Quoting this from the previous thread. Personally, I am on the spectrum or maybe just off of it. I am pretty sure you could tell I was happy if I was bursting in the seems with happiness. But, generally I often feel projected on, including by my mother.
It's not that uncommon for my mom to surmise that I'm depressed or something, and she likes to remind me that it's ok to see a therapist or that it's normal to take anti-depressants, as if maybe I would benefit from that or maybe I need that. But ironically, that happens when I'm not depressed and generally feeling ok. Whereas if I say I feel a certain way about something, and it goes against hopes, desires, or expectations, I swear she won't necessarily even acknowledge that I actually feel that way. It's like she projects that I am simply too stubborn to do what she knows I really want to do, or what she thinks any "normal" person would do, or something. I can say no over and over again over the course of weeks or even years and she will still passive aggressively nag me as if she actually expects me to eventually come around and say yes. I can certainly be stubborn but in various cases I am simply saying no to something I would not ever come close to considering.
I have loving parents and was given independence and financial support, and I feel petty complaining about them in a community like WS. I guess the point is even as an adult I struggle to and in some cases cannot assert myself against my parents, and set boundaries in a manner that is both mature and respectful yet also effective. Internally it's a point of contention for me. Asserting myself in general is maybe a point of contention for me. I can and will do it if I need to but it requires energy if it doesn't cause anxiety. So I often won't bother, and I might let myself get pushed around, but if I make an effort and it's fruitless that's just frustrating.
More generally, if we're talking random people, they can probably treat me how they want and there's a good chance I won't care, it's easy to brush things off and get on with my life without much bother. But with my parents I feel like I either need to assert boundaries or otherwise cut them out of my life to a large effect, and on top of that I feel some responsibility to them and it ends up a source of stress that weighs on me quite a bit. For that and other reasons, there are
lots of things in life that I would choose to put up with before I agreed to move back in with them as an adult. I wouldn't even be thrilled to live near them. A quick Google search tells me that
my experience is probably not atypical.
I don't know that much about Alicia, and I can't put myself in her shoes and am as curious as anyone as to how she has gotten by over the past few years. But I find it perfectly believable that she might legitimately not want to return to living with her mother, and hasn't simply fallen victim to Stockholm syndrome. It also wouldn't surprise me if she independently chose to run away because she came to a calculated conclusion that it was necessary for her mental heath, and not simply because she was lured by a man. I am pretty sure change is stressful for most on the spectrum, and a big decision like running away probably would not have been made on a whim.
That is not to say that there is nothing inherently suspicious about a 30+ year old man discretely living with a 17/18 year old girl reported missing several years prior. But I think the potential motivations at play here on Alicia's end, create atypical possibilities as far as WS goes.
Beyond that, I think many people here have their own life experiences to project on this situation, and I think it is probably healthy to simply acknowledge that we don't know what we don't know.
