I folded myself into an origami crane.

On loneliness, neurodivergence and friendship.

Photo by Yuu Khoang on Unsplash

I need to start this by saying, I have a couple of really wonderful friends that love me loudly and never make me feel like a burden or a last option. They shower me with messages of appreciation and send me ‘this made me think of you’ texts often. They happily hold space for me and all of my messiness, no questions asked, no matter the time of day. I treasure these friends dearly. I’m still terrified of losing them.

Sometimes I think I was born to be lonely. Not in the sense of being alone, because I have some brilliant people around me, but in the sense of feeling disconnected from others. Always feeling just on the edge of a group like there’s an inside joke I’ll never be part of. Never the inner circle, never an integral member. Somehow, I’m forever that new girl at school that people are forced to interact with because the teacher’s told them to, even though I’m almost thirty.

I feel I could easily be removed from any social situation and no one would even realise I’m gone. When I’m not invited to something I feel left out. I feel forgotten. I feel like everyone hates me. And I’m not sure if that’s true or if it’s a figment of my debilitating RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) as a result of being neurodivergent. This constant cycle of gaslighting myself and then being proven correct is exhausting and leaves me feeling empty where my internal organs should be.

The feeling I get when I am left out (accidentally or not) is visceral. My ears ring and my vision becomes narrowed as if the world outside of my peripheral doesn’t exist. My throat becomes tight as if I am allergic to rejection. My jaw clamps shut holding my words prisoner as I shutdown to protect myself. The intensity of this reaction is felt physically in my body, like when you drive over a a big bump in the road and your stomach jumps into your chest. Except the feeling doesn’t leave as quickly as a bump in the road. It lingers until it has infected every fibre of your body and every cell in your brain. It poisons every thought making you believe you are a bad person and no one likes you and then the tumbling confusion comes:

What did I do wrong? What do I keep doing wrong? Is it something I said? Something I didn’t say? Is it because I’m autistic? Did my mask drop? Was I rude and didn’t realise? Am I boring? Are they sick of me cancelling because of my health? Am I too much? Or not enough?

The dynamics of friendship have always eluded me, leaving me feeling confused, discarded and disappointed. I don’t really understand what friendship is meant to be or what it’s meant to look like. And I can’t help but wonder if this is because my experience doesn’t match up to the one I was promised from sitcoms and movies, where groups of girls giggle in their rooms at sleepovers, telling each other their deepest secrets whilst plaiting one another’s hair. I’ve never had that. I don’t think I ever will.

I don’t understand the difference between a best friend, a close friend and someone you DM online. Can you have more than one best friend? What constitutes a best friend? What are the parameters? What happens when you see someone as your best friend but they only see you as an acquaintance? What happens when you don’t care about who has as crush on who and you don’t want people in your bedroom and you actually want to go to sleep rather than talking about rubbish all night?

I hated sleepovers as a kid. Even as an adult I don’t like it when I have to stay away from home. Away from my familiar comforts and routines. My sister was always having friends over and I feel sad when I hear about all the adventures my peers experienced when we were young. Drinking in parks and cycling with friends. Sleepovers and makeovers and sneaking over to one another’s house. I missed out on this part of girlhood because of what I now realise was my undiagnosed autism. It’s hard to reconcile the image of friendship I think I’m supposed to have - and on some level deeply crave - and the one that is actually available to me.

Some girls dream of their wedding day from when they are very young. Fantasising about what their dress will look like and who will be there and what food and flowers they’ll have. I never dreamt of weddings. I dreamt of friendship. I fantasised about being an integral part of a group of girls that go to the mall together and drape their arms around one another effortlessly at giggly sleepovers. As I got older, I imagined group chats where I mattered, ‘girls holidays’ to Ibiza and borrowing each others clothes. Being a core part of a friendship group. But this has never materialised for me.

Because of this, I’ve always gripped onto friendships way past their expiration date in fear that I’ll have no friends, and end up lonely and alone. But I’ve found over the years that it is almost impossible to maintain something that isn’t genuine or reciprocated. I’m learning that those sort of fairytale friendships that I craved as a child don’t exist, or at least not as you might imagine. There are so many expectations with friendships that I find hard to keep up with. So many unspoken rules that I’m expected to know without being explicitly told. I tried so hard for years to be this ultra-likeable version of myself so people would accept me. I would twist and bend, contorting myself into an array of masks that was slowly killing me, all so people would want to be friends with a fake version of myself.

So now, I’m slowly peeling off those masks that I’ve worn for decades - the bubbly one, the fun one, the confident one, and the people-pleasing one that makes everyone love me. That’s not to say those qualities don’t exist within me, but I will no longer keep up a facade at the expense of burning myself out. That version of me is gone.

That Georgia would mask her pain and pretend she could keep up with the conversation. That Georgia laughed at jokes she didn’t understand and hid her discomfort when it was too noisy or the lights were too bright. She folded herself in half so many times like an origami crane that she became something small and palatable. Something that people liked, something they wanted to keep around. But over time the paper wouldn’t fold any smaller. Her discomfort wouldn’t fit neatly within the confines of that tiny paper crane anymore and so she started to unravel. It wasn’t a conscious choice. It was necessary. If she kept folding smaller and smaller, she would cease to exist.

So I’m learning to gently unfold that tiny paper crane in the hope that I’ll find the remnants of my true self between the creases. Hopefully people will stick around for that version of me.

I’m not writing this for pity - I have enough people feeling sorry for me because I’m disabled - and I’m not looking for advice. I don’t know really why I’m writing this actually. Perhaps for solidarity or a last ditch attempt at connection with those that are like me. Perhaps it’s just a cathartic exercise to release any resentment I’m holding onto. Whatever the reason, I can’t go back to folding myself into a tiny origami crane just so people can like a pretend version of me.

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