the innate loneliness of being autistic & how we can create sustainable friendships

hey guys welcome back to my channel let's talk about the concept of friendships and autism so let's get into it if you guys enjoy watching videos bringing awareness to neurodivergency ADHD and autism please give this video a like And subscribe to my channel to stay up to date for any new videos in the future so I was sitting in session with one of my clients the other day when they asked me a pretty interesting question about my experiences with friendships she asked me the question of Irene do you ever feel very lonely she asked this because she was talking about how she struggles to make friends and maintain friends I think she was just trying to see if this was something that other people struggle with as well or if it was just her experience and I know for a fact that we are not the only ones who have experiences like this trouble making friends trouble understanding Friends trouble maintaining friends and so I thought it would be really nice for me to make a video kind of talking about this type of topic so that other people out there who share similar experiences to us who might be looking for people like me to talk and speak on this subject can find this video and feel that innate resonance with our stories and our experiences all of this to say as well that not all autistic people are the same not all autistic people are going to struggle with the same things especially when it comes to friendships we all come from different circumstances different environments we all have different personalities it's called a spectrum for a reason no person is the same period I'm not speaking on these things in a way to stereotype Us in any sort of way it's just speaking on my experiences so that others out there who relate to me can have a community to join and to feel connected to so that they know they're not alone reflecting on my experiences with friendships throughout my life if I can think back to certain Cycles in my life of how I was naturally how I started to mask and come into my own in different ways when I was a younger child I had a very easy time making friends personally because I was very outgoing a lot of people would describe me as very outgoing and straightforward that trait made it easier for me to make friends because I remember I was just so blunt and I feel like kids are just like this anyways because kids have not learned social norms yet that's kind of your time to be learning things like that and so a lot of autistic traits I feel like are not seen as weird or different so much in your younger years maybe like kindergarten through fourth grade those social deficits aren't as obvious and so reflecting on that time in my life I made a lot of friends because I would just go up to kids and be like you want to be friends let's hang out let's play together kids were usually very receptive to that because they're also very innocent straightforward and pure in that way and so I remember having a lot of friends as a younger kid but something interesting is that I never seem to have a group of friends I never seem to stick with a certain person or a certain group which I feel like is a little bit different from what you normally see because I feel like holistic people tend to want a group to themselves a group where they could call home and to know that these are my friends this is the group I could always go to and count on but for me I think naturally I didn't know how to fit into a group at the time I didn't know that I was autistic I didn't know I was avoiding groups but hindsight 2020 I could see that even at such a young age I couldn't find myself fitting into a group because there were these social dynamics that I couldn't follow and I couldn't understand and so therefore I naturally would not be a part of any sort of groups the only time I would be in any sort of group dynamic was on the playground during recess when there were boys playing tag or something like that if I was playing a game with a group of kids and I knew the rules of the game that's something I would join in on and play Within that Dynamic but as soon as you get any groups of friends together where there was any sort of socializing I was so in over my head I did not know what to do I would always kind of like find myself wandering around by myself now that I reflect back on it I remember feeling this innate sense of loneliness I remember so vividly when this Photograph was taken my parents would send me to these Chinese summer camps every single year as a kid where I would go and learn about my culture learn how to read write and speak my language as well in between in classes we would have recess I remember feeling so incredibly lonely during recess because I would feel so lost I remember I would look around at all the kids playing together and feeling as if I didn't know how to join in on these groups of kids and it's not because I was necessarily scared it was because I felt so confused as to how I fit into these Dynamics and I didn't know how to fit in because I essentially didn't really know what was happening or how to necessarily interpret the social interactions that the kids were having together and how I personally fit into those Dynamics and you could really see it in my face that deep sense of loneliness and sadness I guess is how I really felt at that time just the feeling of long to connect with other kids even though I loved recess and I didn't like class but recess and the socializing that came with recess was sometimes so unbearable for me to go through that I almost found myself wishing recess would end so that we could all go back to class again and I didn't have to feel so lonely anymore socializing is such a big part of The Human Experience right so imagine just being so deeply confused and baffled all the time throughout your life I remember constantly feeling a deep desire to connect with other kids to play and have fun but I just couldn't seem to understand what was going on and how to talk to kids and how to interact with them feeling this sense of being left out but not necessarily because kids were leaving me out but because I didn't really know how to jump in and interact I remember just kind of being a witness to everything around me a lot of the times but not being able to participate that definitely got worse as we all started going through puberty like as you guys can probably relate and imagine when kids are going through puberty we're all just so confused and all these hormones it just got worse honestly like the social aspect of life got way worse as we all started going through puberty I completely did not have a group let alone I did not know how to establish myself into a group or work my way into a group I found myself feeling so hyper aware of how confused and left out I felt I was definitely one of those kids that hung out by herself in the library during lunch or I was always kind of moving from group to group but never a part of a group I always felt innately that I didn't belong and that any time I would try to insert myself into a group I felt like an outsider and I felt like I shouldn't have I've been there because I didn't know how to smoothly fit into those Dynamics so like it would have been one thing if one person was new and they fit into a group and they knew how to work within that social Dynamic really smoothly it would have been easy to have been integrated into that group and be welcomed I don't think groups of kids or groups of people go out of their way to alienate another person or to make them feel left out but it makes sense that if someone like me like an autistic kid tried to work herself into a group but didn't know how to I naturally would make a group feel weird because it's like what is going on here why she's just kind of like standing there or not talking or just watching us this is kind of awkward you know so it kind of makes sense that even if I were to try to make myself fit into a group it never really felt right I say that because I don't want to blame anyone fully it's just kind of being aware of like why things in my life worked out the way that they did right of course there were mean kids and mean people throughout my life but I want to reiterate throughout this whole video that people are not innately bad people people out there are a lot nicer than we may think they are and they're a lot more accepting and open than we may think they are and so I think from where I am at now in my life looking back at groups of people throughout my life I don't think they purposefully made me feel left out or made me feel awkward I honestly think that's just a result of being autistic trying to navigate the world and not really innately understanding a lot of those complex social dynamics I feel like it's a pretty common experience as an autistic individual to feel that very deep sense of loneliness and I feel like our relationship with loneliness is very complex at least for me and a lot of my clients Because We crave so badly to not feel lonely and to not feel alone I feel like a lot of us crave a deep connection We crave a community but at the same time it's so hard for us to find a connection and community that feels natural that feels comfortable and feels good to us and so in that weird way even though you could feel lonely it's actually something that we feel very comfortable in and I feel like life as an autistic adult is always finding the balance between feeling alone and feeling comfortable and I feel like a lot of us throughout our lives probably have pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone in social situations in hopes of finding friends finding a community and putting ourselves out there only to really discover that it's not really for us it's very over stimulating and overwhelming or even if it is fulfilling it's still very tiring and fatiguing to put ourselves out there into the world this could be really hard because a lot of the times that means we want to retreat into our own Solitude in order to regain some energy in order to go back out into the world or go back and socialize with our friends but depending on what circumstances we're working with in life we may be fighting off like a chronic burnout or fighting off a really long meltdown period or shutdown period so you know maintaining friendships could be very very hard for a lot of us because it requires so much physical energy emotional energy and mental energy to sustain those connections I think that's why a lot of the times we end up not being able to sustain and maintain friendships because it becomes too tiring for us to do so or the people and friends in our lives end up coming to the conclusion that we don't really care about you guys when in reality that is not the case at all I just feel like being an autistic adult could be very complicated you know it's not necessarily that we don't like someone it could just mean that we feel very tired maintaining everything in our lives and we just simply don't have enough energy to maintain a connection with you even though it's fulfilling to our souls it could be very draining to everything else within ourselves you know and that is something that I don't think a lot of holistic people understand so what are ways that we can socialize make friends and maintain our friendships that feels good to us I feel like the first advice I would love to give to people out there and these are advice that I have to reiterate to myself all the time is this concept of not mistaking self-awareness with being self-conscious I think a lot of the times when we are socializing with others this specific part of our brain has to be turned on to interpret and to recognize patterns so that we could reference past experiences and patterns that we've had so that we could figure out the appropriate response and the appropriate interpretations for what's playing out in front of us so we're constantly moving those gears in our heads when we're out socializing and I think it could be very easily moved into this realm of being hyper self-conscious as a result of that hyper awareness so for example when you're socializing with another person I feel like a lot of the times what we're really trying to do is just to figure out how to respond and how to understand another person and sometimes we are not conscious of our brains doing that so it could easily cross over into being self-conscious about everything we're doing in a way that makes us feel bad about ourselves so instead of thinking to yourself I wonder what I should say back to them for them to understand me you think I'm scared I'm gonna say something wrong I'm scared I'm not emoting enough I'm scared I'm not expressing myself accurately enough I'm scared I'm not doing good enough I'm scared they're gonna reject me I'm scared they're gonna judge me I'm scared they're gonna think I'm weird you see that little difference there how it's okay to always wonder how to respond to someone and how to interpret them that's just kind of part of the autistic experience but a lot of the times because we've had so many negative social experiences we get used to thinking understanding and interpreting in a way that is constantly laced with that self-doubt don't get to a point where you're beating yourself up over social interactions because of that self-awareness learn to have that balance of self-awareness that is healthy but not self-deprecating so what are ways we can make our friendships more sustainable for us because a lot of the times we either need to take a lot of space and time away from our friends or we cannot maintain a friendship altogether and so we have to almost like go through all these friendship breakups and I feel like this happens for a couple of reasons I think one of the reasons why this happens is because of how much you mask within your friendship I find that the more an autistic person masks in their friendship the more tiring it is because the Friendship becomes a job essentially it becomes something you have to labor over another aspect that makes a friendship less sustainable for us is how much you serve the other person versus how much they serve you now I'm not saying a friendship is a job right but what I'm talking about here is effort so how much do you mask and how much effort is being put into each other I find a lot of the times we show up in our friendships in a way where we're constantly showing up for the other person holding space for the other person doing things for the other person and everything is about the other person I'm not saying this in order to scrutinize our friends and say they're selfish people this is our faults too and I want us to be aware of this I feel like it's a part of our mask to constantly be that easy going person that's just going with the flow that's just always is listening to another person that's just always there for you right like oh Irene must be such a supportive person she must be such a great listener she loves giving advice and she's always there when I need her she's so easy going right which isn't to say I don't like doing those things but I feel like we do this because that is a way for us to mask because who is going to reject you or scrutinize you or dislike you if you're constantly doing for them if you're constantly showing up for them right if you're constantly supporting another person and doing what they want to do how are they gonna ever argue against you and make you feel bad and they're not because they are getting everything they need and they're getting all their needs met within that friendship right and I feel like in a way even though that Dynamic is very tiring for us one it makes it easier because the Friendship goes smoother you're constantly doing what they need you to do and you know how that Dynamic works and you know what they need from you right and two it makes the friendship solid in a way where they want you around but the pitfalls of having this sort of dynamic is because it's so unbalanced you're constantly fighting off that burnout that fatigue and so that's why you constantly need space from this friend because you're basically trying to recuperate your energy so that you could go back to that dynamic in order to serve them again until the ultimate burnout hits again and you need your time and space this I feel like is a lot of our short-term way of working through a friendship and trying to maintain a friendship but a lot of you probably will realize that even though it works out short term it's not sustainable long term because it's very tiring for us to maintain those friendships especially when we grow into adulthood and we have our own prep to take care of within our jobs careers personal life relationships things like that and so a way that we can make our friendships more sustainable is basically bringing more balance into our friendships begin embodying yourself within your friendship so that your friend can witness you and begin to actually lean on your friends so that they could help you and if they don't know how to help you teach them ask them show them say hey these are things I need these are things I want to do worst case scenario they don't want to support you they don't want to show up for you and you don't want a friend like that in your life anyways right but at its best those friends who genuinely probably wanted to be there for you to begin with but maybe didn't even know you needed them to be there for you in certain ways can finally begin to show up for you in the ways that you need and the friendship could just be a lot more balanced and harmonious and sustainable I want us to be self-aware that a lot of the times our friendships don't work out because of us as well and that we have the power to make friendships work from here on out I feel like a lot of us have pretty independent friends who also like their space and that's why it works out the way that it does but I will say that the more you guys actually get your needs met within the your friendships you will be surprised with how much less time you need on your own to recuperate not to say you'll magically turn into an extrovert and not need your alone time but I feel like a lot of you as you balance out your friendships more you'll come to realize maybe you're not going to stay home as much maybe you're not gonna isolate yourself as much because you're not constantly tired and exhausted the way that you were before feeding into all those unbalanced friendships but yes I hope today's video was enlightening if this video was helpful you could always donate to my Channel Through the Heart thanks button down below any sort of donation is much appreciated by me but with that being said I will see you guys on next week's video much love and stay present bye guys no Mickey yes [Music]

Channel: The Thought Spot

Views: 66,113

Keywords: asd, autism, autistic, actuallyautistic, autismawareness, autismacceptance, onthespectrum, neurodiversity, neurodiverse, nd, adhd

Id: nSeOr_7JSyI

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2022