“Feeling like you’re part of a group, but you’re not in reality” — the ND/Autistic experience of loneliness
Trigger/Content Warnings: Ableism, Suicide Mention…
Deriving from the Greek word “autos” [self], the namesake for the Autistic neurotype was originally chosen as a reflection of how Autistic folks will find themselves on their own, and it’s no lacking concept of self-ism {supposedly defining how members of Autistic and Neurodivergent communities are drawn to isolation}.
(Ward-Sinclair, 2020)
Neurodiversity is a concept referring to the ways that people experience and interact with the world around them in different ways because of natural variances in both brain cognition and the brain.
(Robins, 2022)
Don’t you sometimes feel like the world will always be against you whenever you try to fit in to survive its bullshit against you? Doesn’t it ever feel like your efforts to “blend in” become more in vain when you try to fit into a social group you have no attachment to or you’re not a part of? Have you ever felt like no NT person will ever fully understand the mental and/or emotional agony you’re going through while also expecting you to follow pointless social rules that only benefit them? Was there ever a point in your life you’re learning that no one will ever truly understand the emptying, numbing, and silent loneliness you ever feel when you’re with a social group you have no relation to?
Yeah… I… I’ve been there for more than a few times because no matter how much I try to fit in with neurotypical people in the environment(s) I am in, I will never fully belong or even truly belong…
Sometimes, the world is against you when you feel that there’s people who say that they support you or give a fuck about you, but they never do, and then you also get people who wouldn’t think twice about your existence or even your value as a person and human being because all they know… is their own neurotypical bullshit they don’t bother caring about because they’ve never examined their own bullshit nor have even sat their asses down and critically reflect on the NT bullshit they were raised with. Oh yeah, if you’re also trans, gender-non-conforming/-diverse, non-binary and/or intersex, you’re shit out of luck because society and its neurotypical and cis-based socialisation rules are already going to fuck you over real fast.
There are also different experiences that Autistic and ND folks have of loneliness because they’ve been there too. The loneliness of the world being against you along with the world being narrow-minded pieces of shit is a kind of loneliness no one should ever go through (but already do because we live in a corrupt and narrow-minded society and a fucked up hellhole of a world that has some beauty in it).
This kind of loneliness already increases more and more in times where ableism is already becoming more normalised, but its increase is no thanks to the self-help and wellness industries that culturally appropriate the hell out of traditions that aren’t even ours to begin with, while also normalising victim-blaming attitudes, saneism and ableism {there are some people out in the world who would use self-help and self-love bullshit to deflect themselves from their own actions against people and even claim to say that people are hurt, are suffering and lonely because they don’t “love” themselves and don’t “empower” themselves enough [it’s like the secular version of religious beliefs about mental illness mixed with religious ableism, but equally worse and sinister]}.
This isn’t to shit on those who are comforted by wellness stuff or by New Age stuff, but just to bluntly state what’s on my mind about it because sometimes there are assholes in both self-help and self-love communities that use those wellness concepts to make themselves look like the secular or spiritual version of saints, which is mentors or coaches, while mentally and emotionally mind-fucking people with shit they know nothing about.
Sometimes when you’re in a social group and you try to fit in, it can often feel like people are sending the implicit, but rather soul-shattering/breaking message that no matter how hard you try to fit in with every other neurotypical person that only fucking cares about themself, you won’t ever ‘fit in’ with their group and that you ‘annoy’ them through so-called ‘attention-seeking’ from their NT perspective.
This kind of social situation is common to many folks as they’re more than likely to experience feelings of isolation and loneliness in comparison to the predominantly NT population. This is because of a lack of acceptance and understanding of what being Neurodivergent and/or Autistic feels like in a society that was only made for NTs, therefore making us feel like we’re a ghost, a phantom, a social misfit, left out, and empty from the society that loves to make anyone and everyone feel like a Goddamn refuse (stuff or someone that’s thrown away or seen as “worthless” /summarising).
How Loneliness can affect ND and Autistic people in different ways
For many ND and Autistic folks experiencing loneliness from their perspectives, it affects them in many ways mentally and emotionally, such as mental health concerns consisting of anxiety, sleep issues, depression, stress, and suicidal ideation (or thoughts about ending one’s own life by suicide).
Having a lowered sense of self-esteem is also one way for loneliness to affect someone because of many factors in life (their upbringing, the environment(s) they were born in, the beliefs a family grows up with while subconsciously ingraining them and passing them onto a person, the people a person or even people close to them surround themself(selves) with, the culture(s) a person is raised in, the things told to a person by people around them and more), and it can… and will make you feel just as alone with people who say that they care about you, but only care about themselves while playing saint or wellness mentor and victim-blaming you.
Being more vulnerable to people taking advantage of a person can really fuck with someone, especially when they’re kind and caring towards others by nature and when they’ve been ingrained with people pleasing tendencies that eventually harm them. This can also be painful as well because when someone tries to please others, not only are they losing a battle they can’t fight with neurotypical people that always expect anything they put on a person to be in their favour, but they’re also getting harmed externally and internally.
Poisonous and detrimental relationships are just as shitty for anyone, since that can be one catalyst for a person’s relationship trauma, and for societal double standards revolving around how so-called “healthy” (what people really mean is beneficial, nourishing, stable and more words that are in the English language, not just “healthy” because sometimes it can get to a point where it becomes more overused, and this word is part of medicalising/pathologising language surrounding human experiences) relationships are supposed to be, which not only is draining, but also can leave ND and Autistic persons burnt out from relationships themselves, and can also cause feelings of inadequacy and feelings of not being good enough for one’s partner(s), even when someone is in a poisonous relationship.
Feeling angry, sad, and confused are common emotions for anyone to feel when one is experiencing loneliness outside and inside in social groups and also when someone is feeling resentment towards neurotypical people since most NTs love to preach social rules that make no sense while also deflecting their actions leading to harming ND and Autistic persons, but they don’t practice them since NTs love to make themselves the “good guys” instead of just admitting that they’re not the “good guys”, but are just as contradictory as the next human being.
Feeling like an outsider, left out, and unseen can happen to any Autistic person who’s told a lot of shit, such as “don’t make everything about you”, “don’t get upset if you get affected by [insert hate crime]”, “don’t act like an [insert the r slur]”, and more bullshit social rules neurotypicals love to tell us while expecting us not to ruin their social and public image of most NTs being “decent” human beings [because there’s still social stigma of being Autistic, and God forbid you’re Autistic while also being BIPOC, LGBTQ+/Queer, Disabled, a newcomer, and more aspects of yourself because society’s a huge bitch ass motherfucker for preaching their wellness and self-improvement stuff, yet demonise us Autistic folks for doing this and also shit on us for also doing the same thing] because they love to play ‘good person, bad person’ with us while mind-fucking us for no reason other than their own shitty actions.
Neurotypicals fucking wonder why the mental health and well-being of Autistic people is going to shit [the more shitty life gets, the more older they get, and the more we go into the future while also continuing to normalise ableism in the public conscious], while they refuse to even do the shit they preach to us.
Social withdrawal, the deterioration of physical health and masking to ‘blend in’ can fuck with us (although experiences may vary) in plenty of ways. For one, we’d often have a difficult time trying to keep up with societal expectations of how we’re supposed to socially act, how we’re supposed to ‘behave’ and how we’re supposed to “naturally” understand what neurotypical social rules mean in terms of ‘norms’, relationships, unspoken rules that only benefit NTs, and many more.
The physical health of Autistic people deteriorates from this since we often mask as people we aren’t due to fears of getting killed in ableist hate crimes, being bullied and singled out {although many Autistic folks are implicitly and/or explicitly singled out by social groups on the basis of them being Autistic}, and especially when we’re humiliated by some neurotypical pieces of shit who love to record some of us getting humiliated while posting videos of us being humiliated and restrained online.
Some of us also get infantilised by the same neurotypical jackasses who have no right to excuse discriminatory behaviour nor have any right to even try to defend ableist motherfuckers like Doug Ford because they perceive Neurodivergent behaviours as ‘unnatural’ and neurotypical behaviours as ‘natural’…
Well, god-fucking-dammit, that’s what happens when neurotypicals let their neurotypical fragility and privilege get to their heads while having an invisible stick so far up their asses that they refuse to even check themselves for their ableist bullshit.
Masking to ‘fit in’, can cause a huge toll onto us, which leads to eventual burnout if we continue bottling up the drainage and the boulders that are the feelings of being overwhelmed, getting internally sick and tired of bullshit from the Neurotypicals™ who claim to give a fuck about us, but only care about their precious public images and only fucking care about how they or their family image looks to everyone (and they wonder why we’re so fucking angry and pissed off at their bullshit).
Masking can also destroy Autistic mental health and well-being because of the amount of external pressures we silently take on while also suffering in silence. The enforcement of external pressures from neurotypical society isn’t helping anyone either, but rather killing more Autistic comrades and destroying people from the inside out.
Loneliness, by itself, is also common among Autistic and/or ND folks and it may look different for each person. In this shithole referred to as “real life”, Autistic adults are more than likely to experience loneliness, with an estimation of 1 in 3 being socially isolated because of this failure of a society.
There is one hypothetical example that can explain why being alone is felt differently for an Autistic person (but can be felt strongly to some extent)…
Let’s say you were invited by a co-worker, peer, or relative to a social event. You spend a shitload of hours preparing for that social event, only for you to find out (without the knowledge of the co-worker, peer, or relative about you finding out about this) that they didn’t include you in the festivities they planned for only themselves. Instead, they make you feel like you’re covered in a pile of corpseshit, in the sense that they make you feel smaller than them and that they don’t see the timeless worth you have as a human being. They also make you feel alone by laying down hypocritical, but absolute horseshit social rules for “social appropriateness” to not ruin their public image nor to even ‘embarrass’ them… as believed from a neurotypical perspective since not all NTs are genuinely accepting human beings, but not all of them are prissbitch-ass motherfuckers either because there are some good NT folks out there who are the most decent people you’ll ever meet.
Imagine the amount of hurt, confusion, mental and emotional pain/agony (if it gets to the point where it becomes literal mental/emotional agony) you’re being put through because of the co-worker’s, peer’s, or even relative’s beyond fucked up expectations, which says more about them as a human being at the expense of your mental health, your well-being and sense of self as an ND/Autistic person.
You wouldn’t feel free to be your actual self in this hypothetical neurotypical-dominated environment, because you would be feeling isolated from the rest of NT society and people, because they are fucking up very badly when it comes to not being ableist pieces of shit. Those same people would continue to have their fun while having zero fucks in this world, while you are already feeling like a ghost doomed to invisibility from the perspective of a dead human being’s soul.
Per contra, not every Autistic and/or ND person who is alone experiences loneliness in debilitating ways that affect their sense of self and existence, but in ways that provide a safety/sanctuary net for them and genuine freedom (to some extent, because us humans will never be truly free, as long as we have a limited amount of freedom and something that ties us down, such as personal/social obligations) to explore oneself and to build up oneself. Loneliness may also be an advantage for some of us Autistics because we can also do a lot of good things too. For example, we can do our own personal maintenance and participate in strategies without getting criticised, humiliated, villainised, and shit on by NTs around us. By that, I mean that we can take care of ourselves without having to feel like complete shit about affirming ourselves without a random NT person telling us to do that as well.
Here’s another hypothetical scenario where loneliness can be advantageous.
Let’s say that you’re a person who goes to a social gathering someone invites you to. When you’ve arrived at the social gathering, let’s say that you’re trying to socialise with people that the person also invited, but you don’t click with any of them because you don’t relate to them in the neurotypical way that people relate to each other. This also comes with the fact that you’re also masking at the expense of your well-being and mental health because the people the person invited are NT like the first person is, and you’ve remembered times where you were reprimanded and unjustly punished just for being yourself, so you do your best to avoid further humiliation and punishment from NTs.
That leads you in feeling more left out, isolated and secluded, and caged. Those feelings can make you feel like you’re someone prepping/preparing for a potential apocalypse while everyone else seems more carefree without a single fuck about this shitshow of a world.
Loneliness as a Coping Mechanism &/or Survival Mechanism & what Loneliness can feel like
Humans are social beings in general, and NT society sees Autistic and ND folks picking their own company over the company of others as “weird”, “unnatural”, “strange”, and/or not “normal”. Plenty of caregivers and families will go above and beyond to try and create environments for some Autistic and ND folks to adjust to established social settings for them to socialise in. However, forcing both ND and Autistic individuals into those established and controlled settings only confirms the often fucked up truth that we have no say, nor any control when it comes to the actions of others, leading us to sticking our heads back inside a crustacean shell as a result.
Loneliness sometimes makes you feel like you’re an outside wanderer watching as many people in this world are moving through it and living in it with ease and with few obstacles in the way. It ain’t the case, but the exact opposite, because there are obstacles such as xenomisia, racism, transmisia, MOGAI-misia, ableism, and/or general bigotry that can also affect NT folks as well, not just ND/Autistic folks.
“For some Autistic people, the feeling of loneliness can be really strong, and it can feel incredibly isolating. I want you to know that you’re not alone if you’re feeling this way.” — Emily Katy, 2022
You always feel like you’re outside of the predominantly neurotypical world, looking into it, and trying (but also struggling) to understand how the NT world continues to glorify and normalise NT norms of socialisation considered by ableist NTs as “healthy”. Sometimes it feels like you’re already in the world of NTs, but you just cannot completely interact with it because you’re already a ghost in that world. This is due to the fact that the majority of available supports for Autistic and ND persons being only aimed to children and young folks under 17, never for all ages nor for adults… which is because of another ableist and ageist stereotype running amok: that Autism “can be outgrown” past the age of 17 (is debunked by real life itself, because Autism is a lifelong neurotype).
Albeit being content with our own company for the rest of the time we spend by ourselves, there will be times where we don’t want to be alone. It isn’t uncommon for Autistic and ND folks to feel completely secluded… Even if we are surrounded by other people. Masking who we are as people worthy of respect like anyone else can fuck with us… even with anyone. Masking also leads to anyone being stuck in shit relationships that never provide fulfillment of mental and emotional needs, with them being unmet on a social level. Learning to unmask already takes a lifetime of not only establishing or even finding self-identity, and plenty of self-building and learning about yourself as a social being to escape from detrimental relationships that can continuously fuck you over.
In real life, all ND and Autistic folks cope with loneliness and express feelings of being lonely, but we also have a need to build beneficial connections with people we trust and with those who support and accept us. Leaving aside what loneliness can individually look like, or the kinds of stable and nourishing relationships being sought after by us, we feel the effects of loneliness deeply and in multiple ways, sometimes a lot more than the rest of NT society. Society, the world and how they are both structured never kept us in mind, so we suffer from societal and social ableism, including many intersecting forms of discrimination (i.e., racism, xenomisia, MOGAI-misia and transmisia, misandry and misogyny, etc.) as a result.
There are factors that contribute to experiences of loneliness, such as differences in communication, the pressure to ‘fit in’ to society, and sensory overload in social environments.
Contributing factors
Differences in day-to-day communication: For them, trying to figure out which tone can be used (in real life and in online spaces), which facial expressions are expected to be able to communicate with, and making direct eye-to-eye contact can often be uncomfortable for ND and Autistic folks, since eye contact is already too painful for us to begin with. There are plenty of ways in showing that you’re listening without having to use eye contact.
The pressure to “fit in” to society: There are pressures to ‘blend’ into society by appearing as neurotypical, but that can be draining to the extent that it starts to take a toll on the mental health of ND and Autistic folks. It can also be detrimental because being ND and/or Autistic is a large part of who an ND and/or an Autistic person is in terms of their own sense of self.
Sensory overload: Sometimes, the environments a person is in can be overloading as hell, and can also be overwhelming to the point where an ND and Autistic person needs to step out of the overloading environment they’re in (if and when possible, because it isn’t always as possible or ideal when you’re in environments surrounded by people who are judgmental towards you). ND and Autistic folks can be prone to sensory overload in certain environments (i.e., the grocery store, a workplace, etc.), since they’re receiving an overload of sensations outside of their safe spaces. Sometimes, an overloading environment can feel like one’s own tolerance can make them feel tested by life’s contradictions combined with societal rhetoric.
There’s also additional pressure from peers and family (and from those who only love the idea of someone fitting into preconceived expectations of them, not the person for who they naturally are), and from medical professionals (who are only human, but sometimes there are medical professionals who are purely full of shit) to ‘modify’ one’s own self for the comfort of NT peers, family and medical professionals.
When medical professionals are dismissive as hell to ND and Autistic persons looking for diagnosis to help with self-understanding, then both ND and Autistic folks are made to feel smaller and like shit about themselves, which is due to the dismissiveness of medical professionals failing them.
Think of situations like this as if you’re playing the role of an ant seeing the large world of humans around them, or like a small pebble trying to surf the ocean’s waves, but becoming more toppled over every time the pebble fails to surf the ocean’s waves.
ND and Autistic persons with “invisible” symptoms are sometimes told that they’re “exaggerating” their pain, including the exhaustion they’re dealing with from masking to hide themselves (typically out of survival and safety reasons) in a society that often fails to accommodate them in return. This depletes their battery or fuel while they also continue dealing with being told that they’re “lazy”, that they aren’t “applying” themselves enough, and that they’re “faking” their pain. Those statements (often ignorant on the part of NT medical professionals and sometimes from family and people who claim to be ‘friends’) already makes an ND and/or Autistic person feel like shit about themselves and their own sense of self-esteem. Sometimes, those invalidating statements can make them get to a point in their lives where they’re sick and tired of everyone’s shit.
On another side of a book cover or a coin, folks with “obvious” symptoms are typically infantilised and perceived as ‘unintelligent’, especially if they’re semi-verbal, non-verbal, hard of hearing (HOH) or d/Deaf.
Social misconceptions of what it means to be Neurodivergent and/or Autistic can also contribute to the loneliness ND and Autistic persons feel due to them and to stereotypes of what it means to live life as a Neurodivergent person and/or as an Autistic person.
Fighting against those misconceptions and stereotypes can drain a person’s battery, leaving them to feel tired and weary since it is common for both ND and Autistic persons to have their own selves questioned, invalidated, and/or scrutinised. It’s also common for us to feel burnt out from this as well.
Connections and Loneliness
To add more onto what loneliness can feel like, building connections aren’t only a one-way street, but can be a two-way or multiple-way street varying from individual to individual. Creating connections shouldn’t also be put on only an ND/Autistic person or an NT person, but it also shouldn’t be put on both persons either. Building safe and mutual connections have to be done from all sides, not only a specific side. It’s crucial to create connections with people who truly get you and see you for you, because not everyone will be on the same level as you when it comes to being understanding, kind, caring, and/or supportive (rephrased from what an in-real-life friend told me).
There are always going to be people out in the world who can and will wish plenty of pain and harm towards you, and there will be people out in the world whose actions towards you detriments your well-being and your mental health. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t mean that all hope is lost for creating and establishing protective, nourishing, and caring relationships of all kinds (yes, even queerplatonic relationships and polyamorous relationships because they also count as relationships too). It means that it is better to be selective with the amount of interaction between yourself and people who say that they understand you for you, but expect you to be someone else that you’re not. This also doesn’t mean that friendships and relationships are “disposable” in a black-and-white way as well, because they aren’t and they will be needed to get through life in this neurotypical society and life is already indifferent enough as it is (Robins, 2022).
Loneliness and Isolation
For ND and Autistic people, isolation is a double-edged sword (Ward-Sinclair, 2020), because there are plenty of Autistic and ND folks who will already decide on spending time within the company of themselves over large social groups, because social groups can and will sometimes be isolating. This isn’t to say that preferring a person’s own company over the company of people is one direct trait of being ND/Autistic, since it’s more of a response to sensory disruption and unpredictable movements that can be experienced in social gatherings.
Also, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any safe communities for ND and Autistic persons to lean onto as well. For us, connecting with ND and Autistic communities as a whole is beneficial and nourishing since we can relate to them and understand them better than most NT will ever understand us.
Yes, there are still going to be NT people expecting ND and Autistic folks to act “normal” to coddle their narrow-minded, conservative asses of what being ND and/or Autistic feels like.
Conclusion
I’ll end this off with some words that are most likely going to be needed:
You’re not a burden, but a human being. Your life can be nourishing, meaningful, and full of contentment on this basis (Brown, 2015). You also have the same human right to life and to equity, access and opportunity as any other individual as well… and anyone who says otherwise is full of shit and an ableist jackass. There will be struggles you may have to face that NT people will never understand while you share some of them with NT folks. But… this will NOT bring you down since you’re already doing the best you can to come out stronger and more resilient due to your struggles. You can also do the best you can to ensure that no one is alone in facing struggles because those who are facing their struggles may be in your current position or in past positions you used to be in.
You’re incredible beyond vision (Brown, 2015), kind-hearted, strong, talented and intelligent enough. You are surging with a capability to live life to the fullest you have and to share experiences with people you encounter in real life. Your neurology is ALWAYS enough, and it’s completely fine if it diverges from the so-called ‘socially accepted’ neurotypical neurology because you are, and will always be, good enough as you are. You have the strength for deep compassion and you may be moved to action and to protest, riot, and fight hard against corrupt injustices. It’s okay if you learn differently than others and need support, accommodations or services to have equal access. It’s also more than okay to think and communicate differently, and/or experiences sensations in a different way.
It’s also completely fine if you find comfort with people who will impact you or others around you in supportive and beneficial ways in your lifetime, or if you have comfort with only a couple of people, and it’s fine if you feel fine with solitude or with any potential to participate in exploitations of unlimited creativity as well.
Your efforts in life is changing the world for the better with regards to the talent(s) or traits you have, even if this means an encounter with someone that makes your life a little better or that your worries become less overwhelming, more manageable to deal with, and less overloading. You don’t owe society shit. At all.
Society’s burden and responsibility is to compensate for the history-long chain of abuses, disenfranchisement, marginalisation (Brown, 2015), discrimination, dehumanisation, and bigoted bullshit perpetrated against you and every marginalised community who’ve been denied power, equity and social justice, and the inalienable right to self-autonomy/determination.
Brown, L. (2015, August 24). To The Autistic Person Who Feels Like a Burden for Existing. The Mighty. Retrieved July 17, 2022, from https://themighty.com/2015/08/to-the-autistic-person-who-feels-like-a-burden-for-existing/
Deaton, E. (n.d.). Autism Loneliness: Why Those On the Spectrum Often Feel Alone. The Roots of Loneliness Project: Unearthing Why We Feel Alone. Retrieved July 17, 2022, from https://www.rootsofloneliness.com/autism-loneliness
Loneliness. National Autistic Society — Leading UK charity for Autistic people. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2022, from https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/loneliness#:~:text=Research%20suggests%20that%20autistic%20people,society%2C%20making%20them%20feel%20excluded.
Robins, M. (2022, June 14). Normalizing neurodiversity: How self-advocates are speaking out and breaking the stigma. WKYC Studios. Retrieved July 23, 2022, from https://www.wkyc.com/article/features/normalizing-neurodiversity-self-advocates-breaking-the-stigma/95-fdda7354-fd3d-4468-a190-3dd535023346
Ward-Sinclair, J. (2021, February 15). Autism & loneliness: How to overcome autistic isolation. Autistic & Unapologetic. Retrieved July 23, 2022, from https://autisticandunapologetic.com/2020/10/11/autism-loneliness-how-to-overcome-autistic-isolation/
