r/autism•
MayDayMilgram92

Got tasked with observing the way I communicate

Communication

TL,DR: I spoke about my struggles with communication with people from my scout group.

Recently my scout group organized a gathering for all the leaders (and some people who might be interested in becoming one) besides talking about what it's like to be one, what to expect, organize the year, see what role each person was interested in and etc, since there were new people we also had some games and activities to know each other or for educative purposes about how to handle certain situations.

At the start of the weekend, we got a task which mostly related to how we interact with others, some got things like "observe how you handle people disagreeing with you" or "try to notice when you change opinion/side and why" while I got "observe how you communicate with others" which is interesting for me since I already self monitor, a lot.

When the night came, after we ate dinner and played a quick game of impostor we all shared our task and what we got out of it, when it was my turn I exposed my issues regarding how exhausting communication can be because of everything I need to keep into consideration and all the self monitoring I have to do, how I sometimes end up shutting down in my room or with migraines after social stuff, some things I do when overwhelmed or ways I rest afterwards (also threw in how I hate my voice due to gender dysphoria), I did cry a bit because I don't like exposing myself like that but the point was to open up and it was a safe space (a friend offered me a hug which I declined because I didn't want physical contact too).

One thing I put as an example is that in another activity where we had to draw each other but rotating person every minute to make a group draw for each one, adding a word of what vibe we got from them people wrote things like charismatic, observant or funny, one person even said they were expecting me to be pretty shy based on how I looked and my mannerisms (idk what they meant exactly by the second one tbh but there's that I guess).

One of the new people talked a bit about how we don't usually think about how hard and exhausting it can be for some people (specially neurodivergent people) to communicate even when they're good at it.

I don't really talk about this often, especially in front of people but I think it went well and maybe it helped others know that if I'm distant or avoid certain things or things like that it's because sometimes the baseline is too much for me.

Sorry if the post is too long or if the formatting is wrong or any other mistake, if there's anything I should edit let me know.

Posted Apr 1, 2026, 8:41 PM UTC

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