What I’ve learnt in my second year of a neurodivergent relationship

“We still don’t get it right every time. But we understand the importance of trying.”

When most people hear ‘autism’, a particular image springs to mind. Usually, it’s someone fiercely intelligent, unempathetic and uninterested in relationships – social or otherwise. It may even be a particular character that you focus on, like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Someone with an abrupt way of speaking and an inability to understand others.

While some popular autistic-coded characters are not entirely inaccurate, they fail to represent how most autistic people present and how they navigate relationships. Many autistic people are continuously seeking to understand and learn how to foster connections with those around them.

Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.

At least, this is true of my autistic and ADHD partner Zac, who has used this drive towards the struggles we’ve faced in our neurodivergent relationship. Together, we’ve found ways of navigating and improving our relationship for both of us. After recently celebrating our two-year anniversary, we reflected on some of the lessons learned along the way.

Overcoming communication barriers

One of the reasons the ‘unempathetic’ stereotype persists may be due to alexithymia – a trait in at least one in five autistic people. Alexithymia means you can’t really convert your thoughts and emotions into conversational speech. “For me, it basically feels like I don’t understand the emotion and… it’s impossible to verbalise,” Zac says. “I know I’m feeling something, but not what it is.”

Zac’s alexithymia can make it difficult to understand what he’s experiencing, but we’ve previously worked out he can return to the thought or feeling in a few days and figure it out. But since moving from NSW to our own places in Melbourne this year, we’ve had to communicate frequent thoughts and feelings around move-in dates, exhaustion levels and stress.

For such pressing situations, we’ve found it’s helpful if I take away pressure by reducing my outward expression of stress, or handling the situation alone while Zac goes into a separate room to process for a few minutes. “It lets me… relax my mind in a way I can’t when I’m around anyone – no stress, no sensory input,” he says. He can then usually send me a text explaining what he’s feeling.

Zac’s also learnt to verbalise how he’s feeling as often as he can when he’s feeling slightly off. This helps so I can flag it and notice when he can’t explain anymore. It makes it easier to manage a situation based on how I think he’s feeling, or at least until he can review it later with less pressure.

Navigating sensory challenges

Since moving into a busier city, Zac has often found his autistic hypersensitivity overwhelmed by large amounts of stimuli. Hypersensitivity basically intensifies your body’s response to sensory inputs, such as sounds, smells and textures. But it can also come from overwhelming information or emotion.

Sometimes, it can even cause physical pain. “I get full body shivers, convulsions up my spine and I wanna crawl out of my skin,” Zac explains. Yeah, not ideal. Before we leave the house, we try to think ahead about possible stimuli.

So if we’re heading into the CBD, we’ll find quieter areas when we notice a possible cause of distress. Sometimes it’s unavoidable and can end up making him unable to devote mental energy to talk. I can usually tell he’s overstimulated if he starts stimming (actions like rapidly tapping his hands).

So to keep me informed, we learnt a few basic Auslan phrases (‘How are you?’ for example) to communicate. It helps us check in with each other across the room in social situations, which is really important if it’s a particularly anxious day.

This year, given the frequency with which we’ve used it, it’s gotten us into the habit of always checking in with each other. It’s the kind of support most couples need to figure out at some point anyway – ours just happened to be prompted by more immediate necessity.

Balancing support and emotional labour

Of course, all this means I can end up feeling drained after a particularly bad experience, like a shutdown. I also have OCD tendencies, which compel me to perform actions like checking all the locks five times or obsessing over small occurrences. This makes discussions about balancing support unavoidable – but in a good way.

Having a partner who can’t quite pick up on social cues (autism can make it difficult to identify subtle indicators of emotion) means I have to be direct and talk to him regularly about my needs. It’s helped me overcome that deep fear of being labelled ‘needy’ and offending.

“I’ve noticed that you’re more direct with your communication… we’ve had many discussions about what makes us feel loved [and] supported and what has gone wrong,” Zac agrees, “And we’ve made adjustments. And I think we’ve gotten better at that each time. Like I’ve tried whenever I can to help by making decisions and plans to balance it out.”

I’ve grown more confident and clear when communicating with others as a result – I take more of a ‘no frills’ approach when talking. It’s also made me consider my needs in-depth. These talks have really helped us maintain a healthy balance in our relationship and grow and foster that balance in other areas of our lives.

Final thoughts

After everything we’ve learned, we’re still seeking to learn more as people and as a couple. “We don’t always get the little stuff,” Zac says, “and the big stuff we’ve discussed a lot and we understand what we need to do. And we still don’t get it right every time either. But we understand the importance of trying.”

I think the point of relationships, whether platonic or romantic, is really to have support alongside a different worldview and perspective which encourages you to learn and grow. Zac’s autism and ADHD means he experiences and interprets the world in a fundamentally different way.

I’ve learned a lot about the little ways I can show support. And I’ve learnt to embrace both the benefits and the challenges this relationship has sent my way – because more often than not, they become a source of pride.

For more information about autistic relationships, head here.