Text, talk, or hang out?

How being neurodivergent impacts my communication preferences

Last week I was stuck inside with the flu feeling sorry for myself. I cancelled my social plans for the week and settled into a routine of baths, naps, and trash TV. The social isolation emotionally took me back to the depths of my autistic burnout - that feeling of being completely unable to get out of bed, interact with people, and just live life.

One difference between flu and autistic burnout, though, is that I did not lose my ability to communicate with people; I was physically isolated, but still in need of socialising. I thought to myself, ‘who can I text’?

Most of my friends work full-time, have kids, or live in different time zones - so an instant back-and-forth text conversation isn’t the done thing anymore. I thought about picking up the phone, but clammed up. It got me thinking about my communication preferences, and how they are changing as we enter different chapters in our lives.

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I grew up at a time when instant messenger and group text replaced phone calls. My formative years were spent on MSN logging in and out until my crush noticed that I’d changed the lyrics in my bio to "I'm glad I didn't die before I met you" (from "First Day Of My Life" by Bright Eyes, if you didn’t get the reference). I loved that I could re-write my responses as many times as I wanted before hitting send, I experienced less anxiety than in real-life, my brain fed off the dopamine hits of receiving messages (remember the blue flashing light on the Blackberry?!), and staying in constant contact with friends appealed to my lonely soul.

Of course, it was not just texting back then - social media was becoming a thing. You know Facebook sometimes shows you those flashbacks? Thankfully I’ve learned how to turn those off now, but for the longest time I would get random notifications reminding me that I wrote on ‘x’s’ wall back in 2007. Even worse, circa 2008 it seems I realised I didn’t even need an ‘x’ to write to - I could just broadcast my every inane thought! I guess nothing much has changed in that respect.

Anyway, at the age of 32, my friends are starting families, moving abroad to different timezones, getting into positions of serious responsibility at work, and instant messaging and texting about this-and-that is quickly slipping down the agenda. I don’t think it will ever disappear - it will remain practically useful to be able to send a link or arrange a meet up - but I get the impression that most of my contemporaries don’t have the time or inclination to spend on frivolously texting anymore.

I’ve been feeling a bit blue about it - not because I feel personally aggrieved, or because I particularly miss texting itself, but because change is hard. It’s easy to misconstrue not having the same access to my friends that I used to have for the downturn of our relationship. My brain has been playing tricks on me telling me that my friends have finally worked out that they don’t like me, that I’ve done something wrong, and that I need to try harder to fix this perceived issue. I have spent countless hours, both consciously and subconsciously, stewing over this in recent months.

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So I built up the courage to ask my friend about our communication styles: I, the texter; she, the caller (of course I saved it until the end of our time together walking in the park like the-queen-of-procrastinating-uncomfortable-conversations that I am). As with most, if not all, conversations I broach with my friends, it reminded me not to fear curiosity. She received me with open arms and we had a great conversation about how much less tap dancing we need to do with each other. Taking both of our needs into consideration, we agreed: 

• Texting is best to reserve for making quick plans and calls are best for chats. 

• If one of us calls the other and they don’t pick up it means they can’t chat right now but they will call back when they can. 

• Missing a call does not translate to ill feelings and no text messages are required in the interim to ‘just flag the call was to have a quick catch up but not to worry about responding’. 

• We will try to see each other consistently in person as a general preference to communicating via text or phone.

It’s funny; this conversation felt like a relief for both of us, but what we were agreeing on was rudimentary! We were rehashing the basics of making a phone call - an art we (or, at least, I) seem to have lost in a world of text messages, WhatsApp and DMs, and agreeing that seeing each other was preferable to communicating via phone.  

Since that walk I have been practicing. I called her the other day; she didn’t pick up, but with this clear understanding hashed out between us the world didn’t feel like it was ending. She ended up calling me back a few days later for a lovely walk-and-talk whilst I was out in the park with my dog. And, when it came to feeling miserably ill last week, I spread my wings. Instead of texting my brother, who is a self professed text-hater, I drop called him. To my surprise, he picked up. Not only that, but it turned out he had the day off work and we ended up chatting for an hour whilst I finished a collage I’d been working on.

Those real-time connections that buoyed me so much would not have happened had I decided to text instead. I would have been eagerly awaiting their text responses, probably unsatisfied with how little they shared with me, disappointed they weren’t available to engage in a game of text-tennis, and taking out my anxieties about our relationship on myself. 

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Recently, another friend shared her experiences of being a new mother and how that impacted her phone use. She told me not to take it personally if she was less chatty on WhatsApp these days, as if she’d been reading my mind. She explained it is simply because looking at her phone and formulating text messages doesn’t feel good to her anymore and she’d much rather just catch up with her friends in person instead of dividing her attention constantly between her phone and her kids.

It dawned on me that, actually, my discomfort is not that my friendship circle seems to be moving away from text messaging - but that it is a shift that has, up until now, gone un-acknowledged. The uncertainty of that change, and the lack of clarity about what it means, were unknowns my brain was grappling with. The solution, I realised? To address it, talk about it, and get curious with my friends.

It turns out many of my friends feel similarly and now that we know we’re on the same page this shift feels a lot less anxiety-inducing. This reminds me of the power of direct communication - something I yearn for more of, but which I’ve learned to mask by trying to read people’s minds (after years of feeling overly-direct as an undiagnosed autistic kid).

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Texting still has its place in my life. On the days where I am particularly struggling with autistic burnout or overwhelm it is quite literally a portal of connection. There are also particular friendships I have - especially ones where country borders separate us or neurodivergence bonds us - where texting, voice notes, or video calls are and always will be a big part of our relationship.

I think it feels particularly scary for me to shift away from text-based communication because my texting habits now have much more to do with my needs as a neurodivergent person than anything else. Text-based communication allows me to:

• Respond in my own time

• Edit what I want to say before sending

• Avoid sensory-overwhelm

• Avoid other information that needs to be processed at the same time (e.g. facial expressions and body language)

• Reduce the need for masking

• Reduce anxiety

Although I do prefer face-to-face interactions or video calls with my friends, after the conversations I’ve had over the last couple of weeks I know that when I go through periods of burnout or overwhelm or low energy I can be open with them about how I need our communication to change. I hope I will feel comfortable asking for them to be flexible with communicating in writing instead of seeing each other or talking on the phone, in the knowledge that once I am recovered I will be able to be more flexible again.

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In thinking about my preferred modes of communication and how they change over time I identified one segment of the population who I can categorically say I would prefer to communicate with in writing (via text or email). That is: strangers or anyone I don’t know very well. Broadly speaking, this covers people who I come into contact with when accessing services and customer support. For example, at the doctors, at the hospital, at the supermarket, or at the pet shop.

I feel a lot less able to be flexible when it comes to communicating with people I don’t know in real-time because it requires my brain to read, categorise, and comprehend a new person’s body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and general mannerisms, as well as work out whether I’m making enough eye contact and holding my body in the appropriate way. The experience is considerably more stressful and exhausting than written communication.

To dig down a little deeper, if written-based communication is not an option with strangers (as it so frequently isn’t when accessing services like the GP for example) I prefer a face-to-face conversation because on the phone there are no non-verbal cues at all. The lack of visual data is even more anxiety-inducing when communicating with someone whose tones and inflections I am not familiar with.

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I did a bit of research into this to see if my preferences aligned with other autistic folk. It turns out they are. This study which claims to be “the first to ask autistic adults how they prefer to communicate in different scenarios” suggests that:

• “Communication mode preferences differ dependent upon whether the scenario involves people who are typically known (e.g. family, friends, educators and employers) or unknown (e.g. accessing services, research purposes and customer support).” Like I had identified within myself, “When unknown, both the quantitative and qualitative responses indicated an extreme dislike for using the phone, and a strong preference for the written form. When known, both face-to-face and written forms were ranked as preferable."

• “One of the key qualitative findings which explained the statistical preferences for written communication formats was that of Anxiety. Participants reported that modes such as email, messaging and live chat were all ‘far less anxiety inducing’ than phone calls or face-to-face meetings in general, especially in more formal circumstances.”

• “It seems that the reduced reliance on non-verbal cues for written communication reduces anxiety, but the removal of these cues in spoken communication (e.g. on the phone) increases anxiety. This may be because everyday spoken communication often integrates non-verbal cues, and some of these remain present (e.g. tone of voice) while some are removed (e.g. body language). This means that autistic people may feel they are working with ‘partial information’, which is harder to interpret, whereas in written communication, there is no expectation that they will be able to interpret beyond what is explicitly written down.”

• “Many participants talked about how written communication was preferred as it required less camouflaging and masking, such as not needing to ‘do eye contact’ or ‘make my face and hands do the right thing’.”

I would love to hear about what your communication preferences are, how they differ based upon who you are communicating with, and whether you think that has anything to do with whether you are neurotypical or neurodivergent?

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WEEKLY NOTES:

I appreciate all of your feedback on my essay last week about paywalls and why I’ve decided to make REWILD open-access. Honestly, I was preparing myself for a significant number of patrons to leave - but they haven’t, and a few generous souls have even decided to start financially supporting REWILD because of that essay. A reader described this model as “like an exchange of generosity rather than a transaction” which, aside from being astutely observed, feels good to me right now.

I’ve created a free WhatsApp community for us all. It’s already bustling with 150+ members. Join here if you fancy somewhere to chat casually with like-minded people about neurodiverse life, burnout and rest, the creative journey, and the attention economy/social media amongst other things.

Mslexia, a magazine about the business and psychology of writing, shared via our WhatsApp community.

This interview by SBSK about how autistic children exist in low-income neighbourhoods, and why they aren't "bad kids".

This video essay by Rowan Ellis on ‘catch-up friendships’ and why they’re so common yet make us feel lonely.

This interview with this 99-year-old painter in his New York studio (I hope I’m still making art everyday at 99!).

This Queer Collective podcast episode about Polyamory.

This essay about how information addiction is rotting our brains by

Gurwinder

:

“We now live in an attention economy, where people are trying to draw our interest by any means possible. Since low-quality information is just as effective at satisfying our information-cravings as high-quality information, the most efficient way to get attention in the digital age is by mass-producing low-quality “junk info”— a kind of fast food for thought. Like fast food, junk info is cheap to produce and satisfying to consume, but high in additives and low in nutrition. It's also potentially addictive and, if consumed excessively, highly dangerous.”

This video from 1998 in which Eric Carle (the guy who wrote and illustrated The Very Hungry Caterpillar) is interviewed about his collage process. The serenity that emanates from this man when he’s talking about art is so inspiring.

I’ve had a blast creating instead of spending time on screens recently. My favourite creation is this little potted garden on our patio. Here’s hoping I remember to water it! I’ve

LOGGED

my other ordinary everyday creative joys from the week here if you fancy reading more.

Thank you for reading! xoxo

Read the archive:

Healing - Neurodiversity - Burnout - Rest - Attention Economy - Creativity