You Should Stop Making These 6 Mistakes When Talking to an Autistic or ADHD Person

Photo by Hiki App on Unsplash

Autistic or ADHD adults often exist on the fringes on the society, unable to participate in social life purely because of social and communication differences. It’s not like we don’t understand our roles in teams and relationships — we often do, but not in the same way a non-neurodivergent person would.

We have a lower threshold of tolerance for inane, unspoken societal rules which often places us at loggerheads with “normal” (i.e. neurotypical/stereotypical) society rules. It causes friction and leads us to social isolation.

Aside from being socially specific, Autistic and ADHD folks have our own unique communication traits. We place emphasis on precision and accuracy of our feelings while communicating, which is why you will often find us going into seemingly irrelevant topics as if we are giving a monologue on SNL.

Like — right now — why am I talking about SNL monologues? How is that relevant here? Maybe I wanna watch an SNL monologue! Maybe I am petitioning Lorne Michaels to invite me to host SNL on Christmas, secretly hoping one of you will deliver this piece directly to his personal WhatsApp!

Anyway, you get my point…

But there’s a way around it — we don’t have to tolerate all or nothing…