Autistic client won’t stop talking to me

I have an guy at a day program I work. He likes to approach me. He follows me wherever I go. He likes to ask me questions and some of them are personal. He goes to my group sometimes. He also often leaves his group to talk to me even though I’m busy. How do I deal with this, such that he will stop talking to me?

If he’s autistic he may have trouble with boundaries. Idk. I’m just guessing. Maybe talk to someone in charge who has experience with such. He might not be able to help himself really.

Share some compassion and make the world a better place.

That's an extremely difficult thing to do when you're on the spectrum. It's not his responsibility to make the world a better place for the person bothering him.

this is a tricky dilemma because he's formed an attachment to you for some reason. He thinks you're a friend for some reason and that he can approach you. When we find someone that we can approach that we like to talk to, its monumental for us because friends are few and far in between.

However, that should not obligate you to engage in a friendship that you have no desire for. It doesn't make you a bad person either.

How to get him to stop talking to you? That depends on where he's at on the spectrum and what he can understand socially. If it were me, I'd want to know if I were pestering someone and be told the truth immediately. I would see whatever you're doing (to give him the impression that you're a friend or someone he can talk to anytime) as a bit fake and unreal and that would anger me. Someone else on the spectrum may not feel that way. They may want to hold onto you no matter what and may be angered with the truth. You'll have to feel him out and see which one he is and be blunt. Don't flower anything up or speak in riddles. We don't pick up on riddles and metaphors.

What would I want to hear? "Hey, I'm really sorry but I have something else I need to focus on. Can you please give me that time to myself?"

Whatever you do, don't be mean because that will destroy him. If he's so far on the spectrum that nothing helps, you may have to enlist help.