It’s hard to make friends as an adult. And then when you factor in being a neurodivergent adult on top of that, it’s a lot harder.
I’m fairly good at work relationships but if I try to do some kind of a friendship or relationship outside of work, I’m completely lost. That’s where this conversation with author Caroline Maguire begins.
Caroline Maguire is the author of Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults: A Guide for the Anxious, Uniquely Wired, and Easily Distracted. She is a social-emotional learning expert, TEDx speaker, and is neurodivergent herself with ADHD, dyslexia, and learning disabilities. Her book is science-backed and practical, and as Brett says, “built for what our brains actually need.”
This is Part 1 of our conversation. Part 2 will focus on workplace relationships.
Below is a highlight of our conversation based on the transcript:
Why is friendship so hard for neurodivergent adults?
Caroline says “we’re carrying a boulder.” She says our childhoods were hard, that we felt mismatched with people and out of sorts, and that something innocuous in a conversation — someone just being in a bad mood — can tip that boulder over and trigger rejection sensitivity and anxiety. On top of that, she says, is the factor of executive function: “There is a lot in our brain that goes into keeping up relationships, meeting people, understanding what the social norms are, but also just remembering to text people back.”
Caroline also says that our past experience leads us to deny what she calls “the key” — interest. As she puts it, “our past makes us more susceptible to people pleasing, to pretending we like things we don’t like, to going along with the flow instead of saying, ‘I have no interest in that. Here’s my interests. Here’s where my people would be.’”
The myth of easy friendship
Caroline says, “I would love us to throw out these myths that friendship is easy, that friendship, you should have these skills by the time you are in adulthood.” She says for those who are here now, “friendship is not easy” and that “most of us weren’t diagnosed and we didn’t know our brain.” As she puts it, “how could you have done things different if you didn’t know you were autistic? You were not playing with all the information.”
Caroline says that myth “is so dangerous.”
What fills your friendship cup
Caroline says the key question is “what fills your friendship cup” and that you have to be honest with yourself. She says your connection cup might be “two virtual interactions a week and one in person” or “parallel play where you sit in Panera, and you drink coffee together, and you don’t speak.” She says “we have to understand that as we’re trying to make new friends.”
She also talks about what she calls a “communisplation” (her own term) — explaining your perspective and your needs to people. Caroline says Dr. Megan Anna Neff backs her up on this, adding “so I feel like I’m validated.” As Caroline says: “I really enjoy hanging out with you, but I am not an amusement park person. And if I go, I promise you I will be a cranky poop, and it will not go well.”
Masking vs. authentic connection
Caroline says masking “is different from adapting.” As she describes it, “it’s when you feel that pain, it doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels like I must mask. It’s not temporary. There’s this mask you wear, and you have to wear it.” She says the question to ask is “when am I masking, what’s the price that I’m paying, why, is it really required or is it that I’ve been doing this for so long or that I’m afraid?”
On authentic connection, Caroline says: “If you are trying to fit in, you’re basically making a cornbread recipe and trying to get cookies. You’re not getting cookies, you’re making cornbread.”
Triggers, flooding, and rumination
Caroline says “when you have a trigger, you have an intense emotional reaction to something” and that “a lot of times it comes from something from your past.” She says she has a whole section in the book about “writing a letter to your middle school self and letting go and working through some of that stuff.”
On flooding, Caroline says she loves what she calls a “pregame” — preparing for social situations beforehand. As she puts it, “when I rush into an event, and I have not prepared, and I have not found calm beforehand, and maybe I am already triggered by something, the chances that something is going to happen and I’m going to flood are so much higher.”
On post-event rumination, Caroline says “our self-talk is such a thing” and that “when you’re going through this to avoid that post-event rumination, you have to start working on that voice.” She shares advice from Ned Hallowell: find “a distraction that’s as strong and potent as what you could be ruminating about.” On anxious overcorrection — “the 45 texts that you send explaining the comment that you made” — Caroline says “I think you made the comment and the person thought nothing of it.” She shares that a client once wanted to follow someone into a bathroom to explain a comment they had made. As Caroline puts it: “Don’t do that, please.”
Mindsets that get in the way
Caroline says, “Your mindset affects and colors the way you interact with people,” and that mindsets “come from our past.” She outlines several in the book: anxious overcorrection, people-pleasing, rushing in, and fortressing. On rushing in, she says: “You meet someone, you zing with them, you like them, and then you are all in. You are hyper focused on them.” On fortressing: “you build a fortress so high because you have been hurt in the past and you have a little drawbridge and your drawbridge, they do anything, right? You pull that drawbridge up.”
Caroline says the key is to identify your mindset and create personal policies. As she puts it: “As a fortresser, maybe my policy is my inclination is to give you one chance. Maybe I give you two chances because I know my inclination is that I don’t really give choices.”
Emotional safety
Caroline says emotional safety is “the feeling that what you say and what you do, the people are going to be supportive of you. They’re not going to come back at you. They’re not going to call you on things. They’re not going to remind you of that. They’re not going to use it against you.” She says: “I think for all this to work, there has to be emotional safety.”
On acquaintances vs. friends, Caroline says, “What happens to us sometimes is we don’t realize someone is an acquaintance. We give them the name of friend. We imbue the relationship with those characteristics, and then we give to them, and we set our expectations as if they’re a friend.”
FAQ:
Why is it so hard for neurodivergent adults to make friends?
Caroline says “we’re carrying a boulder” of past experiences — feeling mismatched with people, rejection sensitivity, and executive function. As she puts it, “there is a lot in our brain that goes into keeping up relationships, meeting people, understanding what the social norms are, but also just remembering to text people back.”
What is the myth of easy friendship for neurodivergent adults?
Caroline says she wants to “throw out these myths that friendship is easy, that friendship, you should have these skills by the time you are in adulthood.” As she puts it, “how could you have done things different if you didn’t know you were autistic? You were not playing with all the information.”
What is the difference between masking and adapting in friendships?
Caroline says masking “is different from adapting.” As she describes it, masking is “when you feel that pain, it doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels like I must mask. It’s not temporary.”
What is the rushing in mindset?
Caroline describes it as: “You meet someone, you zing with them, you like them, and then you are all in. You are hyper focused on them.”
What is fortressing?
Caroline describes fortressing as when “you build a fortress so high because you have been hurt in the past and you have a little drawbridge and your drawbridge, they do anything, right? You pull that drawbridge up.”
What is emotional safety in friendships?
Caroline says emotional safety is “the feeling that what you say and what you do, the people are going to be supportive of you. They’re not going to come back at you. They’re not going to call you on things. They’re not going to remind you of that. They’re not going to use it against you.”
What is post-event rumination and how do neurodivergent adults manage it?
Caroline says “our self-talk is such a thing” and that the key is to work on that voice. She also shares advice from Ned Hallowell: find “a distraction that’s as strong and potent as what you could be ruminating about.”
What is a communisplation?
“Communisplation” is Caroline Maguire’s own term for explaining your perspective and your needs to people. As she puts it: “I really enjoy hanging out with you, but I am not an amusement park person. And if I go, I promise you I will be a cranky poop, and it will not go well.”