Sophia KLet’s face it: making friends as an adult can feel like playing whack-a-mole. Between moving from our home town to college or even different workplaces, the difficulty in making friends is not an experience unique to neurodivergent people. But when you add our unique worldview and our diverse ways of processing, along with our recovery needs, it can feel (and sometimes even be) almost impossible. Let’s break down some of the challenges and the experiments we can try to find a practice that might be more supportive for us.
This article has been adapted into a podcast episode. Watch instead:
Contents
1. The Masking Marathon
Challenge: Many of us with invisibilized disabilities, meaning disabilities that aren’t readily recognised without having knowledge of it or being told about it, have become professional “maskers” where we hide our true selves to fit in. We develop this skill to navigate social situations since our world largely prioritises neuro-conformity for the ideal neuro-typical. This makes forming genuine connections difficult because we can’t know if the person we’re feeling connected to feels connected to us, or the version of us that we’re portraying to fit in.
Experiment: I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that masking is so, incredibly tiring. At the same time, the thought of being completely yourself can be daunting—all things considered! Instead, try starting with small moments of authenticity with the aim of building these moments up over time. You can practice self-disclosure in situations that feel safe, like online forums or support groups, to build up your confidence.
As you grow along, you might find that the one who you matter to will appreciate you for who you are. Which also means that the ones who only liked the version you portrayed to them might go away, letting us know that they weren’t genuine connections in the first place.
2. Draining That Social Battery
Challenge: Social interactions can be exhausting for us. We might cancel plans last minute when we’re feeling really overwhelmed and just need some sensory rest, or have irregular contact with people which can be misinterpreted by others as not valuing the friendship. The reality is, no matter how much structure we might try to inject in our daily lives, we cannot control the surprises the day will bring us. The amount of data we’re processing all day, then, can lead to fatigue no matter how many preventative measures or supports we have in place to minimize it happening.
Experiment: Be honest and upfront about your social energy limits. It’s not always going to be easy because we don’t want to upset people or we are anxious that our new found friends will think we’re flaky or ‘lazy’, and we’ll just have to deal with more ableism. At the same time, if we reframe this as making sure that we’re taking care of ourselves so we can better look after our new friends, we can communicate something like, “I’d love to hang out with you! I can only manage an hour today, so let’s make the most of it.” We shift the focus from quantity to quality—and ensure that our new friend(s) understand that we value their place in our lives!
We don’t have to explain any further than this if we don’t want, and especially not if we’re still not sure if this is a friendship that will stand the test of time. Once we feel like it would benefit the relationship to share more, and we feel safe to do so, we can also use spoon theory to explain to our friends how our energy exchange works.
3. Communication Conundrum
Challenge: Small talk. Need I say more? Look, I’m a June Gemini, I thrive at small-talk. But/and/also when I’m really tired or just not in my most energy-filled state, navigating small talk and reading between the lines becomes harder and I often have delayed processing. Not only do I realise that maybe I should have tended to me sensory needs, but I also realise how ‘on’ I need to be to decipher different social cues within different social contexts multiple times a day.
Experiment: The days where verbal communication is just not happening for me, I experiment with alternative ways to communicate. And if verbal communication isn’t your thing at all, but you find you’re forced to do it in order to communicate with the rest of the world—this might be an important skill to develop. For instance, try connecting through shared activities that act as a form of parallel play. These activities can be things like Wine & Painting events or taking a pottery class with friend(s)—or even just hanging out by drinking tea and reading books together. If in-person situations isn’t really your ‘thing’ either, you can also join online chats, like Neurodiverging’s Discord Community. There are plenty of non-verbal ways to communicate, and we can have fun exploring them.
In fact, maybe look up some events on Eventbrite that might be happening in your area to join a hobby-based group, a club, or even your local community group or union, so the focus is on a shared interest rather than small talk. A really cool opportunity to open up your social group is Autastic.com, hosted by Diane J. Wright to provide empowering community for late-identified autistic adults—specifically for autistic people of color.
4. Internalizing Failed Relationships
Challenge: After a lifetime of never feeling enough or too much for any single space, it becomes so ingrained that we start self-censoring, masking, and internalizing ableism. So, when people don’t match our interest in the relationship, we’re just a hop, skip, and step away from thinking it’s something about us that has driven them away. Every time we believe this is the reason, we reinforce our inner critic which only gets louder each time.
Experiment: It’s a lot easier said than done and it goes against the common advice of silencing your inner critic, but consider being friends with your inner critic. Hear me out. If you were silenced into becoming so critical of yourself, further silencing your inner critic will only keep the same toxic cycle going. Instead, our inner critic was born as a way to protect us from getting hurt again and again. When we learn the reasons why our inner critic was created, and get to the root of that memory, we can soothe our inner critic and support it in realising we don’t need protection like that anymore. We can soothe ourselves by reframing our need to fit in to wanting authentic relationships that reflects our values and are reciprocal.
When people leave our lives, it’s important to realize that sometimes people just don’t get along and we don’t have to like everybody—and everybody doesn’t have to like us. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than our fundamental values not being in alignment with each other. Besides, wouldn’t you rather someone who also wanted deep, meaningful relationships that celebrated diversity and were culturally varied towards a more gentle, caring, and free world?
We’re In It Together
Always remember: you’re not alone in this! Making friends as an adult with an invisiblized disability might have its challenges, but it is absolutely possible. Embrace your unique perspective, behaviours, and processing. Be patient with yourself, and keep putting yourself out there while also experimenting with the practices that best support you. You people are waiting for you, too!
Join Our Neurodivergent Community
We have an online community space over on Patreon with multiple membership tiers to also help support you with community where you can:
- Chat with fellow neurodivergent adults who understand your experiences
- Share tips and tricks for navigating social situations
- Participate in virtual hangouts and interest-based groups
- Access resources and support for living a neurodivergent lifestyle that celebrates who you are
Building friendships as a neurodivergent adult isn’t about following the neuro-conforming paradigm — it’s about creating deep, meaningful connections that honor who each of your are and being invested in your collective growth. Take a deep breath, be patient with yourself, and know that your community is out there and ready to welcome you with open arms and understanding hearts.
