Challenges of autistic girls in making friends

Intro music: Church of 8 Wheels by Otis McDonald

Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro and question
1:35 Motivations for friendship
2:57 Challenges making friends
5:02 Masking

[AnaPsychology]

I am SO excited to announce that I've launched a 4+ hour relationship skills course:

For those of you who like videos such as this one and want more, definitely check it out :)

[temi]

i don’t think i’m autistic however i relate very much to how hard it is to make and keep friendships.

[clockworkthoughts]

My therapist told me (before she diagnosed me with autism) that I should say "person with autism" because you wouldn't call someone a "cancer person." But there is a problem here if, for a comparison with autism, your brain immediately goes to cancer! Calling someone a "brown-haired person" instead of "person with brown hair" clearly doesn't sound bad or insulting, but that's because having brown hair isn't perceived negatively. If saying, "autistic person" sounds bad to you, then it is probably because at some level you perceive being autistic as negative. That being said, I don't really care which term people use, as they really just mean the same thing to me, and I use "autistic person" simply because it is easier to say.

[MeowMeow-symi]

I have never been so early to one of your videos. I am autistic and needed to feel validated in my social struggles this morning 😂

[rachel-jmjb]

girl here ✋ i never thought of myself as autistic until i found videos/articles like these that described autistic girls' experience, and everything described here fits my childhood to a T. i always thought i was just weird, like i missed some memo on how to act like a normal person. as an adult i wonder now if i've masked to the point where i don't even notice i'm doing it anymore -- it's definitely a lot easier for me to move through life as an adult than when i was a kid, but i still feel that vague otherness that makes it hard to interact with others (plus i have some sensory issues that some might associate with autism). anyone else have this experience??

[giovanyorozco]

It's interesting how neurodivergent people have the ability to create communities of support, I have social anxiety so was driven to make friends with people who were often "othered", and ended up having good long lasting relationships with my high-school friends who were often queer or neurodivergent (even if we wouldn't come to that realisation later on in our life).

[LaurenLindblad]

Hearing descriptions of those girls’ experiences was like listening to someone talk about me in school. I had different interests than girls in my classes and disliked what they tended to be into. At various points, a girl would adopt me into her friend group and act as my social bridge—I typically remained close with only her. She also maintained the friendship by initiating socializing. I never really talked about my feelings to my friends but was dealing with various mental illnesses and eventually dropped out of friend groups. In high school, my friends were other “othered” people and teachers bullied me. My friendships were based on interactions at school and semi-weekly pizza & video game hangouts. I craved time alone & a sensory break from school and would walk by myself during lunch periods. I didn’t really know what my peers thought of me and had thought my teachers liked me, until the homophobia-based bullying.

[michaelthompson]

I’m an autistic guy, never really had friends since I was about 7. most people just see me as something to laugh at and that’s the only reason they tolerate my presence.

[marketingpower]

Yep, very interesting, and fits well everything I experienced. Masking, being picked on, not being picked for group stuff. I prefer "autistic girl" than "girl with autism" because it's not something you can get rid off lol, it's like if we would say "girl with black skin" when describing a black girl I think it's weird
Also not to forget that the studies are made on diagnosed girls, so it's actually not completely representative as part of the community is undiagnosed. If you're masking too much to even get a diagnosis, it'll led to even worse consequences cuz then you'll never get any help

[danielle]

I have never been recognised as different growing up but now in my early twenties looking back, I struggled so much growing up. I had severe social anxiety during school, it affected me physically and mentally. I went from one friendship group to another to not speaking to anyone except two people for the whole of sixth form. I can also relate to a lot of the situations in this video. I also have all the traits of ADHD. I want to know but I don't have money to get diagnosed. To this day I am still a very introverted person who struggles to connect with others. Despite this, I still do my best to step out of my comfort zone from time to time. But I'm not able to mask!

[kyraamethyst]

Any twice exceptionals here? I am autistic and I have intellectual giftedness, which masked or attenuated some of my autistic traits. This led me to not be diagnosed until I was 25 years old. It also caused me to have higher expectations towards myself because I was always told that I had such high potential to succeed, yet I struggled so much with the socioaffective aspects of life.

[willabell]

It’s a bit different but i have adhd and I would rather be called “a person with adhd” than “an adhd’er” or something. I get that the idea is to have a more positive outlook on neurodivergence but adhd can be incredibly hard to deal with and I can never really forget that I have it so I prefer to think of myself as a person with a thing than a person who is fundamentally and inherently defined by the thing

[rleasethekraken]

I used to feel really bad about masking bc I thought I was being fake but in the recent years I started seeing it a bit differently. Although masking delayed my diagnosis, it helped me learn some social skills, and now I usually describe it more like what I imagine an alien would have to do to translate their behaviours into human. Sort of like moving to a place were the culture and language are very different from yours, so it's not really faking but a form of translation.

Great video as always ❤

[cassybowie]

i love ur content as a neurodivergent woman studying psych. no pop psychology, good summaries and great explainations that r accessible to everyone. it goes beyond simple pop psychology terms getting thrown around these days on social media whilst distortoing their meaning

[tkgsws]

Can you cover masking vs mirroring for neurodivergent

[shaaaairuuu]

I am convinced that in autistic but my psychiatrist says he doesn't think so and diagnosed me with ADHD and BPD instead. But when I communicate with other autistic people or watch content related to autism I hear things that match me perfectly like nothing else out there. I experience everything in this video and still continue to get dismissed.

[puffinlia]

autistic girl here, thank you for making this video, I genuinely thought there was something wrong with me bc I couldn't make friends easily or keep them. Im in high school and it just sucks to not feel wanted or likable by lots of people... anyone else relate?

[louise]

I found this channel a week ago and thought 'Huh this looks like a guide for autistic people" and now this video comes out XD

[anastasia-klii]

I really hope you do more videos like this. I'm guessing you are doing this because it's autism awareness week? Anyway, it helps me figure out myself as I think I might have autism, but cannot afford to get diagnosed. It's interesting and is definitely similar to my experience at school, and I never really understood why I got made fun of so suddenly and so much. The only advice I got told was it was because the boys liked me... by my mom. Please feature this topic more in your future videos :)

[neestovekin]

I appreciate you keeping this short and sweet, and not fluffing content for length. ❤