I’ve seriously done my time as a member of various online groups and forums for making friends over the years,  going back to around 2011 when they first became a thing on my radar, synchronising with the time when my worsening health meant I was spending much more time home alone, and that includes some groups specifically designed for neurodivergent peeps like me over that last handful of years. The ever present snag for me is that, by their very nature, they are a “group” activity and my autism really doesn’t like engaging with people in groups. In fact this is so ingrained into my wiring that “group friendship’ is virtually an oxymoron in my viewpoint. In a world where TV dramas so love to celebrate groups of adult female friends bonded together through all life’s thick and thins, I know this is a universe I am excluded from by virtue of my genes. There was a time I aspired to it…because it seemed like the “normal” thing to crave for…but I am long past that delusion.

My comfort place is always one to one, ideally with someone I have run all the checks with to ensure I can really let down all my guards (read that more accurately as “masks”) and be completely myself with, safely, unfiltered and accepted just as I am. This has never been more important to me than it is now as I am so burned out with masking in order to try and fit in; it’s been a whole lifetime, so far, of having to manipulate myself to suit other people. Inevitably, this ability to fully drop the mask doesn’t happen very often and the main people now left in this category are my immediate family and husband, although there have been one or two others over the years including one good long-distance friend…but really, not many attempts at friendship that weren’t a landmine of masking, camouflaging, mirroring and trying to cope with all that highly irksome small-talk that makes my brain ache. There have also been more than a handful of budding new friendships dotted over the last decade, traumatising in the long run, where I thought I had just found someone who really clicked with me, only to overshare the hell out of them and then scare them off all within the first day or so (in hindsight, they weren’t neurodivergent…they were just intrigued by some of my quirks, such as abject honesty and directness, until suddenly they were disarmed by them). This was all before “I realised”, of course.

Now that I realise fully that I am neurodivergent, with all the inherent pitfalls when it comes to making friendships work, how on earth am I going to achieve that in an online space where there are countless other people “listening” to everything I have to offer? Its backfired before, and then some, and is certainly not a place I could feel relaxed enough to term it “making friends” (which, after all, is the whole objective…correct me if I am wrong?).

There’s no one policing the personality types that can enter such a space and, even if they were, that level of checks does not equate to the extremely high level of safeguards to protect, specifically, me if I happen to say something that other people take umbrage at or, possibly worse, decide to ghost, which can be one of the cruelest things to happen in a public forum situation. A whole lifetime of being unwittingly neurodivergent has built into me a whole other level of intuitions and subtle senses that help me to ascertain “does this person feel genuinely OK to open up with to the next level?” and none of that safeguarding can take place in a virtual space; even what is, to me, a normal thing to come out with can be taken all wrong in the wrong company. The whole of life is one giant experiment in learning how to relate to other people when you are autistic and getting to practice in such an open space is like being potty-trained in the middle of a shopping mall when you are always at the level of taking baby steps at something (as is the case with social interaction); why would I want so many people witnessing me doing so badly at it and how do I get what I really want out of it anyway, being to sift out that singular one-to-one heart and mind connection?

So, seeking my kind of friendship in a crowd feels like searching for a needle in a haystack and, meanwhile, all that inevitable pack behaviour disturbs me, I get stomach churns from even watching it (like being back at school). Yes, a pack of neurodivergent people feels like another oxymoron…in which case, I just don’t get the purpose of AuDHD groups except to share useful life hacks, which is not what I really want to get out of them (information swopping is not true connection)….so that other thing, friendship, feels as elusive as ever. I don’t think like a pack, I don’t even know how to act like a pack so I’m in resistance and at odds to the group format, every time. Here’s another thing that hits my autistic sincerity alarm hard: so much of the cooing and pacifying, acting like besties and virtual hugging strikes me as so fake, so cloying, in some of these public places. Its not what I’m looking for.

So, as per most autistic people I have ever heard about, I do best as I already mentioned…no, I only do at all…when I engage one to one; I just can’t be me when there is a dynamic of three or more. This rang true all through school and university and, back in the days I had more adult friends, it rings absolutely true for the whole of that era too. The only exception to this rule is when there is a handful of people around me with low expectations for any “deep and meaningful” and my ADHD-head is engaged in banter, which is its own form of entertainment coming from the part of my head that enjoys quick, clever, humour but this isn’t what I am searching for here; I can get that amply from sitting at a bar (and it does far better when there is alcohol involved to get me over my social reservations). It’s almost in its own category of engagement, a hobby of sorts, and, whilst it can give me a brief dopamine hit, it doesn’t make my soul feel any more connected really.

I’ve tried going beyond the one-to-one kind of meet-up zillions of times…and its never gone well…whereas face to face with some person I happen to click with can go to a whole other level. Its like comparing sackcloth with gold to try and equate one with the other so why set out at all in a domain where there are zillions of people? If I am rendered mute around a table of three or more people, how on earth do I say anything at all where there are over a 1000 “members”? Or even in a group where you get to meet in real space-time, how will my inbuilt inability to be “real me” beyond the binary work; I don’t really get how I am expected to override this well-tried and tested limitation I have and it panics the hell out of me in advance because I know a group format will always demand that I pull out all of my old coping strategies instead of letting my guard down as I had hoped (in fact, I am much more likely to build my guard back up even tighter). Its a non-starter from the get-go so I really scratch my head whenever I see another new neurodivergent women’s online group has been set up.

My other issue is that, akin to a lot of neurodivergent people, I am rejection sensitive to the nth degree so one curt word or even slightly adverse response to something I said would not only knock me out of the ballpark for that day but potentially  kick my emotional and physical wellbeing backwards for months (its happened before). I’ve crashed into chronic fatigue and worse over some of my rejection sensitive encounters in the past and I’m not prepared to risk that again (in the kind of places where I have frequently come across people trolling, putting people down for their views or even going in for the attack unprovoked). The risk of experiencing RSD in a group format is so very high, especially when it is a virtual group, that it seems completely foolhardy to even go there now that I realise this about myself.

Another tricky factor for me is navigating all of “the rules” of engagement that exist online…obviously put there to protect the people that join but I have also seen people unwittingly trip over some particular law of a certain space and be mullered by the swift closing of ranks as people rush to call out their innocent mistake with all the blood-lust of a fox hunt. Hell, it even happened to me once when I mentioned something deemed to be pseudo science (because it wasn’t  based on conventional allistic medicine…I probably mentioned a herbal remedy) in a highly sensitive forum in response to an issue another member really wanted some help with and which I could relate to. You would have thought that such a space, by its very nature, would be far more sensitive to the way it handled things but the way a couple of the admins of the site quickly closed ranks to strip me down publicly and suggest that the group “wasn’t for me” left me reeling at the time. I’ve never been one to get on with a list of rules that I’m meant to follow: unless they are highly instinctive or logical to start with; things that involve fine print will always catch me out as I will miss them every time. Perhaps because I’m even more bamboozled by the fact they have been written down and turned into an imperative, I am almost guaranteed to overstep the mark as soon as I am told there is something I mustn’t do. Perhaps its because the very existence of the rule makes me extra nervous or perhaps its a subliminal case of “demand avoidance” (though I suspect I have it, I refuse to include the word “pathological”  when I refer to PDA and much prefer the more positive alternative, that I have a “Persistent Drive for Autonomy”). This autonomy-drive thing is so strong in me that I really squirm in spaces that are made so rigid with protective supports that they feel much more like trip wires …designed to trip me up.

There’s another factor that now really puts me off making online friendships and its this. Sometimes, they really do work; most likely because I make spin-off friendships as a result of some common interest group where I have dared to share something that attracts someone to me that is a “fit” as a close friend, who them makes contact privately as a result of that and who I would never have met otherwise. That’s how I met Kat, all those years ago, when she said she had been really drawn to some of the things I had said in the group so she reached out to me by DM and we became friends…more than just friends, soul mates…over the next few years, reaching depths of intimacy “virtually” that blew me away (this part of online friendship can be a good fit for my cerebral kind of connection-making, where I don’t need to see a person’s face to engage with their inner workings; in fact faces and social constructs can be a real barrier to going in that deep). However, when Kat got really sick with a rare kind of cancer, my deep connection with her drew me right into all the horrors of her illness and then, when she died, I had no closure at all. Being thousands of miles away across an ocean, I wasn’t able to go to the wake that I had spent months discussing with her whilst she so meticulously planned it, I wasn’t able to talk to her “real” friends or family  (most hadn’t even heard of me and I got the impression her family disapproved of our connection), so I just had to slink away quietly and deal with all my grief on my own. Each year when they remember Kat on Facebook, I know there’s no point me popping up to say anything because no one knows who I am and also making public declarations online simply isn’t my style but its almost as though the friendship wasn’t real because I am invisible to the rest of the people who knew her, even though I was key to her life for over five years. All of that really messed with my head, not helping with a lifetime of challenges and trauma around making friendships, so I vowed I would never make myself vulnerable to the same kind of thing happening again. There is always that point when you  have to ask yourself, is a virtual friendship as real as we think it is or does it become a construct in our own head that fills the gap where true connection should be?

So where does all that leave me? I think this topic has come up for me right now because I have recently joined yet another paid-for neurodivergent patreon group online…yes, yes I know what I just said but I tend to do these things at about 11 o’ clock at night when I am most likely to act on impulse. I haven’t been “in” there yet but I am braced to witness all the usual signs and traits of group behaviour that repel me the most, rendering me a silent listener not taking part once again, so why bother? I suspect I will only be a member for a month or so before I leave again but what then? The very fact of my joining tells me I am still looking for something.

What I really want  to do is to find friendship on my doorstep, in real time-space,  but they need to be neurodivergent and I’ve had a good scout around for likely places I could meet them and can’t find anything happening locally that isn’t geared at autistic kids or support for the parents of autistic kids. So where do all the late diagnosed adult females gravitate to? I keep hearing there are just so many of us realising about our nerurodivergence, often in our 40s or 50s, but how do we get to cross-paths, how do you even meet a friend that is openly wired that way, so that you don’t have to go through all the hoops and disappointments of yet another new friendship where you have to mask your AuDHD traits away? Now that I am in my mid-fifties, I just want to cut to the chase by identifying the sort of person who can take me just as I am and not make judgements when I’m having a mute day or spun out with my ADHD urges, who can go with the flow of my differences and quirks, just as I go with theirs, and not mind if we meet up very infrequently but, when we do, get straight to being our neurodivergent selves, direct and unmasked?

So, I have found a local therapist who specialises in supporting adult women with ADHD, who was late diagnosed herself, and (feeling brave today) I’ve now made contact. She offers…yet another…online group and facilities some group sessions, both of which have me hesitating for all the reasons above. However, she also offers one-to-one sessions focused on ADHD and led by your own particular need of an outlet to talk and explore what that all feels like. I could seriously use that, having done all my processing alone or via my blog, which is a main outlet as you all know but it can really feel like a one-way conversation most of the time. I suspect it would really help to find someone I can talk to openly and freely about everything that being neurodivergent means to me on a blow-by-blow basis as things happen, so that I can cease feeling like its such a one-way street when I write it out or bottled up inside my own head the rest of the time. I’ve had to say to her, what about my autism as I also need someone who can take that part of the equation onboard. As I explained in my initial message to her, my autism and ADHD “are a partnership but if anything autism has the last word in my health. This does put quite a different spin on ADHD as there is a constant push-pull…sometimes they balance each other and at others they trip each other up leading to flare-ups and burnout so I kind of have to tackle the two together, plus autism gives me resistance to things like group activities or even one to one meet-ups if I am not in right headspace…tricky!”

The good news is that she has already got back and reassured me she is very familiar with both and how they cross over (her daughter is AuDHD), plus she offers things like walk and talk which really appeals to me as it feels far less clinical. The hidden risk, before I get too excited, is that, really, what I most crave is a friend not a therapist and I have found in the past that the line really blurs for me when I really bond with a particular therapist, especially when I get what feel like positive signals from the way that they actually allow me the space to be fully me, which is so rare…forgetting that the reason why is that I am paying them, not that there is some magical connection taking place. This has led to quite a lot of sadness and confusion in the past when the person I connect with most with has often been some therapist I see on a regular basis due to an absence of other friends. Even if the therapist genuinely clicks with you, their professional code of conduct will always prohibit them from making anything of it; talk about frustrating. So in the long run, even this positive thing has the potential to deepen the wound of lifelong loneliness if it gets out of hand but something about this particular therapist tells me its a good fit as a much-needed talking outlet, at least as starting point, and may lead to other positive outlets in the community as a stepping stone to being introduced to some other neurodivergent people, one at a time, along the way. 

When I get the green light from my intuition like this (and its still there in broad daylight…), I know its worth giving something a shot so I intend to sign up for an introduction chat soon as I’m less burned out and take it from there. If it at least breaks the stalemate in my real-time connection with other women on a similar wavelength, I suspect it will do a lot for my confidence and overall health, minus some of the things that felt a bit toxic and self-defeating about all of the virtual connections I have used as an excuse for the real thing over the last few rather isolated years (part of the urge to share all this today feels like a needed to expunge some of those past traumas before I can move on to something more real). I knew I was going to be ready for a new era of connection when we moved location and that, this time, all its focus needed to be on real time-space connection with neurodivergence as a focal point, not making that the anomaly any more. It’s early days but I am proud of myself for having summoned the nerve to get something positive rolling like this, even when I am feeling extremely depleted in my energy, and will no doubt report back if it comes to anything positive.

UPDATE: Ultimately, I hesitated long and hard over making contact with the ADHD coach because the sticking point for me is still this elephant in the room…I’m not just ADHD, I’m AuDHD…and this brings very different qualities to the whole experience of life through my eyes. I’ve been following her online for a while and all her posts are heavily geared towards ADHD experience, as you would expect, but there is no sign of discussing all of that push-pull that comes with having the two factors together. In its place, I have now connected really well with my physio who is also ADHD and she has become a sort of mentor/coach as well as hands-on therapist as we unpick my various past experiences and discuss some of my current ones in depth within the context of how aspects of my neurodivergence impact every aspect of my health. I am able to fully unmask with her and we both getting into these topics in a really honest and deep way, every week, in which she reciprocates fully by sharing a lot of her own personal experiences, which is filling a big gap for me as someone who has seldom had anyone to talk to this frankly.

In truth, we have become almost friends (as far as the client-patient relationship allows) and often continue our conversation by text outside of the sessions so all of this, in truth, has helped to fill the friendship gap…at least for now…although she, yet again, doesn’t quite “get” the experience of being autistic at the same time as ADHD (but at least she treats a lot of autistic people and has that depth of knowledge about it). For now, its a stop-gap but I still lack that special person, outside the family (there are a couple of people in my family group that certainly do share similar AuDHD traits to me and who are open to some conversation about it) who can relate to my mixed AuDHD package in all the myriad ways it influences the ups and downs of personality, energy levels and daily preferences…sometimes pulling and pushing me in two completely contrasting directions from one day to the next (and I would love to have someone confide in me, likewise, about how AuDHD impacts their life). I dream of a future life where access to one or two people who share the AuDHD experience is an easier thing to achieve on a one-to-one basis and, for now, that’s what I am left with.