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Neurodivergent icon
Neurodivergent 5w
Autism is all fun an games until you consistently lose friends over time bc you don’t really understand how to make or maintain friendships 🫠 and ya ik ppl talk about online friendships but I don’t want online, tbh I find them more exhausting than irl
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21
upvote 368 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

it’s the combination of ADHD and depression for me that usually prevent me from keeping up with relationships of all types. i’m terrible at at being consistently consistent. i can be consistent for hours/days at a time, i lose track frequently when getting distracted; i can clearly communicate my feelings and thoughts with confidence when i am consistent, though

upvote 39 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

You need to find people that understand, usually experienced autistic people but other people can do it if they're learned. They'll help put effort into maintaining the relationship.

upvote 18 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

Autism is all fun and games until people get the uncanny valley effect from you and assume you must be evil and insincere

upvote 16 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

Autism is all fun and games until you realize just how lonely it is and how embarrassing it is to need support and how tired it makes you even though it feels like you’re not really doing anything

upvote 12 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

I’ve found that the friends that seem to stick are friends who also have autism or ADHD.

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Anonymous 5w

Can you explain more on the maintaining or making? Like what goes wrong

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Anonymous 5w

I mean even w normal people things ebb and flow, people come in and out of your life. It doesn't have to last forever to be fulfilling -- I do find it exhausting so like, why set the standard for myself that Mr extrovert in a beer commercial has. Like seriously there is so much latent shame we all have in this area that doesn't need to be felt

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Anonymous 5w

I empathize completely. Good luck op, we shall suffer together o7

upvote 3 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

Idk if I have autism b the maintaining friends fr gets to me

upvote 3 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

Tell us more

upvote 1 downvote
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Anonymous 5w

I’ve barely spoken to any of my friends all summer and I feel so bad about it 😭

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Anonymous 5w

Was just on the receiving end of this with my now ex fwb 😩

upvote 1 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> #1 5w

Idk how exactly to explain but I just don’t reach out to people, I describe it as needing a “prompt” to interact with people, such as living or working with them or having a class with them or something. So if they aren’t someone who I consistently interact with and if they aren’t good about reaching out themselves then I don’t think to do it myself and we just kinda drift apart. And when I do remember I feel guilty bc I feel like a bad friend bc how does a good friend just not talk to ppl

upvote 13 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> OP 5w

Omg me🙂‍↔️

upvote 3 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> OP 5w

Aw gotcha! If you explicitly explained that to your friends it’d definitely help. When I experience this one the other end, it makes me feel like maybe they actually just don’t care, & I’m bothering them, or the friendship is really just one sided

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Anonymous replying to -> #9 5w

It isn’t necessarily; lots of different flavors of neurodivergent ppl struggle making/maintaining friends!

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Anonymous replying to -> #8 5w

Damn that’s what was happening? I knew people found me hard to be friends with but I didn’t know they deadass had the uncanny valley feeling when interacting with me 😔

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Anonymous replying to -> #14 5w

Oh yeah I saw a TikTok with literally thousands of autistic women commenting that they were treated horribly by people for seemingly no reason when they’d been nothing but nice and friendly. The way they described it sounded just like the bullying I faced in high school that I thought was a unique experience.

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Anonymous replying to -> #8 5w

I wasn’t treated too horribly and people were generally nice to me, but they never really seemed to want to get to know me deeper than surface level? Didn’t realize I could make them uncomfortable by simply existing 😔 also my rbf and social anxiety probably doesn’t help much either

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Anonymous replying to -> #14 5w

I’d have a perfectly normal conversation with someone and then later find out they said my voice was annoying and I dress weird. One time a girl had an “intervention” with me where she said I had beef with another girl in her friend group. I’d literally never spoken to or about her

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Anonymous replying to -> #8 5w

Damn that sucks sorry you went thru that

upvote 1 downvote