I have read all the books, done programs, even did a program when I was teen. I do all the things that they tell me to do, to the point of completely changing who I am in order to make myself ‘someone people will want to spend time with’, and it doesn’t work very well.

This ends up in burn out. Or the relationship just seems to peter out. Or they confront me with something they don’t like about (I now know these are typical neurodivergent traits that don’t fit the ‘acceptable’ box).

I have a theory.

We are taught an neurotypical ideal of what friendship should be, especially female friendship. There are endless movies, TV shows, and novels about girls and women and their friends. We are given these from a young age, and they help us learn how to mask.

A neurodivergent friendship looks different. I’m still not sure how it looks different, I’m still working it out, but it does.

It could look like connecting only on our hyperfocus.

It could be us constantly talking over each other in a chaotic conversation that we both find incredibly satisfying.

It could be us having nothing to do with each other for months or years, then reconnecting as if no time has passed.

It could be something else entirely.

Friendships is something that seems to be expected of us and if we don’t have a best friend that we grew up with, then there is something wrong with us… and we feel awful and a loser and somehow less than.

I have found so many friendships are one sided, and that when I run out of steam to make the phone calls or the time to catch up with the other person, then the phone never rings and we lose touch.

I am still trying to figure out what an autistic/ADHD friendship looks like. When I work it out, I want to put it into stories so that other AuDHD women and girls can see what they look like, show them another view of friendships.

I also need to remember that the phone goes both ways and the other person can always call me…

If you’re AuDHD and have some ideas of how I can show these friendships in stories, I’d love to hear them.

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