How to Be Together Without Talking (For Neurodivergent Families) | The Neurodiverging Podcast

Do you have an autistic loved one who sometimes wants to hang out but not necessarily talk a ton? Are you having trouble figuring out how to handle it? This podcast’s for you! Thank you to my patrons for suggesting this topic!

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Transcript: How to Be Together Without Talking (For Neurodivergent Families)

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Neurodiverging Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. My name is Danielle Sullivan, and I am your host, and I’m real happy to be here today.

Today, we are talking a little bit about a patron-requested topic, and this has been requested several times at this point: how to create a positive bond with your Somebody without talking too much.

As you know, a lot of autistic folks especially, but also other kinds of neurodivergent people, ADHDers, etc. get overwhelmed by a lot of speech. I think the original request for this topic was in regards to parties, especially family parties, when sometimes you get overwhelmed by all the noise and the socialization and everything, and you just kind of want to go sit in a corner and maybe even your friend or your cousin or somebody wants to come sit in the corner with you and maybe they want to hang out with you and feel good about being in relation with you, but also we can’t really handle more speech at this moment.

So the topic is really about how to be together well without talking over much or speaking. And that’s what we’re going to be getting on with in a moment. Before I get into that, I do just wanna say thank you to my patrons who requested this episode, have supported its creation with their donations at Patreon .com /Neurodiverging.

It helps keep this podcast going and it helps us provide resources like this for all of you for free. So if you are interested in joining the Patreon and donating a couple of bucks a month, you’d get some great perks like ad-free podcasts, our neurodivergent-affirming parent space, group coaching perks, and more. You can check us out at patreon.com /neurodiverging.

I also am trying to be better about reminding people that transcripts, show notes, and lots of other stuff are on our website at neurodiverging.com, so if you’re looking for further resources about this topic, you can go check those out there.

Let’s set a scene for this topic: It’s your stereotypical American Thanksgiving. There’s a lot of people at the house. You’ve traveled to visit your aunt’s and there’s a ton of people there. Some of them you know,
some of them you don’t. Some of them you get along with pretty well. Some of them not really. It’s busy, it’s loud. There’s a lot of food. There’s clinging cutlery. There’s dishes you’re not used to. There’s smells you’re not used to. There’s food that’s maybe made with a different recipe than your family makes it. And after a while, even though you’re having a pretty good time. good time, you just kind of get overwhelmed. You’re kind of done with the noise. You don’t want to talk anymore.

You just want to go find a quiet place to hang out, okay? So say you go into a room, you find a quiet corner, you get your phone or you have a book or you’re listening to music and somebody else comes in.

Now, what would we want to tell that other person about how to have a nice time with you without necessarily starting a conversation or making chit chat or small talk?  Because when we are overwhelmed, small talk is really not a good fit for most autistic people.

What else could we do? What could we offer that person that will ground them and help them feel safe and good with us, and not further overwhelm them?

I work with a lot of parents and parent coaching. A lot of autistic kids when they get get overwhelmed want to go be in a corner by themselves, and parents can feel rejected, or they can feel worried that their kid isn’t say making friends in school or is sitting alone at recess or is not inviting people over for play dates as often.

Often we have to sit down and say, well, let’s assume for a moment that the child is at happy being by themselves. What can we offer them that will create them more safety in their nervous system, but still build relationship with us or with other people?

Whether you are the autistic person in the situation and maybe this podcast is something you can send to friends, or whether you’re a parent or a friend of an autistic person and you’re trying to figure out what you can do, this is what this resource is for.

So the first thing I just want to say, and I think this is really the key: let’s look at mindset. Often when I talk to folks who are, say, dealing with that person in the corner of the room, who seems not to want to engage, at least speaking-wise with you, what comes up for folks is that they feel uncomfortable.

They feel like they don’t know how to approach the autistic person. They’re not sure how to support them best. They’re not sure how to show them that they’re there for them without coming across as being a further burden. And sometimes they’re actively worried about the autistic person.

And I wanna say in this context, I’m not talking about an autistic person who is visibly distressed, right? I’m just talking about someone who’s chilling out in the corner, but seems okay. So, this might be the kid who’s sitting on the turf at recess watching other kids. Doesn’t seem upset. It doesn’t seem like they need anything. It’s just kind of sitting and watching.

Now, a lot of adults, teachers, parents feel really uncomfortable about that. They worry about the child. Is the child making friends? Does the child feel like they can’t contribute to the game? Does the child feel like they can’t go up and say hello? And with children, it may be the case that they actually don’t have these social skills, but often actually the kid is fine and just wants to be by themselves. So what I want you to encourage you to do first is, if you are feeling discomfort about being quiet in a room with somebody, think about why you feel uncomfortable.

Don’t automatically assume that there’s something wrong, that the autistic person is upset, that there are overwhelmed, that they’re emotional, that they’re angry. Assume that they’ve gone to the space and they’re feeling okay. They took themselves out of an overwhelming situation and now they’re in a space of safety and calm. Why do you feel uncomfortable? What are your expectations around that?

For example, if you expect that kids should make a lot of friends and run around a recess, then you might be uncomfortable with the idea that your child does not. So sometimes we have to think about, well, what are we feeling? And why are we uncomfortable just letting it be quiet in this room? This can also be, [why do] I feel uncomfortable sitting with someone and not speaking?

Why? Do you feel like they’re judging you? Do you feel judged by yourself? Do you feel like it would be weird not to talk? What is the judgment in that concern you have?

I think that dealing with your own discomfort is the number one step for any communication challenge that folks are having, especially when it’s across neurotypes.

I’ve talked about this before. We have a mini course on it even. When you’re working with communication and we’re assuming that everyone’s doing their best, there’s no bad actors in the conversation. So in this case, I’m assuming that there are no bad actors. Someone’s come into a room and wants to sit with you.

If they feel uncomfortable sitting with you, it’s gonna be obvious. It’s gonna make us more stressed out. So you dealing with your own discomfort is the number one piece of hanging out with your person and building bonds.

Another place I experience this is when I’m parent coaching parents of teenagers. So often it’s normal for teenagers and youth to go through periods where they don’t really want to hang out and talk with their parents. That can be developmentally appropriate. It can also be very stressful for the parent, especially if there are other trust concerns happening with relationships there. For a parent to be successful in creating trust so that the teenager will approach them with anything that needs to be handled,
it’s vital that the parent deal with their own discomfort around the change that they’re observing.

So, if the kiddo used to talk to you a lot and now kiddo’s not talking to you, you might be stressed out about that, and that’s normal and that’s fine and there’s nothing wrong with you for it. They can handle some of it, but in a relationship that’s uneven or that feels like you’re still building trust within it, you really want to have your own stuff sorted first as best you can.

Now [that] we’ve talked about, handling your own emotions around your discomfort, thinking through why do I feel uncomfortable sitting in quietly with somebody else? I want to be there with them, I want to create trust with them, I want them to view me as a safe person, but I feel weird about it: why do you feel weird? Now let’s talk about some actual strategies that you can use for creating a positive bond without speaking.

And again, this could be with your recalcitrant teenager. This can be with your autistic friend. This can be with whatever. There are a couple of options that can be really supportive and you’re going to have to kind of go based on context – what you think is going to help most in your situation with your people?

First of all, literally just sitting in the same room together. I’ll tell you a secret: [neurodivergent people] love parallel play. We want to sit next to you while you’re doing your thing and we do our thing and we don’t really want to talk about your thing or have you talk about our thing, but we do want to be next to you while you’re doing your thing and I’m doing my thing.

This is what our accountability groups are built on in our Patreon. We get together every Wednesday and people bring their things and I bring my thing and we just sit together and we do it and it’s great. Try to get rid of any awkward feeling you have around just literally sitting next to somebody and being on your phone together, doing a crossword puzzle while they’re reading.

It creates a space of trust and camaraderie and that can be really powerful. If you are not sure what to do, and you feel like you need to interact and you can’t just like sit down next to them, you can bring them their favorite thing, bring them a snack, bring them a cup of tea, bring them a stuffy, bring them a fidget. They might not even want it. They might not take it. But the way this builds trust is you are offering something. You are showing interest in their well-being and trying to help them feel cared for. And many folks will pick up on this, even if it takes them a little while to do so. So if you feel awkward just like going and sitting down with them, or you feel like they won’t be receptive to that, you can make it a task, like bring them something.

Don’t require a reaction from them, a certain kind of reaction. Don’t say like, “I brought you your teddy bear, isn’t that great?” and then be sad when they’re not like thrilled about it. They don’t owe you anything in this. But you do want to make some kind of offering to show willing, to show that you’re there for them. that you’re with them, that you’re supporting them.

With some people, depending on your connection together, you can smile, you can make eye contact if they’re the kind of person that’s okay with that. If you have permission to touch them, you can kind of sit next to them and bump shoulders. A lot of us don’t like big hugs, but other kinds of touches can be fine. You would want to have kind of discussed this previous to this moment, if possible. and you want to create no other expectations on that. So you might smile, make eye contact, bump their shoulder, but you don’t need to expect them to speak back, to make eye contact back, to touch back.

Again, you want to reduce expectations with this person, if possible. Another couple of things that can be good are to go back to that parallel play idea. Sometimes you can spend time together with low speaking – because speaking can be such a burden on autistic people when we’re dysregulated. Can you do a puzzle together, or just have one out and you can futz with it? Then if they want to futz, they can join.

How about a video game? Is there a pet in the house? Can you play fetch with the dog or play with the cat or the baby together? Is there a way to be with them without pushing your own expectations for behavior, for speaking, for what socialization looks like, on them?

Autistic people socialize differently. And sometimes we don’t actually want to be in the room alone,
but we also don’t want to be yelling and running around and highly energetic with everybody else. So finding other ways to spend time together, that are a little bit more calm on the nervous system,
don’t require as much speech and as much auditory processing, can be really supportive for us.

My last tip would be to allow for movement. Allow for noise and alternate touch, or different eye contact. A lot of us will side-eye when we’re too overwhelmed to look you in the eyes, but we’ll look at you and you can look back. Alternate touch might just be like, we can kind of bump you with our elbow or nose you with our shoulder. My kiddo comes up and bonks me with his forehead into my hip. That’s alternate touch. It’s not a hug in the traditional sense, but it’s certainly somebody reaching out for support. So looking at those movements and accepting them for what they are and not judging them for being different than what you’re used to [is important.]

And allowing for movement. You know, a lot of us need to pace. We need to stim. We might stomp. We might do vocal trills. Allow for different noise. and don’t judge us for that. It will make us feel more comfortable being in the space with you.

All of this, bringing them their favorite things, smiling, doing a puzzle, all of this is predicated on our ability to trust you. And we’re not gonna be able to trust you if you are actively uncomfortable in the space, because we’re gonna pick up on it and we might think that you’re uncomfortable with us, even if that’s not the case. We’re not gonna be able to trust you if you are actively uncomfortable with us.

So, give us a break. You’re not comfortable sitting in silence with us or doing a puzzle with us or not speaking or letting us bonk you with our elbow or whatever, that’s okay, you don’t have to be comfortable with that. But you need to have figured out what your boundaries are and dealt with your own discomfort ahead of time, or all of this will be for naught. If the trust isn’t there, we need to be able to trust you to handle your own stuff so that we can handle our own stuff so that we can be together and work together, in a relationship together. So again, I just have to stress that that dealing with your own discomfort is a big piece.

If you’re stuck on how to deal with your own discomfort, one way you can do it is sit and do a thought exercise. Imagine to yourself being in the room with the person, whether that’s your kid, whether that’s your friend, your partner, your surly teenager whom you love forever, right? Think about them. And think about being in a room together and think about doing a puzzle together, playing a video game together. Okay. What might come up for you in that space?

Are you someone who feels like you need to fill the silence? Are you someone who’s going to ask way too many questions and overwhelm them? Are you going to get stuck on beating them in the video game when the point is not to be competitive, but to just hang out together, right? What’s going to maybe make you feel uncomfortable about it?

Then you can think through, well, what’s going on for me then? Why do I feel uncomfortable with this? What’s the expectation I’m trying to set on myself or on the other person? Doing that visualization exercise ahead of time, journaling, thinking through it, talking to yourself about it into your recorder on your phone, any of that kind of stuff can really help you tease apart everything that’s going on for you in that moment.

I hope this little exercise has been helpful for you. There are so many times in my life that I’ve sat with somebody without talking. and without them speaking, and had it be a truly connective, trust-building experience. I know that that can be hard sometimes across neurotypes, but I hope that some of this discussion will help you start to think through what you could achieve with your people once we get rid of some of the judgment around behaviors and expectations around social norms.