Not a fan of bumping into people and feeling obligated to make small talk, and all of that stuff. It’s a totally different experience depending on: if I know the person well, just barely, or to a complete stranger. They each create different: pressures, demands and expectations, and I can honestly say I struggle more with bumping into people I know, compared to a stranger. I’m generally so caught up with the myriad of thoughts, worries, problems, things-to-do, my own lack of self esteem and self worth, that trying to then have to switch on ‘masking mode’ can now often be near impossible.

For me it’s a constant battle to keep as vocally silent as possible. There are occasions of course where I will open up, usually with a close friend, but even then it’s excruciatingly hard for me to say all the things stuck in my head, because in part I simply don’t know how to articulate what it is that is going on in my head, and with my body; this ‘lost for words’ has been hugely exaggerated by the AuDHD diagnosis.