#8 Belonging vs. fitting in

and other holiday thoughts

Hi, hi!

How are you all faring? I created a podcast this week with some ideas for navigating the holidays. I touch on ways to manage things like busyness and overwhelm, holiday expectations, loneliness, and the biggie FAMILY DYNAMICS.

I really enjoyed creating it and you can listen here if you haven’t already:

But I wanted to also throw out an invitation to take the family dynamics conversation a step further.

I’ll back up for a moment. The other day I read an Instagram post written by a parent of a neurodiverse little girl. The parent shared how gutting it is to spend holidays with their extended family because they don’t understand their daughter’s loud, rambunctious behavior and her meltdowns. Worse, the little girl loves seeing her cousins, but her excited hugs are met with strange looks from the other kids.

It made me thinking about the difference between belonging and fitting in. The truth is, as humans we all need to feel like we belong. And in order to do so, many of us will try super duper hard to fit in.

If you naturally fit into the culture and vibes around you, it feels effortless. But if you don’t, you might try to change the way you talk, dress, laugh, fill-in-the-blank to make it happen.

As Brene Brown so sagely points out, this effortful fitting in is the opposite of belonging, because you are not being accepted for your authentic self.

Worse, folks who are neurodivergent often have social impairments and can’t pick up on the fact that there are vibes. So, they can’t even do the mental gymnastics required to fit in and are just flat out excluded.

Here are just a few ways that a neurodiverse person might struggle during the holidays and the subsequent behaviors that you might see:

• Changes in routine are unsettling, period. Neurodiverse people might feel depleted more quickly than natural extroverts. If they show up for an hour — celebrate their presence! And don’t be hurt if they need to duck out early.

• Interoception challenges can make it difficult for them to sense when they are hungry or tired. In young children, this can quickly escalate to a meltdown if food is served at different times than usual.

• Neurodiverse people might not pick up on social cues — for kids, this can mean interrupting a lot or talking about one topic that they’re currently interested in. Try to be patient! And encourage them to join a conversation in ways they feel comfortable.

• For neurodiverse folks with sensory issues, lights, sounds, and smells might be far more intense — think an assault — that makes them physiologically stressed. If they can’t eat in the kitchen because of the smells, they’re not being rude. If they need a break from the group dynamics, they are not being rude. Make sure they feel welcome to take breaks in a sensory-friendly (usually quiet) space when they need to.

• If someone does not make eye contact but instead fidgets while you are talking to them, it doesn’t mean they are not listening. It is often soothing to keep your hands busy as you are processing verbal input and fidgeting can help!

• For people with social anxiety, joining games can be extremely difficult. Allow them to watch and join (or not) when they are ready. If being in the same room with you is the way they participate, that’s OK! The important thing for them is to know they belong.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and I invite you to add more to the comments.

My ask is this: Can you make your celebrations, your circle, your attitude more neurodiverse-affirming? At the most basic level, it’s simply about understanding how stimuli affects them differently and helping people neurodiverse people feel welcome, just as they are.

And if you think you don’t know any neurodiverse people, I bet you do! This is one my very favorite memes that might make you reconsider:

For parents of the kids who don’t naturally fit in, I want to encourage you to not feel shame. Instead, consider being proactive with the adults in your family and giving them a call to talk about your kid’s behaviors ahead of time — i.e, ‘she might not be able to thank you for the presents because she might be overwhelmed by all the stimulus. Rest assured, she’s grateful for the love.’

Also, let them know what would make your child feel good and ask that they share this with their kids. I truly think that kids are mostly compassionate, they just might not know what to do when someone is different. So, tell them — ‘She gets really excited when she sees you. All you have to do is let her know she’s welcome to hang out with you. Invite her to sit next to you. Listen to her latest hyperfixation. She belongs in our family, whether she is exactly the same as you or not.’

Special thanks to Martin of @a_different_spectrum on Instagram for saying this so well here:

a_different_spectrum

A post shared by @a_different_spectrum

I hope this was helpful! Let me know what I’ve missed in the comments.

My love to all of you and yours. Stay safe, stay open and generous with your heart.

Andrea