, they never physically stop me from speaking my mind, but the social and emotional prices I pay for doing that vary depending on circumstances I don't understand. I don't understand the logic of when they will and will not listen to me..."

It sounds to me like you need to have a conversation with your mom wherein you are very explicit about when and under what circumstances they are willing to talk to you and let you talk to them about your differing viewpoints. Most people have a differing tolerance depending on the situation. Like a wedding, for example. That is a time to be agreeable and not make waves with out-of-sorts feelings so the focus can be on the couple. It is their time and the event is strictly about them. For most people, they would agree that one-on-one moments are better for having conversations about feelings and/or disagreements. But larger events are better for trying to get along without making waves.

Here's a perfect example of why societal rules of etiquette DO matter.

Were written invitations sent out for the wedding? Frankly, I've never heard of any wedding (except a Mormon one), where invitations were not sent out the to people who the couple wanted there as guests

Assuming there WERE invitations (as is proper for all significant events-HINT: a wedding is a significant event), if the couple wanted you there, as an adult, you should have received an invitation addressed to you SPECIFICALLY. If you are still living in your parent's home then it would be (marginally-given your age and status as an adult),acceptable if your mom and dad received an invitation addressed to: Mr. and Mrs. Cold-Dodger and family, in which case you should have been informed.

Barring the above circumstances, you have the poor etiquette of the bride and groom to blame. If, on the other hand, your family is used to attending weddings where people are invited by word of mouth, then both the wedding couple, and your parents are to blame.

Sorry you experienced this.

notmonotloggedin