My sister asked me recently why I don’t ask her more questions about her.
Not as an accusation. She wanted to know why I gave her the impression I wasn’t interested in getting to know her better. Why, when we talked, I seemed to hold back from asking about her life.
I sat with that for a while. Because from where I was sitting, the story looked completely different.
I had asked questions. I’d tried to get to know her. But the answers came back short. One word, sometimes. And when I ask something and get very little back, I start to think: she doesn’t want to talk about that. So I leave it alone.
I wasn’t being disinterested. I was being careful. I thought I was respecting her boundaries, and she thought I didn’t care.
We were both making assumptions
What I understand now is that she felt less comfortable sharing because I seemed uninterested. So she gave short answers. Which confirmed to me that she didn’t want to talk. So I stopped asking. Which confirmed to her that I wasn’t interested.
We were both protecting ourselves from a rejection that neither of us was actually offering.
Neither of us understood what the other was doing. And it went on for longer than either of us probably realised.
Then there was something else I found out. Something harder to hear.
When someone tells me about an experience, I often respond by sharing something similar from my own life.
In my mind, I’m saying: I hear you. I understand. Something like that happened to me too. You’re not alone in it.
I thought that was showing interest.
I didn’t realise my sister could see it differently. When she was telling me something and I responded with my own similar experience, she could feel that I’d stopped listening to her and turned the conversation back to me.
That wasn’t what I thought I was doing. I was trying to connect with her by showing her that I understood.
My intention was to connect. But that wasn’t always how it came across to her.
Finding that out at 45 made me look backwards. I thought about conversations that never developed, friendships that stayed at arm’s length and people who drifted away.
Was this why? Did I upset them without knowing?
I don’t have those answers. But it is an uncomfortable thing to wonder about.
Something my sister helped me understand is that people can have very different expectations of how a conversation works. For some people, asking questions helps the other person feel that it is safe to share and that you genuinely want to know more. But some neurodivergent people can approach this differently. Asking questions can feel insincere or intrusive, particularly if we think that if someone wants us to know something, they will tell us.
That difference matters. My sister was waiting for another question as a sign that I was interested. I was waiting for her to tell me more as a sign that she wanted to share it.
Neither of us knew the other person was waiting.
RSD makes it harder to hear
I have ADHD and I have RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria.
For me, even gentle criticism can feel like rejection before I’ve had time to think about what the person is actually saying.
My sister wanted us to know each other better. She was opening a conversation that we needed to have.
And part of me still heard: you’ve got it wrong. You’ve been getting it wrong for years and you didn’t even know.
I could understand what she meant and still feel hurt. I was upset that I’d made her feel that way, but it also felt like I was being told off for something I’d been doing for years without anyone ever telling me I was getting it wrong.
And the truth can hurt.
Sometimes it is the people closest to us, often our own family, who will tell us something about ourselves that other people haven’t.
Knowing my sister wasn’t rejecting me didn’t immediately take that feeling away. But it did open my mind. Instead of only hearing the criticism, I started thinking more about what she was telling me, why I’d been communicating this way and what I could learn from it.
RSD is a term used to describe intense emotional pain around rejection or perceived rejection. It is associated with ADHD, although it isn’t a separate recognised medical diagnosis or something everyone with ADHD experiences.[1]
That distinction matters. So does being able to explain what it feels like to live with it.
What the research helped me understand
Something that came up in a podcast and in my reading was the double-empathy problem.
Autistic researcher Damian Milton introduced the idea in 2012. It challenges the assumption that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people are entirely the autistic person’s difficulty. Different experiences and expectations can make it harder for both people to understand each other.[2]
Both people. That was the part that stayed with me.
In a 2020 study, Catherine Crompton and colleagues asked 72 adults to pass a story from one person to the next. The autistic groups passed information along as effectively as the non-autistic groups. The mixed groups lost more information and reported less rapport, or sense of connection.[3]
A separate study by Crompton and colleagues also found that whether people shared an autism diagnostic status influenced ratings of rapport.[4]
These studies looked at autistic and non-autistic people. They don’t explain every ADHD experience, and they can’t tell me exactly what happened between my sister and me.
But they gave me another way to think about it. Communication happens between people. If it goes wrong, we need to understand what each person thought was happening.
My sister thought a short answer would be followed by another question. I thought a short answer meant I should stop asking.
We hadn’t actually checked.
Speaking the same language doesn’t mean understanding each other
As a child, I lived abroad. There was a language barrier, but I still found ways to communicate with other children and play in the park.
Sometimes it was only a short interaction, but we managed to make it enjoyable.
I don’t think my social skills were completely different then. Maybe the difference was that we knew we didn’t share a language. We knew the other person might not understand.
There was room for getting things wrong. We were doing the best we could with what we knew, and the difficulty was obvious.
I wonder whether we give each other that same understanding when we speak the same language but communicate differently.
Do we check what someone meant? Or do we decide they were rude, uninterested or making everything about themselves?
I’ve made assumptions too. That’s what the conversation with my sister showed me.
Finding that balance can be difficult. Social communication isn’t necessarily straightforward even for people who aren’t neurodivergent. For some neurodivergent people, the uncertainty and effort involved can make avoiding social situations altogether feel safer and less stressful.
That is also why I think resources that help people understand both sides can be useful. The SEN2gether app is one example, providing tools, guides and a community for SEND families. For me, the important part is the idea of bridging that gap rather than assuming one person is simply communicating incorrectly.
What this has to do with travel
Travel puts us in unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar people. There can be a lot to work out before we’ve even reached where we’re staying.
Then there are the social expectations. Joining in. Making conversation. Spending time with a group. Trying to explain what you need while wondering how it will be received.
For someone who already finds that tiring, a holiday can involve more effort than the people around them realise.
That is why I think the social side of a trip deserves attention too. Who are you comfortable travelling with? Do you enjoy organised groups? Would you like company for part of the day and time to yourself afterwards?
Wanting a quieter holiday doesn’t mean you don’t want connection. Needing a break from conversation doesn’t mean you don’t care about the people you’re with.
And enjoying group travel is equally valid. We don’t all want the same things just because we share a diagnosis.
For me, being able to say what makes a trip enjoyable, without having to defend it, is part of making travel more accessible.
Learning this at 45
I’ve been called antisocial more times than I can count. I’ve also spent years wondering why some conversations feel easy and others leave me going over everything I said.
When I talk with some other neurodivergent people, there can be an ease I hadn’t expected. Less checking myself. More room to say what I mean.
That doesn’t mean every neurodivergent person will understand me, or that I can’t connect with someone who isn’t neurodivergent. My sister and I are finding a way to understand each other better because we finally talked about what was happening.
I’m sad I didn’t understand some of this sooner. I look back at certain friendships and wonder whether things could have been different.
Maybe. Maybe not. There’s no way to know.
What I can do now is notice when I’m treating a short answer as a closed door. I can let someone finish before sharing my own experience. I can ask whether they want me to listen or whether hearing something similar would help.
And I can explain that when I share a story, I’m often trying to say: I understand. I’m here with you.
I want to understand how it feels for them too.
I can’t go back and check every conversation I’ve ever had. But I can ask instead of guessing in the ones I’m having today.
Have you ever found out later in life that something you thought was perfectly normal was landing completely differently on other people?
Tell me in the comments. This one is strange to talk about, but I think a lot of people may recognise it.
Jemma Wild
Founder, NERO Divergent Travel
Founder | Neurodivergent Travel Specialist | Personalised Holidays | Travel Planning & Support for Neurodivergent persons
https://www.nerodivergenttravel.co.uk
Reference sources:
- Enable the Disability podcast — “Neurodivergent Does Not Equal Antisocial” (YouTube)
- Dr. Cristina Louk, PhD, LMHC — “Speaking a Different Language: Neurodivergent Communication and the Double-Empathy Problem” (LinkedIn, October 23, 2026)
- Milton, D.E.M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem.’ Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887
- Crompton et al. (2020). Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective. Autism, 24(7), 1704–1712
- Crompton et al. (2020). Neurotype-matching, but not being autistic, influences self and observer ratings of interpersonal rapport. Frontiers in Psychology, 11
- SEN2gether: tools, guides and a community for SEND families
That something you thought was perfectly normal was landing completely differently on other people?
Tell me in the comments. This one is strange to talk about, but I think a lot of people may recognise it.
I’d rather ask than guess, so here’s my question for you. What would a good trip look like for you? Who would you want to travel with, how much company do you want, and how much time do you need to yourself? Email me at contact@nerodivergenttravel.com and I’ll plan around that, not around what you’re supposed to want.
