Skip to main content
Close Button
Donate
  • Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 98 subscribers
  • Views 1164 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

How to deal with irritating neurotypicals

Rosie
over 1 year ago

Hi! I’m Rosie :) I have been diagnosed with level 1 autism and combined adhd (for some background!) 

I know that often people find people with neurodiversities annoying- I have been called irritating more times than I can count although I really try not to be! 

even before my diagnosis I used to say “I know people find me irritating but I wish they could know just how irritating they are to me!” 

all of my friends are neurotypical (not on purpose, that’s just how things turned out!) Recently I’ve been practicing being more social and I have been out almost every day! I think now my social battery is running out. There are a couple of individuals who, every little thing they do seems to irritate me. They are absolutely lovely people and I really do value them as friends but the past couple of days, I have found that spending time with either of them is draining. 

I don’t know what to do! I live with one of them and I’m currently hiding up in my room because she’s downstairs and I’ve become hypersensitive to the sounds she makes: eating/humming/heavy breathing/ coughing… I know, it sounds ridiculous!  I was supposed to co to the cinema with her but I explained that my brain was getting tired (which wasnt a lie). I don’t want to tell her that she’s irritating me because I know how much that hurts when people tell me. I don’t think I have the social skills to tell her gently- I don’t think there is a polite way of saying someone irritates you. 

but between the girl I live with and my other friend calling me up and messaging me 24/7 my irritation is becoming extremely disruptive, I’m struggling to hide it and I’m getting nothing done! It’s MY problem because I’m the one getting irritated, they haven’t changed at all. Any tips on dealing with neurodivergent irritation?

Parents
  • over 1 year ago

    My advice is set some healthy boundaries and make sure they know it's not personal just an autism thing. You need to set 2 do not disturb windows of time on your phone, one for an hour before you regularly go to bed  that ends 30 mins after you usually wake up (alarms will be exempt as standard, if not you can go into settings for that so don't worry) and the second window should be the time you usualy need alone time or to not be distracted so you can get stuff done ie, 2 hours in the afternoon. let the friend now you need to do this because it's beneficial to have total silence for a period of time and to not expect a response in those time frames.
    The other one, and I do this because I live with weirdly noisy people too is I invested in a comfortable pair of industrial ear defenders to reduce the background noise and take the edge off of the loudest sounds.

Reply
  • over 1 year ago

    My advice is set some healthy boundaries and make sure they know it's not personal just an autism thing. You need to set 2 do not disturb windows of time on your phone, one for an hour before you regularly go to bed  that ends 30 mins after you usually wake up (alarms will be exempt as standard, if not you can go into settings for that so don't worry) and the second window should be the time you usualy need alone time or to not be distracted so you can get stuff done ie, 2 hours in the afternoon. let the friend now you need to do this because it's beneficial to have total silence for a period of time and to not expect a response in those time frames.
    The other one, and I do this because I live with weirdly noisy people too is I invested in a comfortable pair of industrial ear defenders to reduce the background noise and take the edge off of the loudest sounds.

Children
No Data