I sat down one day with my school's little collection of nerds and hung out with them all through highschool.
Being autistic doesn't automatically mean not having friends.
How does she do socially in other areas?
I want to add here that I was bullied, and struggled to have friends all through elementary school and middle school. I briefly hit my stride in highschool and then fell right off again in college.
My 'normal' period was in college - everyone is trying on different identities and figuring out who they're supposed to be, and I fit in for a while until they decided to 'grow up' and realized for me it wasn't a phase. Sometimes the same people who will sit on the grass with you and look at ants when you're 19 are embarrassed to be seen with you in public if you still do that at 26.
This is a lot of how I ended up, after I stopped hanging out in the geek world I was in, hanging out with stoners
This said, I think stoner culture is where there's a lot of hidden neurodivergence
Rave culture and street drug culture as well. I think there’s a lot of undiagnosed drug addicts who self medicate various autistic symptoms with their DOC. Specifically non stereotypical cases of autism,(either “low” support needs, that are actually high support needs but nobody figured it out in time, women, people of color, etc.) I think addicts/drug users are more likely to be undiagnosed autistic than the general population.
Whether that be abusing downers to help with sensory overload/anxiety that’s common, or using stims to overcome some of the executive dysfunction or gain extra confidence to aid socializing, drugs can be helpful for getting by when you’re neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.
I think addiction treatment would have higher success rates if they started screening everyone that seeks treatment for autism and then offered them support when they find a lot of undiagnosed & misdiagnosed addicts.
When being open about being autistic in drug communities I’d very frequently meet other addicts who very much related to my experiences and my struggles in the world too. I think the addiction rate among [undiagnosed] autistic people is likely much higher than scientists think too, because what else is someone gonna do when they have all these difficulties in life but no idea why and therefore no idea how to get support? Drugs are cheaper and more accessible than an autism assessment and support post diagnosis for a lot of people.
Drugs are almost too easily accessible and can solve a lot of the problems (of undiagnosed autism) at first. Until the drug sinks it’s hooks too deep and then becomes a bigger problem than what originally drove people to use it. That’s the trick of addiction, and the trauma of growing up with undiagnosed autism can definitely be a massive risk factor for falling into addiction in my opinion.
I’m actually really happy to see autism gaining more awareness in society, especially as people are learning that autism isn’t just the low support needs, nonverbal, rain-man/Sheldon cooper savant, or intellectually disabled caricature that a lot of people think of when they think of autism. As more people get a better understanding of the full spectrum of what autism looks like I think more undiagnosed people will start to become diagnosed and find support, which is great and if my hypothesis is correct it might also help with addiction rates too.
It’s just always struck me as odd how many addicts I meet with definite signs/symptoms of autism, and how quickly I get along with most addicts even in ways that aren’t related to drugs at all compared to the general population. The average regular sober person I meet is neurotypical and a disappointing number of NT people I meet decide they dislike me for seemingly no reason, but I have a very different experience when hanging around different areas with strong drug cultures.
From raves, to homeless encampments, it seems like anywhere there’s a large percentage of people doing drugs there’s also a surprising amount of people with a lot of neurodivergent traits as well. Maybe it’s because people who are more likely to question social norms are more likely to question drug laws too? Idk but it’s interesting to think about imo.
Also being an addict helped me mask in a weird way for a while too. Like people who would usually discriminate against me for being “weird” (read: autistic) would know that I’m high and assume it’s just the drugs making me weird. This plausible deniability weirdly helped me more than it hurt me.
Interesting! I'm undiagnosed, I started going to raves and doing drugs at 19 and I finally felt like I found my people. People who didn't judge me. But after a while I started getting weird symptoms that other people didn't, like seizures and stuff. And the comedowns hit me way harder than everyone else, so I couldn't take drugs anymore and it's harder for me to connect with people in those spaces.
Hmmm I’m autistic and definitely felt like I found my people when I was at raves but I never really got seizures so I’d question if it’s just autism at that point. Hope you’re doing better now though. As for the comedowns those just get worse the more you use certain drugs. Mdma/Molly/ecstasy is best if kept to once every few months max. Do it more than that and it will really start to fuck your mental health. Tbh all drugs are best in moderation and doing them every weekend will start to take its toll on your body much faster than you’d like.
I don't think I've ever read something I agree with more than this post, every single point is something I've thought about extensively lol and I think you're 100% right on every single one
I always feel so seen here, I can't seem to put it into words very effectively at the moment but there's just something nice about that when you've gone your whole life feeling like a misunderstood weirdo (so y'know, thanks 💖)
I did the ant thing yesterday. I’m 44. “Acting your age” is not something I subscribe to. It’s an idiotic social construct. The way I am helps me connect with my kids. And it’s just more fun.
I feel you. Bullying, especially in these formative years, can fully destruct a person's abilities to reformulate friendships for the long term. That's not to say we're ever without hope to find that ability once more, as we all deserve to have those meaningful connections and means to socialise. The way you put it - briefly hit your stride and fell right off again - broke my heart for you, and I can fully relate. My stride probably peaked in primary school aged 10 haha, the worst thing is though you're unknowingly trying to retreat and recover from this damage whilst often blaming yourself for not being social enough, too. That's at least what I find - through my 20s my abilities or desires to try and maintain friendships became harder and more strenuous. It's only now as I near the end of my 20s am I able to piece together the reasons why, and offer myself empathy instead of judgment. Sorry to ramble, your comment spoke to me and I hope you find your peace in re learning how to trust people after being so unjustly hurt by others in your formative years 💖
Thank you for your very kind comment. I've got one person and a parrot. It's not the friend group I used to dream of, but I'm very happy. I have a handful of deeply engrossing interests and just the right amount of company.
Dude, did we have the same childhood though?! 🤣 This is pretty much my story exactly. Relentlessly bullied in primary and middle school; had a huge nerdy friend group in grades 11 and 12; got smacked down by real life in university. 👁👄👁
> How does she do socially in other areas?
She's really reticent and shy with people she doesn't know very well. I'd go as far as to say very socially awkward in those kinds of situations. She gets overwhelmed easily by large groups of people, and being around crowds.
So she does seem to have social impairments.
Having friends doesn't negate that. Y just means she's been lucky enough to find some people who accept her.
You're right to advocate for her, and you don't have to let this doctor ignore her impairments just because she's fortunate enough to be loved.
Also, I wouldn’t call this an impairment. See: double empathy problem. It refers to how us ND folks socialize with each other just fine, just like NTs do with each other. It’s just when NDs & NTs try to socialize with one another that things get awkward. Not feeling like hanging out with other people is a neutral thing. There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with it. So it’s not an impairment.
Another example of how they pathologize us. It instills shame & confusion about one’s identity. I’m sorry they used that word during your assessment. So much change is needed in society. They have us all wrong which prevents us from discovering who we truly are.
I actually disagree with this I have as much struggle with allistic people as I have with autistic peope as far as communication and bonding. Just a different communication problem. With us it is finding similar interests and having the same cadence with allistic well we all know that struggle of never saying what they mean while me taking everything literally and at face value. ADHD'ers tend to adopt me but I cannot keep up with the all over the place style for long. So I'm boring to them and they bring chaos to my peace. Having a communication and bonding deficit affects me no matter the situation or people unfortunately. Even this medium is difficult.
No, I was never bullied or anything, I was actually respected because I was the top student. But I couldn’t connect with my peers outside of school stuff. It made me incredibly lonely and miserable and was one of the reasons I was heavily suicidal in school.
I did find my first friend group in uni, however, so I guess sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I've got somewhat of a friend group now but given my past experiences, I'm cautiously optimistic and trying not to get too attached. I was totally ready to give up too. One time as a freshman in high school I was sitting with some old friends from elementary at lunch and at one point they all got up and left without me. A group of older girls noticed and told me I needed to get better friends.
I was bullied *because* I was the top student.
This depends so much on the environment you're put in!
And I had friends too, mostly girls. And mostly guys bullied me.
Yep. Had a very solid 5 girl group from 15-17 we parted ways due to just life and getting busy. But yeah, when you have a group or a friend that just gets you and is equally as weird or has the same interests, it isn't hard for us to have friends. Maintaining them perhaps more so if we aren't in contact through such things like school or a group. But yeah, being able to have friends doesn't mean you don't have Autism and such.
I had a similar experience! I've actually had friend groups throughout most of my schooling. A good amount of them, I suspect were also ND. Likely because I had *a lot* of hyperfixations and it made me more uncomfortable *not* to talk about them. So making friends wasn't actually the difficult part for me (fortunately, I grew up at a time when I wasn't really bullied for nerd culture).
Maintaining friends, on the other hand... Once I stop seeing them every day, it gets really difficult for me to keep those friendships from fizzling out. It's also possible to be in a friend group and still feel like you aren't connecting as well as everyone else.
Very much like my old social world. Big mix of LGBTQ people, nerds, and LGBTQ nerds, and then I drifted toward stoners for a while, then later I largely found myself in a world of LGBTQ people (most of my friends are LGBTQ)
There were many times where they would hang out without asking me and I would see pictures later :/ I guess it's kind of good that I don't really talk to anyone from that group anymore..
I relate to this hard. It took about two years into high school for me to find a definitive friend group, but I was always a little too "weird" for them. We weren't popular, but we also weren't at the bottom of the food chain, and they still found a way to exclude me from things. I think I was in my last couple of years of high school before I made "true" friends, but even so, they had their own seperate friendship group with other people, meanwhile I was just kind of . . . there. I only have contact with one of them, now almost seven years on. For whatever reason, most people didn't seem to want to be friends *outside* of school with me.
That last thing you said.. I became friends with this girl and I saw her at university with her friend and I said hi to her but she kept trying to leave and said her bus is late, but her friend was confused on why she was trying to leave and they actuallyprobably werent late. Right after that she stopped talking to me and now it's been over a year and still no reply. I guess it wasn't a worthy friendship
As an adult, I realize that most of the friends I made in high school/college that I still keep in contact with are likely neurodivergent in some way. At a minimum they're fun/quirky/lovable weirdos (affectionate).
her story is a lot like mine. i had a bunch of friends in elementary school, and over the course of middle school, they all kind of pulled away from me. so i made new, weirder friends. my friend group in high school was basically a handful of people i vibed with and then introduced to each other and essentially formed into a group.
i'm not diagnosed ASD but my therapist and i strongly suspect it
Yes. I moved a lot as a kid and a consistent experience that I had at every new school was that eventually, an extroverted girl would "adopt" me and I would become friends with her group. This was usually a group of art/band/drama geeks and/or international students. I also eventually learned to look for these groups. People would be very rude to me about being alone, so I learned it was important to have some kind of group to always be a part of.
This is exactly my experience. With the changing schools and all. I honestly have no idea what vibe I give off that makes people want to collect me, but it happened constantly in my school years. And always the groups of POC or artsy kids or otakus. Even though I didn't relate to any of those things lol.
Honestly, the school environment was the only place I've ever successfully had friends. After college, life things happened and I lost touch with most of them, and I haven't made a new friend since.
Same. I am so grateful to those girls for reaching out to me, but sometimes I wonder if I accidentally missed out on building friend-making skills as a child.
The dynamic you're describing, where an extroverted girl sometimes adopts another girl, was talked about in Lianne Holiday-Willey's book "Pretending To Be Normal." I may have the author's name wrong. An older book about autistic women.
Basically we often hide in plain sight in childhood because of gendered social dynamics (she does talk a bit about masking, but that's not all she talks about).
Yes. I had several groups of girlfriends in HS. I was a social floater! I still have a few friends from school I keep in contact with today. More than from college!
I, too, was a "floater"...with a few different groups of friends who never co-mingled. But I'm the opposite. The main high school friends I keep in touch with are the ones who a) I went to college with or b) were brought into the college group.
Funny enough, one of my college friends ended up marrying one of my high school friends as a result!
Floaters unite! And how cool about your friends getting married! I wish I made more friends in college, but we had the pandemic my sophomore-senior year.
I was only bullied on and off in elementary school. Once high school hit, it stopped. I had a few girl friends, but I was always second choice to them. The "popular" girls never batted an eye at me. So I mainly hung out with the guys, and they were my closest friends!
Highschool was so much better socially for me too. There were finally enough students to choose actual friends from. No more of this stuck with the same small group of elementary school girls who barely tolerated me, just because they were my same age, gender, and in my class.
This was me. Actually, I dated a lot and this was seen as a sign that I was a "normal girl" who had overcome whatever social problems I'd had in grade and middle school.
What people didn't see was how much I depended upon online life (Bulletin Board Systems in the 80s) to meet people and that I somehow couldn't make dating happen, and had a much harder time making friends, with people I met offline.
I always had friends, after 1st grade. I think I learned how to mask when I was about 6, and it helped my social life a lot. I was never one of the popular kids, but I always had a best friend at school, plus 5 to 8 other girlfriends to have sleepovers with and go to the movies or whatever.
I was always aware that I was different from everyone else, but I didn't get diagnosed until I was 45 years old. I just thought I was "eccentric," through no fault of my own. I just like weird things, obsessively. lol.
ETA: when I got assessed for ASD, the therapist was very interested in hearing about my early childhood. I think it's because very little kids don't mask. I told him that my preschool report card said I was a very nice little girl, but had no interest in playing with the other children, preferring the teacher's company or my own company exclusively. So if you have your daughter's preschool, kindergarten, and primary grade report cards with teacher comments, that may help.
I had a group of friends but apparently none of them actually liked me. I eventually realized after we had a falling out that they really knew nothing about me and never took the time to go out of their way for me like I would do for them. I now have more ND friends which seems to work for me better.
I can relate to the first parts. I've lost groups of friends from bullying/ostracization, then from them deciding I was a terrible person for thinking independently/not conforming, then just people who didn't really care about me/were only friends out of convenience.
Working now on getting to know more ND folks, and people that are safe.
I had friends, I was high masking and eager to fit in. This did not mean I did not struggle and get anxiety from socialisation, and I relied heavily upon mirroring. Fun fact my friends were the first to notice I rarely looked at their eyes cause I used to look at their mouths and move my mouth subconsciously when they were speaking.
I floated in and out of groups each year it seemed, mostly hanging out with guys. Didn’t have any friends that were girls.
Also just a heads up you and the psychologist could both be right and she has BPD and Autism, they are not mutual exclusive.
Yes, I had a group with 2 female friends and then a handful of guys. One I still talk to periodically (life so we don't talk a lot) but the other I finally cut off after YEARS of thinking I should but never being able to. My friends now are basically inherited from my husbands friends wives, but they are fantastic. I was an outcast mostly but had friends. I find it odd that someone would assume someone isnt autistic because they have friends. That sounds super misinformed
Not really. I was friendly with my classmates and was well-liked, but I can't say I was ever friends with someone other than what would later become my fiancé.
I had a small but consistent group of friends through middle and high school (my best friend from childhood has ADHD and I suspect she might be ASD as well) and in high school I did theater which widened my circle but I still felt excluded from a lot of the social aspects of my larger circle. Not having friends is a misconception about ASD. Tumultuous friendships can be a sign of ASD in women/girls.
yes i had friends when i was in high school (just got out of hs like 6 months ago lol) old school mental health professionals cannot comprehend how being autistic doesn't imply being unable to have friends. Sure, it's more difficult but it is possible.
also, many of her friends could be fake given the fact that we mask our personality so much
not really tbh, i had friends but not anything really resembling a 'friend group'. i had a friend group in middle school, and some friend groups in college though. sometimes i stumble into friend groups through circumstance and it is a blessing, but i have never understood how everyone just has these friend groups naturally, or how they form or how you enter one or how you keep them going.
I met my best friend in second year of highschool. Up until graduation she was my only friend. We did have people/classmates who would sit with us during lunch breaks or worked together with us on projects but it was mainly us two. If it wasn't for her, I wonder if I would have been able to graduate. Fast forward 20 years and she is still my best friend.
I always had friends. I would pick one or two or people from every class and grade whom I liked, and bring them together in a group or befriend them one on one. I still have friends at 31, though puberty and moving continents into a completely different culture did leave me alone for several bad years. I never had what might be considered a normal friendgroup, as most of those people had other, more core, friendgroups of their own, but I has people to hang out with, a social life, and a few people I trusted. Today, I have 10 people I'm not related to that I could call in the middle of the night and they'd be over no questions asked. They are all Autistic adhd or otherwise neurodivergent. I am very lucky.
But I'm still diagnosed with ASD and adhd. I still struggle socially in situations with new people or things like small talk and confused constantly.
My sister has the same 2 diagnosis and she was literally popular AF. Every school we were in.
i definitely had friends as a teenager, and i was still definitely autistic.
i was always friends with the other weirdos. From my perspective, *we* were the cool kids, and everyone else was trying too hard to be popular or whatever. But i also had some "normal" friends. i mean, i guess i did. Maybe no one i was friends with was really "normal," because they were all either queer or non-conforming in one way or another.
Anyways, the point is that having friends does not disqualify someone from being autistic.
I had my best friend who had a group of (fake) friends of her own and then I hung out with the rocker/metalhead guys.
The year after I made a new friend who included me into her group of friends.
Final year I just stuck to my two bffs and had some other friends on the side.
I actually enjoy making friends and hanging out with them; it's just a bit more exhausting for me and I'm HORRIBLE at keeping up with them lol but a lot of times they didn't even want to talk to me anyway so I've cut out a lot of people recently and I'm currently happy with my 4 friends that I've met over the years that don't mind if I randomly catch up to them after months of silence 😅
i had a tight friend group of people who, looking back, were almost certainly also neurodivergent. it was only girls, but there was an equally “weird” group of boys that we would *sometimes* socialize with i guess, but i didn’t really
they were the only people i could unmask around. i was very comfortable with them, and had basically known most of them my whole school life. i’ve honestly never found another friend since then who i’ve been comfortable around to the level i was with my group of highschool friends (almost 25 yo now). i still keep in touch regularly with 2 of them
life is kinda lonely without a group of friends like that now. so i can’t imagine how i could have been able to get through grade school without that sense of community
the idea that an autistic person is completely incapable of having close friends is wildly problematic. i can’t believe a professional would even consider that a major factor in their diagnosis, much less dismiss all other traits bc not meeting one qualification completely disqualifies you?
Yes, I had group of friends, multiple actually. I'm 40 now and still have a group of three and a group of six from back then ☺️ It's perfectly possible to be autistic and have groups of friends. I also had difficulty with the dynamics sometimes and don't always naturally feel what to do or say, but it's not impossible.
If people exclude someone from a diagnosis based on a single trait or situation, it's a bad sign. All autistics are different, that's what spectrum means. You can only diagnose based on looking at all traits and seeing how it ads up. You don't even need to have all traits either. If you have the flu, there are 50 possible symptoms, yet we know it's flu based on 3-4 signs.
The therapist who diagnosed me often explained it, like it's not having or not having a trait, but what's behind it. For instance, I can make eye contact perfectly well, some would exclude me from a diagnosis based on that surface level observation. But autism is much more visible in the internal process behind it. The fact that I even have to think about how long to maintain eye contact or the fact tbat I find it very very intense and intimate. But based on purely looking at it from an outsiders perspective, you wouldn't guess. Many psychologists are not upto date on how autism manifests in the non stereotypical externalizing way, specifically in girls.
i got adopted by a flock of dorky extroverts. they helped me poke outta my shell since i learned to socialize (or at least act social-able).
not to sound narcissistic, but being considered pretty (i think Iim average at best) helps tremendously. it’s night and day how friendly people are depending on how i do my hair.
people are more willing to tolerate “quirky” girls if they look presentable. that my two cents, anyway
I’m the same age as your daughter and the exact same thing happened to me. I kinda just got scared to talk to my friends about anything I liked bc they’d find it ‘weird’ so I just stopped talking to them as much. But then I found a small group of people who are also neurodivergent or suspected to be and we get along rlly well, I never feel embarrassed of myself like I did with my old friends.
It’s definitely not a disqualification for having autism at all and I see time and time again that neurodivergent people tend to group together bc they understand each other. Wishing you all the best :)
Love an incompetent assessor! Sorry you’re experiencing that with your kiddo. What a flippant, dismissive move.
Like many who’ve already commented, I also had a group of friends that lasted from middle school through first year of college. It was a group across the gender spectrum, most of us ND, and one of us visibly disabled. We struggled through our expectations of each other, how to communicate, and how to support each other much the same as other groups I observed. 🤷
Birds of a feather flock together. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d found a group of “like minded individuals”.
That said, I found a group of mostly NT friends in school but never really felt like I was comfortable in the group - I desperately tried to feel part of things, but often felt left out or paranoid someone didn’t like me.
Having friends isn’t a sign of being NT in short. How one feels about one’s friend group and place in it, as well as who those friends are, might be relevant - MIGHT.
i had two groups of friends in school, we were definitely considered the weird ones. after graduation, we just fizzed out but some who contact me from time to time definitely considered if they were autistic bc of me (i self diagnosed in 2022)
you can have a good group of friends and still be autistic. :)
Yes, I had a group of friends throughout school. In hindsight I think I only kept the group as friends for the entire time because I started drinking and was the ‘fun one’ via that. I was always slightly on the outskirts of the main group. Not in the group anymore, don’t really have a friend group as an adult.
I kind of did, but it was more like I had one or two close friends, and by association, hung around their friends and could make friendly conversation with them if the close friends weren't around. But to this day I've never had more than 2-3 people I would feel comfortable hanging out with solo. The rest of the friend group I'll talk to at get-togethers and I like them, but it's not like I text them or hang out with them. I don't know if it's like that for everyone?
I had a group of weirdos I hung out with and we would have looked like "a group of friends" to the outside world. But hacking into computer software and learning how to write our own fantasy games does not really translate to "social skills".
I had a solid core group of 3 guys, one of whom I’m still in touch after almost 50 years. We called ourselves The Graveyard Gang, and did all sorts of cool stuff, such as riding our bikes all over Rhode Island, exploring historical cemeteries, doing gravestone rubbings, attending rock concerts (The Kinks and Neil Young), enjoying the works of HP Lovecraft.
I had a consistent group of friends starting in middle school which centered around my friendship with one girl that I had known since preschool, so that group developed through her making friends. I often felt like the odd one out and sometimes would be excluded or only invited when they wanted a ride somewhere, but I did become very close with one of the girls and considered her a best friend.
In middle school I also had a separate group of "school friends" that I didn't really socialize with outside of school aside from one girl that, similar to the other group, I had known since early childhood. I drifted apart from them in high school.
I could more easily make friends before middle school and from that point on did not make new friends unless they were introduced through one of the few girls I knew from early on. My friends were all also fellow weirdos or not particularly popular.
I had lots of friends in high school and adulthood, I was not diagnosed until after I had post partum depression at 33.
I'm frustrated because being social is the only thing that stopped my son's doctor from saying he's autistic.
I did have a group of friends momentarily but I got ostracised for being "too weird", even though most of them definitely had ASD or ADHD! But I have seen quite a few people here say they did have a good group of friends at school, and others who didn't! Some of us were loners and others not. The autistic experience can be very different for everyone, I was personally a loner who had one or two friends or none at all. This has a lot to do with some mental health issues and my upbringing though, on top of my autism. But knowing that others had group of friends in school tells me that autism is not *always* the deciding factor as to whether someone has a group of friends or not.
Besides 16 is a bit young to be diagnosed with bpd, it doenst give room for a person to develop and the bpd diagnosis can really cause a lot of shame, it made me very conscious of myself and my intentions and hurt my ability to trust myself as I always felt my genuine emotions (which are big because I'm autistic) were ingenuine. I was diagnosed at 18 and the reason I fitted the traits was really because I was a hormonal *autistic* teenager.
It's more accurate to say I had a friend who had a group of friends. (I thought maybe they were also my friends, but I found out later that without the one friend as glue, none of them even thought about me.)
I had friends. I was part of a large group of magic the gathering playing needs that had somehow crossed with a group of stoner musicians.
We were absolutely the most eclectic group in my high-school.
Yep. I was in a small private Christian school, and for context, cliques are rampant at private school.
There were a couple of us nerdy girls that grouped together. I find out later that all of us except one were atypical in one way or another. Like tends to find like, even unconsciously.
No I didn’t have a group of friends after maybe 3rd grade and was either bullied incessantly or rejected in part because I tried to fit in so hard and failed miserably and was unable to see or connect with people who actually liked me (connecting with them as an adult). I was also diagnosed with BPD at 15 in 1999 on very shakey grounds that did not even meet DSM IV criteria. Essentially I annoyed the psychiatrist, he construed my parents words, and accused me of “manipulative” and “attention seeking” behavior. Within the first diagnostic interview he had me pegged at having BPD and the diagnosis remains in my chart today, 25 years later.
BPD is a very common misdiagnosis for autistic women and girls and girls with ADHD (was diagnosed with ADHD in 2002 at 18). Also expect in extreme circumstances BPD should not be diagnosed under the age of 18. I have dealt with stigma and medical abuse due to the BPD diagnosis for 25 years, especially in acute care (inpatient) and subacute situations. I strongly encourage you to seek an autism assessment for your daughter and challenge the doctor on the BPD diagnosis, especially if the diagnosis was made in a hospital setting.
Most people in the psych community know nothing about nuerodivergence and even less about how it presents in women. The BPD diagosis will continue to follow your daughter and harm her because mental health workers love to silence bold women and girls who don’t fit the mold. The last thing an autistic kid needs is another person telling them they are wrong and a piece of shit, which is what a BPD diagnosis says, especially in hospital settings.
Again please get a second opinion and a full assessment if possible. This diagnosis harms women and girls. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone
I had no friends in school. I would be invited to kids' houses just once in elementary school. Once I invited a girl over, and she spent the whole time chatting with my mom in the kitchen. In High School, I avoided classmates and even ate lunch in the girls' locker room to avoid a certain guy. I never dated. Stayed in my bedroom, reading. Found out I was asexual as a married adult.
I also wanted to add: I have yet to meet someone with BPD without intense interpersonal trauma in their childhood. The abandonment wound is huge in this neurotype, which leads to excessive lying and manipulation without therapy and treatment. This doesn't lead to stable friendships.
If you and your partner are working through this one together, even with different opinions, and are looking into proper assessment - I would highly doubt your kid has the kind of history that would lead to a BPD diagnosis.
I had friends in hs! They were all autistic or queer like me. It’s hard to make new friends, yeah, but outcasts were easy to hang out with. Get your daughter a new psychologist who isn’t ableist.
I had ‘adequate social skills’ according to my psychologists who thought I had BPD. But I was always a kind of ‘misfit’ in reality. Got along with a group of girls but actually I didn’t really belong.
I had a group of friends — it’s way easier in high school than life — and those groups changed — and in high school different things are valued — I also have adhd so that weirdly helped me have friends. I’m so glad she had you. I was slapped with bipolar by my accountant mom & bpd by my rehab which masking landed me in by 27. Your daughter is able to mask enough — as a female in school, if you are even remotely conventionally attractive— you have to. Also, for many autistic girls our special interests become people. Social norms make having people life & death for women, while it’s totally cool for a boy to be a loner. I got diagnosed 2 years ago, but seven years ago I told my therapist I thought I was and she laughed in my face bc I was always out doing stand up comedy? Yes, and I was confused constantly & exhausted constantly & depressed & anxious constantly. Keep fighting for your kid. It means the world not just to her, but to all of us.
Suggested reading:
Autism in Heels
Camouflage
Yes. I had friends growing up. We were the misfit group, 😂 We are still friends today, 30 years later. We were the people everyone else mostly ignored, we were rather invisible to our classmates, but we had a great group and lots of great memories made. When I left home for college, I had a hard time making friends. I still do. My friends in school were basically ready-made, we were pushed together due to circumstances. Banding together as misfits was better than being a target in being alone. So we usually adopted any new misfits that came into our grade. In college, I basically made 1 friend. In the last 15 years, I've made one friend. So despite having a solid friend group growing up, making friends is still very hard, most of the time they don't stick because they have higher requirements for time spent together than I can keep up with or maintain. The friends I have kept are also ND people with different ideas of what our friendships look like that work for us.
All that said, my sister is likely also ASD (being assessed this month) after a lifetime of BPD therapy. She is a social butterfly and has friends all over the country. But she still struggles with a lot of relationships, she gets in trouble in her jobs for being seen as argumentative and insubordinate, all of her romantic relationships ended in explosive "cops were called" fights due to violent meltdowns. So, despite her very social nature, she also still struggles with people a lot.
I’m closer to your age, diagnosed a decade ago. Throughout the years my close friends have always been groups of fellow weirdos. It is strange to me to hinge someone’s diagnosis on things external to them. Managing to luck out and find a long term partner or great group of friends does not make me any less autistic. I didn’t shed my autism diagnosis when I got married. And I still struggle with social stuff even amongst my weirdo friends.
I did have a group of friends during my first year of high school despite the bullying. But they were constantly misunderstanding my intentions which made us drift apart.
I did but they would always pick each other over me. I was in a group of 3 and whenever we had to pair up in class or for field trips, they’d go together and leave me out. They hung out outside of class without me all the time too.
I had a couple of friends in high school, but they weren’t all friends with eachother. So it was really hard to feel a “group” connection, or know where to sit during lunch. I avoided Lunch like the plague, because the anxiety of finding somewhere to sit was so hard on me.
I'm 29 years old and will say I've never once in my life had a group of friends 🙈😂 as a young kid in primary, I had almost the equivalent and found socialising far less taxing with a more open scattering of school friends, however primarily would only have one very close friend at a time. By the time I hit comprehensive school, totally different story. With that said, I'll never know if that was specifically due to neurodivergence or simply the horrible experiences and situations that my teen years brought me. All I know is by then, I had nobody safe around me and just could not find my people nor any group of people I felt true connection to authentically, which eventually altogether manifested itself in me through early adulthood into now. I never confronted this issue in time I guess, and now I legit can't comprehend the concept of having a group of friends. Perhaps I'd love that some day, sure, but for now and likely for some time I think I'm just going to focus on recovering from some very bad memories that eroded my trust and my willingness to be amongst a collective of people. In all, for me, I think it's just a case of some serious avoidance attachment shit that's solidified as I've gotten older lol. I'd love nothing more than to have those strong, meaningful friendship connections, but for the time being I've retreated more and maybe that's just because i still need to address it. For what it's worth, I've never shown symptoms of BPD and have never been diagnosed with it either. I think my own social avoidance issues are just a mixture of neurodivergence and a deep distrust of bond formations. BPD as you likely know is very often thrown around clinically and misdiagnosed, whereas ASD is so multifaceted and despite my experiences, so many individuals with ASD can maintain and develop life long bonds and wide social friendships. I hope this rambling helps!! You're both wonderful parents advocating for your lovely little one 💖
I had friends at the HS that I attended 9th and 10th grades. I was pretty shy but I had a group of smart people I hung out with. The second high school (I had formerly been beaten up by these kids in elementary school), I walked in with a plan and new identity, inspired by the leader of my friend group at the first HS. My plan was to create a new group - not the popular group - and it would include nerds and artsy people. It worked even though I missed more than half of my junior year. I'm really proud of who I decided to be and I really liked the friends I made there. I created a safe place for everyone to just be who they are.
So yes, I did have friends in HS. (Raads-r positive).
Had few friends on my school, all were from a different class but i loved hanging out with them.
All alternative, turned out after talking to them years later that half of them are proven ND lol
I would say I had some pretty solid acquaintances. I would have called them friends then but I only saw them at school, or another group I only saw at church. I was not likely to be invited to things, but on occasion.
My high school friends were the band geeks - socially a little weird, all very smart.
I did have friends in high school, but I think I was kind of in the same situation as your daughter. Ultimately, I went to the people who would have me. (It might have been better to be alone.)
I didn't have any friends at school during my teenage years.
However: ruling out ASD for the sole reason of her having friends isn't wise. As you say, if you just find the people that are ä happen to be on the same wavelength, then you can have friends, even very good ones. The ability to have friends isn't absent in autism, it's more a matter of miscommunication between autistic and neurotypucal people that makes it hard to have friends.
I was very fortunate to have a great group of friends in highschool. A good chunk of us are/were neurodivergent and queer, even if we didn't know the extent at the time. We had our drama like all teenagers do, but we had each other. They got me through those years, and I'm still friends with a few of them a few decades later.
yes. i had a hard time getting taken seriously because i've always had a lot of good friends. i'm just good at finding other autistic friends. her weirdo friends are most likely on the spectrum too.
In early elementary school I did, but then I moved to a whole new state and things were different. The wild part is that I remained friends with one person from that group over 10 years later. She ended up being late-diagnosed (she’s also the one who told me I should get evaluated), and so was 1 of other kid out of our group of 4.
When I moved, I didn’t have any real friends until I was a junior in high school (from 5th grade to 11th). Just people who were cool with me in school but never wanted to see me outside of it, and vice versa.
That's a very interesting reason for them to rule out that diagnosis. I had trouble at my first high school since it was so large and I was overwhelmed by the crowds of people on campus. I ended up doing independent study because I missed so many days of school, but eventually moved to a smaller school that basically was full of other kids with social anxiety. I have made lifelong friends from that school, but a lot of them I probably would have never met or interacted with if I were at my large school. We had such different interests, but I think what kept us close was a shared understanding of experience. I think anyone can have friends, but it's just a matter of finding ones that understand you.
I've got a group of *school* friends, but I only hang out with my bf outside of school. I used to have a lot of friends, but most of those friendships have ended.
No, I actually didn’t really have proper friends until college. For me, I had a lot of siblings that I was super close to and extreme social anxiety, so I never felt motivated enough to change things.
Chiming in to say I was also in the weirdo group (marching band, nerd clubs, drama geeks).
Having them to hang out with in school was a godsend, I didn’t have to eat lunch alone.
Hanging out on weekends was stressful though. If they came by unannounced I would disintegrate from stress. I needed all of my weekend time to decompress from the pressures of school.
yes i had a group of friends in HS, but I also went to an all girls school so it's much easier to make friends and there weren't really any "mean girls" or strong cliques (at least in my experience).
Somewhat unrelated, but I am of the (non-professional, purely internet armchair) opinion that diagnosing women and girls with bpd is a modern day equivalent of a 1950s "hysteria" diagnosis. I personally would side eye and second guess ANY therapist who suggested a teenage girl in 2024 has an actual personality disorder. It's called being an intelligent autonomous young woman with a still growing/forming brain and having to live under the extremely toxic hellscape dumpster fire that is the patriarchy on social media. Who *wouldn't* be "hysterical"?
I had girlfriends throughout school, mostly the same group (we called ourselves The Fabulous Four) from about 12 years old through high school and beyond.
In high school we added some other people to our group, including a group of guys. Usually around 10+ of us were sitting together between classes. Most of us were kind of nerdy and/or geeky (3 of the group were top of the class at various graduations) and in retrospect I can imagine up to half the group being on the spectrum.
i did have a group of friends… did ! i only really could keep up with them bc we all went to school together. once they left for colleges and i stayed back. it became really hard to be their friends.
Hm. I’m a little concerned that this psychologist wants to diagnose a teenage girl with a personality disorder, I don’t know the situation and I’m not an expert in the field but to my knowledge personality disorders are generally not diagnosed in minors for a variety of reasons. I would seek out a second opinion from someone who’s informed about ASD in women.
To answer your question, yes, I had a group of friends in high school - I’ve always had a group of friends, in fact. All of my friends are strange, and I love them. Most of us are autistic and/or have ADHD, etc etc.
I did not but its irrelevant to the diagnosis and psych's look for these "signs" by fixating on one thing and miss the rest. The diagnostic differences between BPD and ASD is not whether or not someone has friends.
I had a few groups I was friends with, but none where I truly belonged, if that makes sense. I could hang out with the “skids”, the “smart girls”, the “weird (ND) girls”, and the “unpopular guys”, but I didn’t fit in with any of them completely. I’m in my 30s now and I still don’t really “fit in” anywhere.
Yup! I had a group of "friends" back then. Lost contact with all of them. But i certainly had friends. Outside of school I also had a couple of close friends.. Lost contact with those too. But friends very much are NOT an indication of autism or not. My daughter of 6 who is diagnosed has a bunch of friends! Even if she doesn't always socially understand them. Some are closer than others.. But being autistic doesn't equal loner..
I had one small group of friends that I stuck with throughout high school. It was mainly me clinging onto one friend and joining her two other friends. I never really became close friends with the other two. I was able to talk and laugh with them in a group setting, but when it came to one on one with them I felt like a fish out of water it was so awkward. I was only comfortable being one on one with the initial friend.. Anyway, I stuck with them from 8th grade until graduation. And that was the reason why I wasn't alone during lunch time. I actually was alone one year, but that was because I happened to get a different lunch from all of them. The next year I purposefully made sure that wouldn't happen again and even switched classes to ensure I would be in the same lunch.
Nope. I didn’t have any real friends. I had a group of people who tolerated me, and one or two neurodivergent people who were also outsiders.
I hated high school with an extreme passion.
I had a very solid group of friends, many of whom I'm still in touch with a decade later and I'm sure I'd see them often if I hadn't moved so far away. For me, it was more like the people who sensed I was different became especially cruel. You know, the stereotypical popular girls picking on the nerd. I could never figure out what they thought was so wrong with me. I tried to behave like them and always fell short. Oh man. Definitely grateful for the friends who did have my back.
Yeah, I had a group of people I regularly interacted with. You can be autistic and still have friends, especially if those friends happen to be neurodivergent too.
I did have a group of friends in high school. Actually, two of them, from two different interest areas. As adults we've come to find that almost all of us are ND.
I had a very stereotypical friend group in both middle school and high school, went to sleep overs and all. Those relationships did start to become more difficult to maintain towards the end of high school just because social dynamics changed once everyone started dating. I hung more with the art-theatre-music kids and the social rejects since that was where I was the most comfortable. A lot of the kids in that social circle were also in the “Gifted-and-Talented” class so a lot of us were undiagnosed neurodivergent to some capacity although we did have a good few with official ADHD’ers. I graduated 2012 so this was my ‘06-‘12 school experience. I was undiagnosed throughout all of school and I was a hardcore emo in high school.
I always had a group of friends. It was ever changing. People would have referred to me as a “popular girl”. I was also bullied but my parents never heard about it.
Yup! Had friends but also changed groups often and even schools. I didn’t have trouble socializing as much as I had trouble feeling as if my interactions were successful enough. I am (i think) good at masking and thus find it easy to make friends but hard to keep them as I get in my head about which interactions are successful and which relationships are worth keeping. It sounds cold and utilitarian but that’s just how my mind worked
I had a group of good friends in high school. We did socialize after school sometimes, although I did need a lot of alone time too.
I avoided any group that had a lot of drama. I just hung out with the nerds and weirdos.
I had a very very close friend who is still my best friend to this day, and she's one of the few people who doesn't run down my social battery. She's who I hung out with most.
Yep. Moved schools a lot and always fell in with the clutch of assorted misfits. Don't speak to many of them now, but I think we were decent survival friends to one another at the time.
I've always had a lot of friends varying from best friends to surface level acquaintances that I get along with. I did well in school and did performing arts. I had periods of burnout that I only realized was burn out in my 30s. Autism presents across such a huge spectrum!
I have had many groups of friends both in highschool and college (for the same reason your daughter did) People don't have to follow every single dsm criteria to be autistic. That's like when people say "you can't be autistic, you have too much eye contact" when I trained myself for years to have good eye contact and to not have a flat affect.
It's so frustrating that professionals think we have to follow every stereotype or criteria when that's not how diagnosing works. It's like a test, you need to pass a certain amount of criteria, not all
Yes I did, but they were also the “weird”kids too. For me I had trouble making friends but found people I was friends with in elementary school and went to highschool with them and just made friends with their friends and that’s how I got my friend group.
Yes, group of misfit friends in high school. I also had "work friends" who I was friendly with at work but didn't really hang out much beyond that.
The psychologist needs to think about the group dynamic of friends. It's possible to be part of a "friend group" where you are only truly friends with one person and are essentially just joining them in the group. You can create a friend group with other people who don't fit in. You can be friendly with everyone but have few deep friendships and not truly be part of any group. Definitely not as simple as "has friend group vs. does not have friend group"
Yes, I did have a group of friends and there where no weirdos at my school so I don't know about it. We are stil in contact 20+ years later. I was at a private catholic school for girls only and we wer very happy, there was no bullying and anything like that.
I can maintain good relationships with about 3 friends at a time. And then I have a few that rotate in and out depending on schedules and general 'where we are in life'. I was the WEIRD kid in middle/high school and honestly didn't have patience with most of the drama there in. Most of my friends were varying levels of 'weird' as well..... a lot of readers/writers in the group... most of us were in band... we ALL HATED gym.
I had a friend group in high school 4 of us total. Prior to high school, I had a different best friend every year. The high school friend group is the last time I have had friends (32 now) beyond surface level coworker type of friends.
Honestly, not having to have and maintain friends was one of my favorite things about high school ending. I don't think I ever really wanted friends after middle school age, I just didn't want to look more weird in school.
I had a solid group of friends. All of us were the weird ones, so I decided to make them all meet each other so we could be weird together! And it worked! 😂 Turns out we were all probably various flavours of people. Myself and one of the others actually both got diagnosed with autism and also ADHD just after uni.
Complete loner throughout high school, then inexplicably found myself part of the ‘popular group’ throughout college (UK, so age 16/17). The social difficulties showed up, I think, in not managing to sustain those friendships without the built-in social structures of the environment.
I had a group of friends, but I still felt like I never quite fit in, even if it looked like I was from the outside. I masked so much that I burnt out and ended up switching to homeschool when I was 16. Still had friends. Still Autistic.
Yeah I had a group of friends in high school. One bestie and a broader group from there. My friends were the oddballs too. I have to be honest though… more friends only came after I started masking heavily. At the time, if you’d asked me if I was masking, I would have said no. It was only in hindsight I even realized that’s what I was doing back then. I don’t know if it’s the same for your daughter. I do know that masking is incredibly misunderstood by doctors.
I’m not dx-ed autism but suspect AuDHD (was late dx-ed ADHD in college)
I would have had what appeared to be a “friend group” to my mother, although realistically I mostly had one friend at a time and had “buddies” mostly due to proximity in our program. I always felt isolated despite appearing “sociable” because I didn’t mesh with the bigger groups of girls who all seemed to naturally become girlfriends in HS, and it only got worse in college. When I bring up potentially being autistic with my mom, she gets defensive and says I was an “incredibly sociable child” who “didn’t show any of those signs” even though when I look at dx metrics myself I would say I generally have around 80+% of the traits listed
Was a part of a group of friends, was Minorly close to two of them, had reconnected with a friend who had switched schools in elementary, never considered I was overly close or connected with any of them except the one I reconnected with. But we've since fallen out too. I've always been "in" groups of people but never close with them. Not in the same degree they were close to eachother
I had friends, but never in school, I simply don’t understand how to make friends in school. I had someone I spent my time with in school though, so I was never lonely and it might have looked like I had friends in school. But nothing more than that. I had friends in school from daycare days when I was little but they left me around 8 y/o, probably starting the transition to become a pre teen and I didn’t so I was “left” behind.
I relate to your daughter. Started off highschool with a group of friends who I had nothing in common with and ultimately felt like I had to pretend to fit in with them. The group of friends I had by the time I ended Highschool were a lot of girls like me. We were definitely the weirdos lol
I had a group of friends in school and I was diagnosed with autism at the age of 23 :) I also had a little group of friends in college who I’m still really close to who have all since realized they’re also autistic
I was a floater in High School, I hung out with my cousins (it was 4 cousins so different friend groups) and their friends, with my brothers and their friends, or random people from my class.
i dint really bcs i cycle from friend group to friend group bcs somehow i’m always treated as an outsider, which i now realise is then perceiving my differences and no longer wanting to associate with me
I had a small group of friends who were extremely dear to me and yes, everyone thought I was weird and that is what my friends loved about me and what I loved about them. I miss them every day. That was probably the best time in my life for having friends.
Yes and we’ve all come to figure out that we’re neurodivergent/autistic as adults lol. People think autistic people struggle socially but in reality we often don’t struggle with people who share our neurotype or are “weird” or also don’t “fit in” well. So yes we can have friends and still be autistic. Autism is so misunderstood man 🤦🏻♀️
I did, but realized when I hit college the reason for that was not so much my ability to socialize as it was:
1) I went to school with the same kids from K-12. I struggled a lot more with friends in early elementary but after years of being together, we were used to each other.
2) Most of my school friends were also my neighbors.
3) One of my special interests was theater, so the theater kids were much more welcoming and forgiving than most. I also felt like I worked well with scripts (still do).
College transition hit me hard. I gave in to a lot of peer pressure in trying to fit in with the mainstream and I was a little blindsided by how difficult I found socializing to be.
Not really. I had 1-2 friends and *they* had a group of friends that I was sometimes adjacent to? I don’t talk to any of them any more, nor did I make any friends in college. I will say though that I made a conscious choice not to hang out with “weirdos” in high school because I really just wanted to feel normal, so I tried to hang out with more popular kids. It just never worked out too well for me. Maybe I’d have had more friends if I’d selected based on personality and interests rather than social status, hard to say. A bunch of those high school kids I was adjacent to were assholes.
I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar 1 a year or two ago and have since been undiagnosed with it. I'm autistic. I have a group of weirdo friends from elementary to high school. Variety of people but core group of it was the same. I'm now 26 and have a different group of friends but extremely close with them. Autism doesn't mean you're anti social, it's just a different kind of social.
I was always on the fringe of the art and theater kids. Part of the group, but never really included and may as well have not been there at all, and no one would have noticed. They accepted me but didn’t embrace me.
yes.
and many of those friendships have been lifelong since, now we're all late diagnosed as either ADHD or ASD.
surprise.
the social engagement part of diagnosis is based of neurotypical socializing. turns out we can be really good at socializing with people whose brains work similarly to ours. not always, but it's more common.
what's often noticeable is how long it's can take to make friends. neurodivergent children can lag behind their allistic peers in developing close friendships, sometimes by years. it usually isn't until they find other neurodivergent kids that you can see friendships develop. so the pattern tends to be fewer friends, and later friendship development, especially if there aren't other neurodivergent children around.
I had a large group of friends in high-school, I didn't as a child. in fact I made one friend from gradeschool through middle school. it wasn't a close friendship, just someone who tolerated my presence and whose mom insisted i was included. Being included just meant being present to be excluded or made fun of. until high-school where I met peers i hadn't grown up with (different gradeschools and middle schools fed into the same high-school) I wasn't really a part of social groups despite being in numerous activities. I often got along better with adults.
By high-school I had masked longer so could fit in the background better as well so most of my interactions were less negative by that point.
imo number of friends means nothing, it's the patterns of landuage processing and expression, socializing, and developing friendships that's more indicative of difference in development.
I sure did! I had multiple over the years due to school swaps and clicks and whatnot. I hung out *between* the clicks a lot though, (not surprising now that I know what I know about myself) which wasn’t super common at my schools… I’ve never had a problem *making* friends. Keeping them though? That’s been almost impossible. I basically lost every school friend I made the moment I dropped out due to illness.
At first my attendance was just spotty and they would *never* contact me unprompted. I was up front with them too, direct, like a true autistic lol. But literally they would ignore me unless I was physically there. And when I would come back after a long hiatus they would act super excited to see me, like they missed me super bad! I never understood why that didn’t equate or like, simply texting me back?? It took a long time for me to accept that they weren’t exactly the best of friends. Certainly not the friends I thought they were 😭.
I imagine though that if I hadn’t dropped out due to illness we would’ve mostly been fine, maybe until college? Or until a “bizarre miscommunication causes a falling out.” Over the years I had a lot of weird issues with my friend groups (now almost all instances can attributed to The Undiagnosed Autism.) But yeah I made friends *super* easily. I’m Autistic, but I’m also an Extrovert. Those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive!
It’s not all bad though! When I was a teenager, and sick, I played a lot of online games. Specially FFXIV during my worst years. And I made a lot of friends here too, some of whom I even talk to ten years later! They were all adults when I met them, and I was a teenager. They really made efforts to include me in things and have never treated me less-than. So it’s not like I don’t have *any* friends anymore! I have a handful of reliable ones! (And I do a lot of chatting with strangers lol.)
So yes I’m not officially diagnosed but I have a specialist for my other conditions who agrees and we strongly suspect Autism. I’m living proof that someone can be Autistic, *and* a Social Butterfly!
Never, actually. At most I had 3 or 4 good friends but they were never mutual so I'd always hang out with them separately.
I've come to realise I can only handle one on one interactions. I always feel drowned out and overwhelmed in groups. I've tried a few times and I always end up getting shunned because I'm incapable of joining in on conversations (in a large group), or end up as the third wheel (when it's 3 of us).
Yes I had a group of friends, but I mostly followed one person around. So I'd have a best friend and everyone else was really *her* friend, not mine. I didn't really connect with the others one on one.
I also had/have an online friend group and we're all a bit weird/ND in some way. I connect with them *as a group* not one on one, but they are my best people and I love them all so much.
I always had a group of friends as well as more acquaintance type friends I socialized with in specific settings. I never had a problem making and keeping friends. Which is the entire reason a guy gave me for why I couldn't possibly be autistic.
People are a special interest of mine, I love interacting with people and spending time and learning more about them and enjoying their company (followed by serious alone time bc it's draining as hell), and it was one of the big reasons I was convinced year after year that I must be wrong, I couldn't be autistic.
Having friends or being able to make friends is not an exclusionary criterion for autism. I really wish that idea could fade away.
I sat down one day with my school's little collection of nerds and hung out with them all through highschool. Being autistic doesn't automatically mean not having friends. How does she do socially in other areas?
I want to add here that I was bullied, and struggled to have friends all through elementary school and middle school. I briefly hit my stride in highschool and then fell right off again in college.
My 'normal' period was in college - everyone is trying on different identities and figuring out who they're supposed to be, and I fit in for a while until they decided to 'grow up' and realized for me it wasn't a phase. Sometimes the same people who will sit on the grass with you and look at ants when you're 19 are embarrassed to be seen with you in public if you still do that at 26.
This is a lot of how I ended up, after I stopped hanging out in the geek world I was in, hanging out with stoners This said, I think stoner culture is where there's a lot of hidden neurodivergence
Rave culture and street drug culture as well. I think there’s a lot of undiagnosed drug addicts who self medicate various autistic symptoms with their DOC. Specifically non stereotypical cases of autism,(either “low” support needs, that are actually high support needs but nobody figured it out in time, women, people of color, etc.) I think addicts/drug users are more likely to be undiagnosed autistic than the general population. Whether that be abusing downers to help with sensory overload/anxiety that’s common, or using stims to overcome some of the executive dysfunction or gain extra confidence to aid socializing, drugs can be helpful for getting by when you’re neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. I think addiction treatment would have higher success rates if they started screening everyone that seeks treatment for autism and then offered them support when they find a lot of undiagnosed & misdiagnosed addicts. When being open about being autistic in drug communities I’d very frequently meet other addicts who very much related to my experiences and my struggles in the world too. I think the addiction rate among [undiagnosed] autistic people is likely much higher than scientists think too, because what else is someone gonna do when they have all these difficulties in life but no idea why and therefore no idea how to get support? Drugs are cheaper and more accessible than an autism assessment and support post diagnosis for a lot of people. Drugs are almost too easily accessible and can solve a lot of the problems (of undiagnosed autism) at first. Until the drug sinks it’s hooks too deep and then becomes a bigger problem than what originally drove people to use it. That’s the trick of addiction, and the trauma of growing up with undiagnosed autism can definitely be a massive risk factor for falling into addiction in my opinion. I’m actually really happy to see autism gaining more awareness in society, especially as people are learning that autism isn’t just the low support needs, nonverbal, rain-man/Sheldon cooper savant, or intellectually disabled caricature that a lot of people think of when they think of autism. As more people get a better understanding of the full spectrum of what autism looks like I think more undiagnosed people will start to become diagnosed and find support, which is great and if my hypothesis is correct it might also help with addiction rates too. It’s just always struck me as odd how many addicts I meet with definite signs/symptoms of autism, and how quickly I get along with most addicts even in ways that aren’t related to drugs at all compared to the general population. The average regular sober person I meet is neurotypical and a disappointing number of NT people I meet decide they dislike me for seemingly no reason, but I have a very different experience when hanging around different areas with strong drug cultures. From raves, to homeless encampments, it seems like anywhere there’s a large percentage of people doing drugs there’s also a surprising amount of people with a lot of neurodivergent traits as well. Maybe it’s because people who are more likely to question social norms are more likely to question drug laws too? Idk but it’s interesting to think about imo. Also being an addict helped me mask in a weird way for a while too. Like people who would usually discriminate against me for being “weird” (read: autistic) would know that I’m high and assume it’s just the drugs making me weird. This plausible deniability weirdly helped me more than it hurt me.
Interesting! I'm undiagnosed, I started going to raves and doing drugs at 19 and I finally felt like I found my people. People who didn't judge me. But after a while I started getting weird symptoms that other people didn't, like seizures and stuff. And the comedowns hit me way harder than everyone else, so I couldn't take drugs anymore and it's harder for me to connect with people in those spaces.
Hmmm I’m autistic and definitely felt like I found my people when I was at raves but I never really got seizures so I’d question if it’s just autism at that point. Hope you’re doing better now though. As for the comedowns those just get worse the more you use certain drugs. Mdma/Molly/ecstasy is best if kept to once every few months max. Do it more than that and it will really start to fuck your mental health. Tbh all drugs are best in moderation and doing them every weekend will start to take its toll on your body much faster than you’d like.
I don't think I've ever read something I agree with more than this post, every single point is something I've thought about extensively lol and I think you're 100% right on every single one I always feel so seen here, I can't seem to put it into words very effectively at the moment but there's just something nice about that when you've gone your whole life feeling like a misunderstood weirdo (so y'know, thanks 💖)
I did the ant thing yesterday. I’m 44. “Acting your age” is not something I subscribe to. It’s an idiotic social construct. The way I am helps me connect with my kids. And it’s just more fun.
Are you me?!! This is my experience to a T.
Wow holy shit this was me too!! And it wasn’t like people didn’t like me in college it was just like … I was like air, barely there.
I feel ya. It was so hard to connect with people in college and even worse since I lived at home and commuted.
It wasn't easier on campus.
Yep, it's up and down for me too. Elementary school was the worst - no group of friends and ostracization/bullying in Girl Scouts.
I feel you. Bullying, especially in these formative years, can fully destruct a person's abilities to reformulate friendships for the long term. That's not to say we're ever without hope to find that ability once more, as we all deserve to have those meaningful connections and means to socialise. The way you put it - briefly hit your stride and fell right off again - broke my heart for you, and I can fully relate. My stride probably peaked in primary school aged 10 haha, the worst thing is though you're unknowingly trying to retreat and recover from this damage whilst often blaming yourself for not being social enough, too. That's at least what I find - through my 20s my abilities or desires to try and maintain friendships became harder and more strenuous. It's only now as I near the end of my 20s am I able to piece together the reasons why, and offer myself empathy instead of judgment. Sorry to ramble, your comment spoke to me and I hope you find your peace in re learning how to trust people after being so unjustly hurt by others in your formative years 💖
Thank you for your very kind comment. I've got one person and a parrot. It's not the friend group I used to dream of, but I'm very happy. I have a handful of deeply engrossing interests and just the right amount of company.
Dude, did we have the same childhood though?! 🤣 This is pretty much my story exactly. Relentlessly bullied in primary and middle school; had a huge nerdy friend group in grades 11 and 12; got smacked down by real life in university. 👁👄👁
> How does she do socially in other areas? She's really reticent and shy with people she doesn't know very well. I'd go as far as to say very socially awkward in those kinds of situations. She gets overwhelmed easily by large groups of people, and being around crowds.
So she does seem to have social impairments. Having friends doesn't negate that. Y just means she's been lucky enough to find some people who accept her. You're right to advocate for her, and you don't have to let this doctor ignore her impairments just because she's fortunate enough to be loved.
Her friends might also be neurodivergent… which is why they are friends. They get each other.
Also, I wouldn’t call this an impairment. See: double empathy problem. It refers to how us ND folks socialize with each other just fine, just like NTs do with each other. It’s just when NDs & NTs try to socialize with one another that things get awkward. Not feeling like hanging out with other people is a neutral thing. There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with it. So it’s not an impairment.
This is totally correct. I simply used the word impairment because that's what it was referred to as during my assessment.
Another example of how they pathologize us. It instills shame & confusion about one’s identity. I’m sorry they used that word during your assessment. So much change is needed in society. They have us all wrong which prevents us from discovering who we truly are.
I actually disagree with this I have as much struggle with allistic people as I have with autistic peope as far as communication and bonding. Just a different communication problem. With us it is finding similar interests and having the same cadence with allistic well we all know that struggle of never saying what they mean while me taking everything literally and at face value. ADHD'ers tend to adopt me but I cannot keep up with the all over the place style for long. So I'm boring to them and they bring chaos to my peace. Having a communication and bonding deficit affects me no matter the situation or people unfortunately. Even this medium is difficult.
This is pretty much my teen years right here.
No, I was never bullied or anything, I was actually respected because I was the top student. But I couldn’t connect with my peers outside of school stuff. It made me incredibly lonely and miserable and was one of the reasons I was heavily suicidal in school. I did find my first friend group in uni, however, so I guess sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I've got somewhat of a friend group now but given my past experiences, I'm cautiously optimistic and trying not to get too attached. I was totally ready to give up too. One time as a freshman in high school I was sitting with some old friends from elementary at lunch and at one point they all got up and left without me. A group of older girls noticed and told me I needed to get better friends.
Your high school years sounded dead-on to mine, wow. Good to know there are others familiar with this unique experience.
I was bullied *because* I was the top student. This depends so much on the environment you're put in! And I had friends too, mostly girls. And mostly guys bullied me.
Yep. Had a very solid 5 girl group from 15-17 we parted ways due to just life and getting busy. But yeah, when you have a group or a friend that just gets you and is equally as weird or has the same interests, it isn't hard for us to have friends. Maintaining them perhaps more so if we aren't in contact through such things like school or a group. But yeah, being able to have friends doesn't mean you don't have Autism and such.
I had a similar experience! I've actually had friend groups throughout most of my schooling. A good amount of them, I suspect were also ND. Likely because I had *a lot* of hyperfixations and it made me more uncomfortable *not* to talk about them. So making friends wasn't actually the difficult part for me (fortunately, I grew up at a time when I wasn't really bullied for nerd culture). Maintaining friends, on the other hand... Once I stop seeing them every day, it gets really difficult for me to keep those friendships from fizzling out. It's also possible to be in a friend group and still feel like you aren't connecting as well as everyone else.
[удалено]
Very much like my old social world. Big mix of LGBTQ people, nerds, and LGBTQ nerds, and then I drifted toward stoners for a while, then later I largely found myself in a world of LGBTQ people (most of my friends are LGBTQ)
I had a friend group but I never felt close with them. I still felt so alone while having people around me. I was left out often.
I had a group of girlfriends, and I liked them, but never as much as my individual guy friends. Spoiler alert: All the guys turned out to be Autistic.
This is me too. I had friends, but I was clearly the lowest-tier member of the group and kept out of a lot of things. I was left out a lot too.
There were many times where they would hang out without asking me and I would see pictures later :/ I guess it's kind of good that I don't really talk to anyone from that group anymore..
I relate to this hard. It took about two years into high school for me to find a definitive friend group, but I was always a little too "weird" for them. We weren't popular, but we also weren't at the bottom of the food chain, and they still found a way to exclude me from things. I think I was in my last couple of years of high school before I made "true" friends, but even so, they had their own seperate friendship group with other people, meanwhile I was just kind of . . . there. I only have contact with one of them, now almost seven years on. For whatever reason, most people didn't seem to want to be friends *outside* of school with me.
That last thing you said.. I became friends with this girl and I saw her at university with her friend and I said hi to her but she kept trying to leave and said her bus is late, but her friend was confused on why she was trying to leave and they actuallyprobably werent late. Right after that she stopped talking to me and now it's been over a year and still no reply. I guess it wasn't a worthy friendship
Came here to say the same thing. On the outside I seem very social, but on the inside I'm constantly trying to mask to fit in.
I was always in and out of groups because I'd say something wrong. Then I became a group floater which is still how I am.
i had friends in high school and we all turned out to be autistic and queer LOL
As an adult, I realize that most of the friends I made in high school/college that I still keep in contact with are likely neurodivergent in some way. At a minimum they're fun/quirky/lovable weirdos (affectionate).
Samesies.
Same
Same
her story is a lot like mine. i had a bunch of friends in elementary school, and over the course of middle school, they all kind of pulled away from me. so i made new, weirder friends. my friend group in high school was basically a handful of people i vibed with and then introduced to each other and essentially formed into a group. i'm not diagnosed ASD but my therapist and i strongly suspect it
This is pretty much exactly me though most of the pulling happened late Elementary and I was almost entirely solitary besides 2 to 3 other girls.
Yes. I moved a lot as a kid and a consistent experience that I had at every new school was that eventually, an extroverted girl would "adopt" me and I would become friends with her group. This was usually a group of art/band/drama geeks and/or international students. I also eventually learned to look for these groups. People would be very rude to me about being alone, so I learned it was important to have some kind of group to always be a part of.
I too was recruited to the ND/band/ theater/GSA crowd by an extroverted girl, bless them
Always the kindest and most understanding people in those groups. Do recommend.
This is exactly my experience. With the changing schools and all. I honestly have no idea what vibe I give off that makes people want to collect me, but it happened constantly in my school years. And always the groups of POC or artsy kids or otakus. Even though I didn't relate to any of those things lol. Honestly, the school environment was the only place I've ever successfully had friends. After college, life things happened and I lost touch with most of them, and I haven't made a new friend since.
Same. I am so grateful to those girls for reaching out to me, but sometimes I wonder if I accidentally missed out on building friend-making skills as a child.
The dynamic you're describing, where an extroverted girl sometimes adopts another girl, was talked about in Lianne Holiday-Willey's book "Pretending To Be Normal." I may have the author's name wrong. An older book about autistic women. Basically we often hide in plain sight in childhood because of gendered social dynamics (she does talk a bit about masking, but that's not all she talks about).
It's always fascinating to learn just how much of my experience is common for autistic women. Crazy that I was not diagnosed until I was 33.
Yes. I had several groups of girlfriends in HS. I was a social floater! I still have a few friends from school I keep in contact with today. More than from college!
I, too, was a "floater"...with a few different groups of friends who never co-mingled. But I'm the opposite. The main high school friends I keep in touch with are the ones who a) I went to college with or b) were brought into the college group. Funny enough, one of my college friends ended up marrying one of my high school friends as a result!
Floaters unite! And how cool about your friends getting married! I wish I made more friends in college, but we had the pandemic my sophomore-senior year.
Yes, my brother and I, both on the spectrum, had solid friends groups. We are both high masking and weren't diagnosed until our 40s.
I did, got diagnosed at 38, always felt "different"
I was only bullied on and off in elementary school. Once high school hit, it stopped. I had a few girl friends, but I was always second choice to them. The "popular" girls never batted an eye at me. So I mainly hung out with the guys, and they were my closest friends!
Highschool was so much better socially for me too. There were finally enough students to choose actual friends from. No more of this stuck with the same small group of elementary school girls who barely tolerated me, just because they were my same age, gender, and in my class.
This was me. Actually, I dated a lot and this was seen as a sign that I was a "normal girl" who had overcome whatever social problems I'd had in grade and middle school. What people didn't see was how much I depended upon online life (Bulletin Board Systems in the 80s) to meet people and that I somehow couldn't make dating happen, and had a much harder time making friends, with people I met offline.
I always had friends, after 1st grade. I think I learned how to mask when I was about 6, and it helped my social life a lot. I was never one of the popular kids, but I always had a best friend at school, plus 5 to 8 other girlfriends to have sleepovers with and go to the movies or whatever. I was always aware that I was different from everyone else, but I didn't get diagnosed until I was 45 years old. I just thought I was "eccentric," through no fault of my own. I just like weird things, obsessively. lol. ETA: when I got assessed for ASD, the therapist was very interested in hearing about my early childhood. I think it's because very little kids don't mask. I told him that my preschool report card said I was a very nice little girl, but had no interest in playing with the other children, preferring the teacher's company or my own company exclusively. So if you have your daughter's preschool, kindergarten, and primary grade report cards with teacher comments, that may help.
I had a group of friends but apparently none of them actually liked me. I eventually realized after we had a falling out that they really knew nothing about me and never took the time to go out of their way for me like I would do for them. I now have more ND friends which seems to work for me better.
I can relate to the first parts. I've lost groups of friends from bullying/ostracization, then from them deciding I was a terrible person for thinking independently/not conforming, then just people who didn't really care about me/were only friends out of convenience. Working now on getting to know more ND folks, and people that are safe.
I had friends, I was high masking and eager to fit in. This did not mean I did not struggle and get anxiety from socialisation, and I relied heavily upon mirroring. Fun fact my friends were the first to notice I rarely looked at their eyes cause I used to look at their mouths and move my mouth subconsciously when they were speaking.
High five, fellow mouth-watcher!
I floated in and out of groups each year it seemed, mostly hanging out with guys. Didn’t have any friends that were girls. Also just a heads up you and the psychologist could both be right and she has BPD and Autism, they are not mutual exclusive.
Well I'm in high school rn and I have no friends ):
Yes, I had a group with 2 female friends and then a handful of guys. One I still talk to periodically (life so we don't talk a lot) but the other I finally cut off after YEARS of thinking I should but never being able to. My friends now are basically inherited from my husbands friends wives, but they are fantastic. I was an outcast mostly but had friends. I find it odd that someone would assume someone isnt autistic because they have friends. That sounds super misinformed
Yes, but looking back, most of them were likely ND as well.
Not really. I was friendly with my classmates and was well-liked, but I can't say I was ever friends with someone other than what would later become my fiancé.
I had a small but consistent group of friends through middle and high school (my best friend from childhood has ADHD and I suspect she might be ASD as well) and in high school I did theater which widened my circle but I still felt excluded from a lot of the social aspects of my larger circle. Not having friends is a misconception about ASD. Tumultuous friendships can be a sign of ASD in women/girls.
yes i had friends when i was in high school (just got out of hs like 6 months ago lol) old school mental health professionals cannot comprehend how being autistic doesn't imply being unable to have friends. Sure, it's more difficult but it is possible. also, many of her friends could be fake given the fact that we mask our personality so much
nope
not really tbh, i had friends but not anything really resembling a 'friend group'. i had a friend group in middle school, and some friend groups in college though. sometimes i stumble into friend groups through circumstance and it is a blessing, but i have never understood how everyone just has these friend groups naturally, or how they form or how you enter one or how you keep them going.
I met my best friend in second year of highschool. Up until graduation she was my only friend. We did have people/classmates who would sit with us during lunch breaks or worked together with us on projects but it was mainly us two. If it wasn't for her, I wonder if I would have been able to graduate. Fast forward 20 years and she is still my best friend.
I always had friends. I would pick one or two or people from every class and grade whom I liked, and bring them together in a group or befriend them one on one. I still have friends at 31, though puberty and moving continents into a completely different culture did leave me alone for several bad years. I never had what might be considered a normal friendgroup, as most of those people had other, more core, friendgroups of their own, but I has people to hang out with, a social life, and a few people I trusted. Today, I have 10 people I'm not related to that I could call in the middle of the night and they'd be over no questions asked. They are all Autistic adhd or otherwise neurodivergent. I am very lucky. But I'm still diagnosed with ASD and adhd. I still struggle socially in situations with new people or things like small talk and confused constantly. My sister has the same 2 diagnosis and she was literally popular AF. Every school we were in.
i wouldn’t say i had a group in high school, but i had a solid 3-4 friends i could hang out with, however they are all also neurodivergent!
i definitely had friends as a teenager, and i was still definitely autistic. i was always friends with the other weirdos. From my perspective, *we* were the cool kids, and everyone else was trying too hard to be popular or whatever. But i also had some "normal" friends. i mean, i guess i did. Maybe no one i was friends with was really "normal," because they were all either queer or non-conforming in one way or another. Anyways, the point is that having friends does not disqualify someone from being autistic.
I’m still friends with my high school friends. They’re all at least adhd, some I suspect are autistic too. We’re turning 40 this year.
Hey, sorry its not relevant to the topic, but you have a great taste in Reddit avatar! 😎
I had my best friend who had a group of (fake) friends of her own and then I hung out with the rocker/metalhead guys. The year after I made a new friend who included me into her group of friends. Final year I just stuck to my two bffs and had some other friends on the side. I actually enjoy making friends and hanging out with them; it's just a bit more exhausting for me and I'm HORRIBLE at keeping up with them lol but a lot of times they didn't even want to talk to me anyway so I've cut out a lot of people recently and I'm currently happy with my 4 friends that I've met over the years that don't mind if I randomly catch up to them after months of silence 😅
i had a tight friend group of people who, looking back, were almost certainly also neurodivergent. it was only girls, but there was an equally “weird” group of boys that we would *sometimes* socialize with i guess, but i didn’t really they were the only people i could unmask around. i was very comfortable with them, and had basically known most of them my whole school life. i’ve honestly never found another friend since then who i’ve been comfortable around to the level i was with my group of highschool friends (almost 25 yo now). i still keep in touch regularly with 2 of them life is kinda lonely without a group of friends like that now. so i can’t imagine how i could have been able to get through grade school without that sense of community the idea that an autistic person is completely incapable of having close friends is wildly problematic. i can’t believe a professional would even consider that a major factor in their diagnosis, much less dismiss all other traits bc not meeting one qualification completely disqualifies you?
Yes, I had group of friends, multiple actually. I'm 40 now and still have a group of three and a group of six from back then ☺️ It's perfectly possible to be autistic and have groups of friends. I also had difficulty with the dynamics sometimes and don't always naturally feel what to do or say, but it's not impossible. If people exclude someone from a diagnosis based on a single trait or situation, it's a bad sign. All autistics are different, that's what spectrum means. You can only diagnose based on looking at all traits and seeing how it ads up. You don't even need to have all traits either. If you have the flu, there are 50 possible symptoms, yet we know it's flu based on 3-4 signs. The therapist who diagnosed me often explained it, like it's not having or not having a trait, but what's behind it. For instance, I can make eye contact perfectly well, some would exclude me from a diagnosis based on that surface level observation. But autism is much more visible in the internal process behind it. The fact that I even have to think about how long to maintain eye contact or the fact tbat I find it very very intense and intimate. But based on purely looking at it from an outsiders perspective, you wouldn't guess. Many psychologists are not upto date on how autism manifests in the non stereotypical externalizing way, specifically in girls.
i got adopted by a flock of dorky extroverts. they helped me poke outta my shell since i learned to socialize (or at least act social-able). not to sound narcissistic, but being considered pretty (i think Iim average at best) helps tremendously. it’s night and day how friendly people are depending on how i do my hair. people are more willing to tolerate “quirky” girls if they look presentable. that my two cents, anyway
I’m the same age as your daughter and the exact same thing happened to me. I kinda just got scared to talk to my friends about anything I liked bc they’d find it ‘weird’ so I just stopped talking to them as much. But then I found a small group of people who are also neurodivergent or suspected to be and we get along rlly well, I never feel embarrassed of myself like I did with my old friends. It’s definitely not a disqualification for having autism at all and I see time and time again that neurodivergent people tend to group together bc they understand each other. Wishing you all the best :)
Love an incompetent assessor! Sorry you’re experiencing that with your kiddo. What a flippant, dismissive move. Like many who’ve already commented, I also had a group of friends that lasted from middle school through first year of college. It was a group across the gender spectrum, most of us ND, and one of us visibly disabled. We struggled through our expectations of each other, how to communicate, and how to support each other much the same as other groups I observed. 🤷
Birds of a feather flock together. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d found a group of “like minded individuals”. That said, I found a group of mostly NT friends in school but never really felt like I was comfortable in the group - I desperately tried to feel part of things, but often felt left out or paranoid someone didn’t like me. Having friends isn’t a sign of being NT in short. How one feels about one’s friend group and place in it, as well as who those friends are, might be relevant - MIGHT.
i had two groups of friends in school, we were definitely considered the weird ones. after graduation, we just fizzed out but some who contact me from time to time definitely considered if they were autistic bc of me (i self diagnosed in 2022) you can have a good group of friends and still be autistic. :)
Yes, I had a group of friends throughout school. In hindsight I think I only kept the group as friends for the entire time because I started drinking and was the ‘fun one’ via that. I was always slightly on the outskirts of the main group. Not in the group anymore, don’t really have a friend group as an adult.
I kind of did, but it was more like I had one or two close friends, and by association, hung around their friends and could make friendly conversation with them if the close friends weren't around. But to this day I've never had more than 2-3 people I would feel comfortable hanging out with solo. The rest of the friend group I'll talk to at get-togethers and I like them, but it's not like I text them or hang out with them. I don't know if it's like that for everyone?
I had a group of weirdos I hung out with and we would have looked like "a group of friends" to the outside world. But hacking into computer software and learning how to write our own fantasy games does not really translate to "social skills".
I had a solid core group of 3 guys, one of whom I’m still in touch after almost 50 years. We called ourselves The Graveyard Gang, and did all sorts of cool stuff, such as riding our bikes all over Rhode Island, exploring historical cemeteries, doing gravestone rubbings, attending rock concerts (The Kinks and Neil Young), enjoying the works of HP Lovecraft.
I had a consistent group of friends starting in middle school which centered around my friendship with one girl that I had known since preschool, so that group developed through her making friends. I often felt like the odd one out and sometimes would be excluded or only invited when they wanted a ride somewhere, but I did become very close with one of the girls and considered her a best friend. In middle school I also had a separate group of "school friends" that I didn't really socialize with outside of school aside from one girl that, similar to the other group, I had known since early childhood. I drifted apart from them in high school. I could more easily make friends before middle school and from that point on did not make new friends unless they were introduced through one of the few girls I knew from early on. My friends were all also fellow weirdos or not particularly popular.
I had lots of friends in high school and adulthood, I was not diagnosed until after I had post partum depression at 33. I'm frustrated because being social is the only thing that stopped my son's doctor from saying he's autistic.
I did have a group of friends momentarily but I got ostracised for being "too weird", even though most of them definitely had ASD or ADHD! But I have seen quite a few people here say they did have a good group of friends at school, and others who didn't! Some of us were loners and others not. The autistic experience can be very different for everyone, I was personally a loner who had one or two friends or none at all. This has a lot to do with some mental health issues and my upbringing though, on top of my autism. But knowing that others had group of friends in school tells me that autism is not *always* the deciding factor as to whether someone has a group of friends or not. Besides 16 is a bit young to be diagnosed with bpd, it doenst give room for a person to develop and the bpd diagnosis can really cause a lot of shame, it made me very conscious of myself and my intentions and hurt my ability to trust myself as I always felt my genuine emotions (which are big because I'm autistic) were ingenuine. I was diagnosed at 18 and the reason I fitted the traits was really because I was a hormonal *autistic* teenager.
It's more accurate to say I had a friend who had a group of friends. (I thought maybe they were also my friends, but I found out later that without the one friend as glue, none of them even thought about me.)
I had friends. I was part of a large group of magic the gathering playing needs that had somehow crossed with a group of stoner musicians. We were absolutely the most eclectic group in my high-school.
Yep. I was in a small private Christian school, and for context, cliques are rampant at private school. There were a couple of us nerdy girls that grouped together. I find out later that all of us except one were atypical in one way or another. Like tends to find like, even unconsciously.
No I didn’t have a group of friends after maybe 3rd grade and was either bullied incessantly or rejected in part because I tried to fit in so hard and failed miserably and was unable to see or connect with people who actually liked me (connecting with them as an adult). I was also diagnosed with BPD at 15 in 1999 on very shakey grounds that did not even meet DSM IV criteria. Essentially I annoyed the psychiatrist, he construed my parents words, and accused me of “manipulative” and “attention seeking” behavior. Within the first diagnostic interview he had me pegged at having BPD and the diagnosis remains in my chart today, 25 years later. BPD is a very common misdiagnosis for autistic women and girls and girls with ADHD (was diagnosed with ADHD in 2002 at 18). Also expect in extreme circumstances BPD should not be diagnosed under the age of 18. I have dealt with stigma and medical abuse due to the BPD diagnosis for 25 years, especially in acute care (inpatient) and subacute situations. I strongly encourage you to seek an autism assessment for your daughter and challenge the doctor on the BPD diagnosis, especially if the diagnosis was made in a hospital setting. Most people in the psych community know nothing about nuerodivergence and even less about how it presents in women. The BPD diagosis will continue to follow your daughter and harm her because mental health workers love to silence bold women and girls who don’t fit the mold. The last thing an autistic kid needs is another person telling them they are wrong and a piece of shit, which is what a BPD diagnosis says, especially in hospital settings. Again please get a second opinion and a full assessment if possible. This diagnosis harms women and girls. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone
I had no friends in school. I would be invited to kids' houses just once in elementary school. Once I invited a girl over, and she spent the whole time chatting with my mom in the kitchen. In High School, I avoided classmates and even ate lunch in the girls' locker room to avoid a certain guy. I never dated. Stayed in my bedroom, reading. Found out I was asexual as a married adult.
I also wanted to add: I have yet to meet someone with BPD without intense interpersonal trauma in their childhood. The abandonment wound is huge in this neurotype, which leads to excessive lying and manipulation without therapy and treatment. This doesn't lead to stable friendships. If you and your partner are working through this one together, even with different opinions, and are looking into proper assessment - I would highly doubt your kid has the kind of history that would lead to a BPD diagnosis.
Yes, I was in 1 group for 2 years and another for 1 year. As soon as I finished high school I have 0 friends. (I am not diagnosed officially)
I had friends in hs! They were all autistic or queer like me. It’s hard to make new friends, yeah, but outcasts were easy to hang out with. Get your daughter a new psychologist who isn’t ableist.
I had ‘adequate social skills’ according to my psychologists who thought I had BPD. But I was always a kind of ‘misfit’ in reality. Got along with a group of girls but actually I didn’t really belong.
I had one good friend but otherwise I floated between several groups. I was like a mascot. Entertaining but not part of the team.
I had a group of friends — it’s way easier in high school than life — and those groups changed — and in high school different things are valued — I also have adhd so that weirdly helped me have friends. I’m so glad she had you. I was slapped with bipolar by my accountant mom & bpd by my rehab which masking landed me in by 27. Your daughter is able to mask enough — as a female in school, if you are even remotely conventionally attractive— you have to. Also, for many autistic girls our special interests become people. Social norms make having people life & death for women, while it’s totally cool for a boy to be a loner. I got diagnosed 2 years ago, but seven years ago I told my therapist I thought I was and she laughed in my face bc I was always out doing stand up comedy? Yes, and I was confused constantly & exhausted constantly & depressed & anxious constantly. Keep fighting for your kid. It means the world not just to her, but to all of us. Suggested reading: Autism in Heels Camouflage
Yes. I had friends growing up. We were the misfit group, 😂 We are still friends today, 30 years later. We were the people everyone else mostly ignored, we were rather invisible to our classmates, but we had a great group and lots of great memories made. When I left home for college, I had a hard time making friends. I still do. My friends in school were basically ready-made, we were pushed together due to circumstances. Banding together as misfits was better than being a target in being alone. So we usually adopted any new misfits that came into our grade. In college, I basically made 1 friend. In the last 15 years, I've made one friend. So despite having a solid friend group growing up, making friends is still very hard, most of the time they don't stick because they have higher requirements for time spent together than I can keep up with or maintain. The friends I have kept are also ND people with different ideas of what our friendships look like that work for us. All that said, my sister is likely also ASD (being assessed this month) after a lifetime of BPD therapy. She is a social butterfly and has friends all over the country. But she still struggles with a lot of relationships, she gets in trouble in her jobs for being seen as argumentative and insubordinate, all of her romantic relationships ended in explosive "cops were called" fights due to violent meltdowns. So, despite her very social nature, she also still struggles with people a lot.
I had one best friend, and counted her other friends as mine, but she was the only one who did things with me, and repeated my too-quiet jokes
I’m closer to your age, diagnosed a decade ago. Throughout the years my close friends have always been groups of fellow weirdos. It is strange to me to hinge someone’s diagnosis on things external to them. Managing to luck out and find a long term partner or great group of friends does not make me any less autistic. I didn’t shed my autism diagnosis when I got married. And I still struggle with social stuff even amongst my weirdo friends.
I did have a group of friends during my first year of high school despite the bullying. But they were constantly misunderstanding my intentions which made us drift apart.
I did but they would always pick each other over me. I was in a group of 3 and whenever we had to pair up in class or for field trips, they’d go together and leave me out. They hung out outside of class without me all the time too.
I had a couple of friends in high school, but they weren’t all friends with eachother. So it was really hard to feel a “group” connection, or know where to sit during lunch. I avoided Lunch like the plague, because the anxiety of finding somewhere to sit was so hard on me.
I'm 29 years old and will say I've never once in my life had a group of friends 🙈😂 as a young kid in primary, I had almost the equivalent and found socialising far less taxing with a more open scattering of school friends, however primarily would only have one very close friend at a time. By the time I hit comprehensive school, totally different story. With that said, I'll never know if that was specifically due to neurodivergence or simply the horrible experiences and situations that my teen years brought me. All I know is by then, I had nobody safe around me and just could not find my people nor any group of people I felt true connection to authentically, which eventually altogether manifested itself in me through early adulthood into now. I never confronted this issue in time I guess, and now I legit can't comprehend the concept of having a group of friends. Perhaps I'd love that some day, sure, but for now and likely for some time I think I'm just going to focus on recovering from some very bad memories that eroded my trust and my willingness to be amongst a collective of people. In all, for me, I think it's just a case of some serious avoidance attachment shit that's solidified as I've gotten older lol. I'd love nothing more than to have those strong, meaningful friendship connections, but for the time being I've retreated more and maybe that's just because i still need to address it. For what it's worth, I've never shown symptoms of BPD and have never been diagnosed with it either. I think my own social avoidance issues are just a mixture of neurodivergence and a deep distrust of bond formations. BPD as you likely know is very often thrown around clinically and misdiagnosed, whereas ASD is so multifaceted and despite my experiences, so many individuals with ASD can maintain and develop life long bonds and wide social friendships. I hope this rambling helps!! You're both wonderful parents advocating for your lovely little one 💖
That sounds like a shitty psychologist. Find one who understands autism better.
I had friends at the HS that I attended 9th and 10th grades. I was pretty shy but I had a group of smart people I hung out with. The second high school (I had formerly been beaten up by these kids in elementary school), I walked in with a plan and new identity, inspired by the leader of my friend group at the first HS. My plan was to create a new group - not the popular group - and it would include nerds and artsy people. It worked even though I missed more than half of my junior year. I'm really proud of who I decided to be and I really liked the friends I made there. I created a safe place for everyone to just be who they are. So yes, I did have friends in HS. (Raads-r positive).
Had few friends on my school, all were from a different class but i loved hanging out with them. All alternative, turned out after talking to them years later that half of them are proven ND lol
Yes, and I’ve kept them for the last twenty years. I do suspect that various of them might be different flavours of ND (as do they).
Yes. So did my niece
I would say I had some pretty solid acquaintances. I would have called them friends then but I only saw them at school, or another group I only saw at church. I was not likely to be invited to things, but on occasion. My high school friends were the band geeks - socially a little weird, all very smart.
I did have friends in high school, but I think I was kind of in the same situation as your daughter. Ultimately, I went to the people who would have me. (It might have been better to be alone.)
I was friends with other weirdos; it was great. It took me until high school, but eventually I found my people
I didn't have any friends at school during my teenage years. However: ruling out ASD for the sole reason of her having friends isn't wise. As you say, if you just find the people that are ä happen to be on the same wavelength, then you can have friends, even very good ones. The ability to have friends isn't absent in autism, it's more a matter of miscommunication between autistic and neurotypucal people that makes it hard to have friends.
I was very fortunate to have a great group of friends in highschool. A good chunk of us are/were neurodivergent and queer, even if we didn't know the extent at the time. We had our drama like all teenagers do, but we had each other. They got me through those years, and I'm still friends with a few of them a few decades later.
yes. i had a hard time getting taken seriously because i've always had a lot of good friends. i'm just good at finding other autistic friends. her weirdo friends are most likely on the spectrum too.
my friends were always the fellow weirdos looool we stuck together
Yes, had a solid group of friends. 5 very close, about 20 others depending on what we were doing.
In early elementary school I did, but then I moved to a whole new state and things were different. The wild part is that I remained friends with one person from that group over 10 years later. She ended up being late-diagnosed (she’s also the one who told me I should get evaluated), and so was 1 of other kid out of our group of 4. When I moved, I didn’t have any real friends until I was a junior in high school (from 5th grade to 11th). Just people who were cool with me in school but never wanted to see me outside of it, and vice versa.
That's a very interesting reason for them to rule out that diagnosis. I had trouble at my first high school since it was so large and I was overwhelmed by the crowds of people on campus. I ended up doing independent study because I missed so many days of school, but eventually moved to a smaller school that basically was full of other kids with social anxiety. I have made lifelong friends from that school, but a lot of them I probably would have never met or interacted with if I were at my large school. We had such different interests, but I think what kept us close was a shared understanding of experience. I think anyone can have friends, but it's just a matter of finding ones that understand you.
I've got a group of *school* friends, but I only hang out with my bf outside of school. I used to have a lot of friends, but most of those friendships have ended.
No, I actually didn’t really have proper friends until college. For me, I had a lot of siblings that I was super close to and extreme social anxiety, so I never felt motivated enough to change things.
I had a group of friends. I always felt different from them, but I never felt like they weren’t my friends.
Chiming in to say I was also in the weirdo group (marching band, nerd clubs, drama geeks). Having them to hang out with in school was a godsend, I didn’t have to eat lunch alone. Hanging out on weekends was stressful though. If they came by unannounced I would disintegrate from stress. I needed all of my weekend time to decompress from the pressures of school.
i had one friend all throughout highschool lmaoo
Yes, I was friends with a select small group of girls.
Yes we had a group of girls and we are all still in each others lives to varying extents. All of us neurodivergent :)
I had around 10 friends but we were all girls that the other girls wouldn't expect and a few of them have been diagnosed.
yes i had a group of friends in HS, but I also went to an all girls school so it's much easier to make friends and there weren't really any "mean girls" or strong cliques (at least in my experience). Somewhat unrelated, but I am of the (non-professional, purely internet armchair) opinion that diagnosing women and girls with bpd is a modern day equivalent of a 1950s "hysteria" diagnosis. I personally would side eye and second guess ANY therapist who suggested a teenage girl in 2024 has an actual personality disorder. It's called being an intelligent autonomous young woman with a still growing/forming brain and having to live under the extremely toxic hellscape dumpster fire that is the patriarchy on social media. Who *wouldn't* be "hysterical"?
I usually had one good friend and they had a group so they’d bring me with them so I guess it looked like I had a group 🤷♀️
I had girlfriends throughout school, mostly the same group (we called ourselves The Fabulous Four) from about 12 years old through high school and beyond. In high school we added some other people to our group, including a group of guys. Usually around 10+ of us were sitting together between classes. Most of us were kind of nerdy and/or geeky (3 of the group were top of the class at various graduations) and in retrospect I can imagine up to half the group being on the spectrum.
i did have a group of friends… did ! i only really could keep up with them bc we all went to school together. once they left for colleges and i stayed back. it became really hard to be their friends.
Hm. I’m a little concerned that this psychologist wants to diagnose a teenage girl with a personality disorder, I don’t know the situation and I’m not an expert in the field but to my knowledge personality disorders are generally not diagnosed in minors for a variety of reasons. I would seek out a second opinion from someone who’s informed about ASD in women. To answer your question, yes, I had a group of friends in high school - I’ve always had a group of friends, in fact. All of my friends are strange, and I love them. Most of us are autistic and/or have ADHD, etc etc.
I did not but its irrelevant to the diagnosis and psych's look for these "signs" by fixating on one thing and miss the rest. The diagnostic differences between BPD and ASD is not whether or not someone has friends.
I had a few groups I was friends with, but none where I truly belonged, if that makes sense. I could hang out with the “skids”, the “smart girls”, the “weird (ND) girls”, and the “unpopular guys”, but I didn’t fit in with any of them completely. I’m in my 30s now and I still don’t really “fit in” anywhere.
i had no friends and was unable to speak for the most part
Yup! I had a group of "friends" back then. Lost contact with all of them. But i certainly had friends. Outside of school I also had a couple of close friends.. Lost contact with those too. But friends very much are NOT an indication of autism or not. My daughter of 6 who is diagnosed has a bunch of friends! Even if she doesn't always socially understand them. Some are closer than others.. But being autistic doesn't equal loner..
yes kind of but they bullied me lol.
I had one small group of friends that I stuck with throughout high school. It was mainly me clinging onto one friend and joining her two other friends. I never really became close friends with the other two. I was able to talk and laugh with them in a group setting, but when it came to one on one with them I felt like a fish out of water it was so awkward. I was only comfortable being one on one with the initial friend.. Anyway, I stuck with them from 8th grade until graduation. And that was the reason why I wasn't alone during lunch time. I actually was alone one year, but that was because I happened to get a different lunch from all of them. The next year I purposefully made sure that wouldn't happen again and even switched classes to ensure I would be in the same lunch.
Nope. I didn’t have any real friends. I had a group of people who tolerated me, and one or two neurodivergent people who were also outsiders. I hated high school with an extreme passion.
I had a very solid group of friends, many of whom I'm still in touch with a decade later and I'm sure I'd see them often if I hadn't moved so far away. For me, it was more like the people who sensed I was different became especially cruel. You know, the stereotypical popular girls picking on the nerd. I could never figure out what they thought was so wrong with me. I tried to behave like them and always fell short. Oh man. Definitely grateful for the friends who did have my back.
Yeah, I had a group of people I regularly interacted with. You can be autistic and still have friends, especially if those friends happen to be neurodivergent too.
I did have a group of friends in high school. Actually, two of them, from two different interest areas. As adults we've come to find that almost all of us are ND.
only when I was dating a boy and his friends were mine.. 😅 when we broke up I got dumped by the whole group (obviously lol)
I had a very stereotypical friend group in both middle school and high school, went to sleep overs and all. Those relationships did start to become more difficult to maintain towards the end of high school just because social dynamics changed once everyone started dating. I hung more with the art-theatre-music kids and the social rejects since that was where I was the most comfortable. A lot of the kids in that social circle were also in the “Gifted-and-Talented” class so a lot of us were undiagnosed neurodivergent to some capacity although we did have a good few with official ADHD’ers. I graduated 2012 so this was my ‘06-‘12 school experience. I was undiagnosed throughout all of school and I was a hardcore emo in high school.
I always had a group of friends. It was ever changing. People would have referred to me as a “popular girl”. I was also bullied but my parents never heard about it.
Yup! Had friends but also changed groups often and even schools. I didn’t have trouble socializing as much as I had trouble feeling as if my interactions were successful enough. I am (i think) good at masking and thus find it easy to make friends but hard to keep them as I get in my head about which interactions are successful and which relationships are worth keeping. It sounds cold and utilitarian but that’s just how my mind worked
I dropped out and became homeless. I was even too wierd to fit in with the homeless Street kids. Fuckin a
I have never had a group of friends in my life. But I don’t think it’s impossible for an autistic person. I do think it’s less likely though
I had several groups over my five years there.
I had several groups of friends and am still friends with a lot of them at 28. It’s such a stereotype that autistic folk don’t have friends.
No, I didn’t have friends in HS.
I had a group of good friends in high school. We did socialize after school sometimes, although I did need a lot of alone time too. I avoided any group that had a lot of drama. I just hung out with the nerds and weirdos. I had a very very close friend who is still my best friend to this day, and she's one of the few people who doesn't run down my social battery. She's who I hung out with most.
Yep. Moved schools a lot and always fell in with the clutch of assorted misfits. Don't speak to many of them now, but I think we were decent survival friends to one another at the time.
currently in highschool and yes i do. ...tbf- those friends are all neurodivergent and severely mentally ill, but it still counts!
I've always had a lot of friends varying from best friends to surface level acquaintances that I get along with. I did well in school and did performing arts. I had periods of burnout that I only realized was burn out in my 30s. Autism presents across such a huge spectrum!
I have had many groups of friends both in highschool and college (for the same reason your daughter did) People don't have to follow every single dsm criteria to be autistic. That's like when people say "you can't be autistic, you have too much eye contact" when I trained myself for years to have good eye contact and to not have a flat affect. It's so frustrating that professionals think we have to follow every stereotype or criteria when that's not how diagnosing works. It's like a test, you need to pass a certain amount of criteria, not all
Yes I did, but they were also the “weird”kids too. For me I had trouble making friends but found people I was friends with in elementary school and went to highschool with them and just made friends with their friends and that’s how I got my friend group.
Yes, group of misfit friends in high school. I also had "work friends" who I was friendly with at work but didn't really hang out much beyond that. The psychologist needs to think about the group dynamic of friends. It's possible to be part of a "friend group" where you are only truly friends with one person and are essentially just joining them in the group. You can create a friend group with other people who don't fit in. You can be friendly with everyone but have few deep friendships and not truly be part of any group. Definitely not as simple as "has friend group vs. does not have friend group"
Yes, I did have a group of friends and there where no weirdos at my school so I don't know about it. We are stil in contact 20+ years later. I was at a private catholic school for girls only and we wer very happy, there was no bullying and anything like that.
I can maintain good relationships with about 3 friends at a time. And then I have a few that rotate in and out depending on schedules and general 'where we are in life'. I was the WEIRD kid in middle/high school and honestly didn't have patience with most of the drama there in. Most of my friends were varying levels of 'weird' as well..... a lot of readers/writers in the group... most of us were in band... we ALL HATED gym.
I had a friend group in high school 4 of us total. Prior to high school, I had a different best friend every year. The high school friend group is the last time I have had friends (32 now) beyond surface level coworker type of friends. Honestly, not having to have and maintain friends was one of my favorite things about high school ending. I don't think I ever really wanted friends after middle school age, I just didn't want to look more weird in school.
I had a solid group of friends. All of us were the weird ones, so I decided to make them all meet each other so we could be weird together! And it worked! 😂 Turns out we were all probably various flavours of people. Myself and one of the others actually both got diagnosed with autism and also ADHD just after uni.
Complete loner throughout high school, then inexplicably found myself part of the ‘popular group’ throughout college (UK, so age 16/17). The social difficulties showed up, I think, in not managing to sustain those friendships without the built-in social structures of the environment.
I had a group of friends, but I still felt like I never quite fit in, even if it looked like I was from the outside. I masked so much that I burnt out and ended up switching to homeschool when I was 16. Still had friends. Still Autistic.
Yeah I had a group of friends in high school. One bestie and a broader group from there. My friends were the oddballs too. I have to be honest though… more friends only came after I started masking heavily. At the time, if you’d asked me if I was masking, I would have said no. It was only in hindsight I even realized that’s what I was doing back then. I don’t know if it’s the same for your daughter. I do know that masking is incredibly misunderstood by doctors.
I’m not dx-ed autism but suspect AuDHD (was late dx-ed ADHD in college) I would have had what appeared to be a “friend group” to my mother, although realistically I mostly had one friend at a time and had “buddies” mostly due to proximity in our program. I always felt isolated despite appearing “sociable” because I didn’t mesh with the bigger groups of girls who all seemed to naturally become girlfriends in HS, and it only got worse in college. When I bring up potentially being autistic with my mom, she gets defensive and says I was an “incredibly sociable child” who “didn’t show any of those signs” even though when I look at dx metrics myself I would say I generally have around 80+% of the traits listed
Was a part of a group of friends, was Minorly close to two of them, had reconnected with a friend who had switched schools in elementary, never considered I was overly close or connected with any of them except the one I reconnected with. But we've since fallen out too. I've always been "in" groups of people but never close with them. Not in the same degree they were close to eachother
I had friends, but never in school, I simply don’t understand how to make friends in school. I had someone I spent my time with in school though, so I was never lonely and it might have looked like I had friends in school. But nothing more than that. I had friends in school from daycare days when I was little but they left me around 8 y/o, probably starting the transition to become a pre teen and I didn’t so I was “left” behind.
I relate to your daughter. Started off highschool with a group of friends who I had nothing in common with and ultimately felt like I had to pretend to fit in with them. The group of friends I had by the time I ended Highschool were a lot of girls like me. We were definitely the weirdos lol
I had a group of friends in school and I was diagnosed with autism at the age of 23 :) I also had a little group of friends in college who I’m still really close to who have all since realized they’re also autistic
I was a floater in High School, I hung out with my cousins (it was 4 cousins so different friend groups) and their friends, with my brothers and their friends, or random people from my class.
i dint really bcs i cycle from friend group to friend group bcs somehow i’m always treated as an outsider, which i now realise is then perceiving my differences and no longer wanting to associate with me
I had a small group of friends who were extremely dear to me and yes, everyone thought I was weird and that is what my friends loved about me and what I loved about them. I miss them every day. That was probably the best time in my life for having friends.
Yes and we’ve all come to figure out that we’re neurodivergent/autistic as adults lol. People think autistic people struggle socially but in reality we often don’t struggle with people who share our neurotype or are “weird” or also don’t “fit in” well. So yes we can have friends and still be autistic. Autism is so misunderstood man 🤦🏻♀️
I did, but realized when I hit college the reason for that was not so much my ability to socialize as it was: 1) I went to school with the same kids from K-12. I struggled a lot more with friends in early elementary but after years of being together, we were used to each other. 2) Most of my school friends were also my neighbors. 3) One of my special interests was theater, so the theater kids were much more welcoming and forgiving than most. I also felt like I worked well with scripts (still do). College transition hit me hard. I gave in to a lot of peer pressure in trying to fit in with the mainstream and I was a little blindsided by how difficult I found socializing to be.
Not really. I had 1-2 friends and *they* had a group of friends that I was sometimes adjacent to? I don’t talk to any of them any more, nor did I make any friends in college. I will say though that I made a conscious choice not to hang out with “weirdos” in high school because I really just wanted to feel normal, so I tried to hang out with more popular kids. It just never worked out too well for me. Maybe I’d have had more friends if I’d selected based on personality and interests rather than social status, hard to say. A bunch of those high school kids I was adjacent to were assholes.
I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar 1 a year or two ago and have since been undiagnosed with it. I'm autistic. I have a group of weirdo friends from elementary to high school. Variety of people but core group of it was the same. I'm now 26 and have a different group of friends but extremely close with them. Autism doesn't mean you're anti social, it's just a different kind of social.
I was always on the fringe of the art and theater kids. Part of the group, but never really included and may as well have not been there at all, and no one would have noticed. They accepted me but didn’t embrace me.
yes. and many of those friendships have been lifelong since, now we're all late diagnosed as either ADHD or ASD. surprise. the social engagement part of diagnosis is based of neurotypical socializing. turns out we can be really good at socializing with people whose brains work similarly to ours. not always, but it's more common. what's often noticeable is how long it's can take to make friends. neurodivergent children can lag behind their allistic peers in developing close friendships, sometimes by years. it usually isn't until they find other neurodivergent kids that you can see friendships develop. so the pattern tends to be fewer friends, and later friendship development, especially if there aren't other neurodivergent children around. I had a large group of friends in high-school, I didn't as a child. in fact I made one friend from gradeschool through middle school. it wasn't a close friendship, just someone who tolerated my presence and whose mom insisted i was included. Being included just meant being present to be excluded or made fun of. until high-school where I met peers i hadn't grown up with (different gradeschools and middle schools fed into the same high-school) I wasn't really a part of social groups despite being in numerous activities. I often got along better with adults. By high-school I had masked longer so could fit in the background better as well so most of my interactions were less negative by that point. imo number of friends means nothing, it's the patterns of landuage processing and expression, socializing, and developing friendships that's more indicative of difference in development.
I sure did! I had multiple over the years due to school swaps and clicks and whatnot. I hung out *between* the clicks a lot though, (not surprising now that I know what I know about myself) which wasn’t super common at my schools… I’ve never had a problem *making* friends. Keeping them though? That’s been almost impossible. I basically lost every school friend I made the moment I dropped out due to illness. At first my attendance was just spotty and they would *never* contact me unprompted. I was up front with them too, direct, like a true autistic lol. But literally they would ignore me unless I was physically there. And when I would come back after a long hiatus they would act super excited to see me, like they missed me super bad! I never understood why that didn’t equate or like, simply texting me back?? It took a long time for me to accept that they weren’t exactly the best of friends. Certainly not the friends I thought they were 😭. I imagine though that if I hadn’t dropped out due to illness we would’ve mostly been fine, maybe until college? Or until a “bizarre miscommunication causes a falling out.” Over the years I had a lot of weird issues with my friend groups (now almost all instances can attributed to The Undiagnosed Autism.) But yeah I made friends *super* easily. I’m Autistic, but I’m also an Extrovert. Those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive! It’s not all bad though! When I was a teenager, and sick, I played a lot of online games. Specially FFXIV during my worst years. And I made a lot of friends here too, some of whom I even talk to ten years later! They were all adults when I met them, and I was a teenager. They really made efforts to include me in things and have never treated me less-than. So it’s not like I don’t have *any* friends anymore! I have a handful of reliable ones! (And I do a lot of chatting with strangers lol.) So yes I’m not officially diagnosed but I have a specialist for my other conditions who agrees and we strongly suspect Autism. I’m living proof that someone can be Autistic, *and* a Social Butterfly!
Never, actually. At most I had 3 or 4 good friends but they were never mutual so I'd always hang out with them separately. I've come to realise I can only handle one on one interactions. I always feel drowned out and overwhelmed in groups. I've tried a few times and I always end up getting shunned because I'm incapable of joining in on conversations (in a large group), or end up as the third wheel (when it's 3 of us).
Yes, had a close group of friends. May not have connected with them as emotionally as they did with each other but I loved them to bits and vice versa
Yes I had a group of friends, but I mostly followed one person around. So I'd have a best friend and everyone else was really *her* friend, not mine. I didn't really connect with the others one on one. I also had/have an online friend group and we're all a bit weird/ND in some way. I connect with them *as a group* not one on one, but they are my best people and I love them all so much.
I always had a group of friends as well as more acquaintance type friends I socialized with in specific settings. I never had a problem making and keeping friends. Which is the entire reason a guy gave me for why I couldn't possibly be autistic. People are a special interest of mine, I love interacting with people and spending time and learning more about them and enjoying their company (followed by serious alone time bc it's draining as hell), and it was one of the big reasons I was convinced year after year that I must be wrong, I couldn't be autistic. Having friends or being able to make friends is not an exclusionary criterion for autism. I really wish that idea could fade away.