This week on Clinically Awkward, fellow therapist (and fellow Alyssa) Alyssa DeRoche joins me for what I can only describe as a reparative experience disguised as a podcast episode. We're both AuDHD, both millennial, both AFAB, and we both grew up watching this movie like it was a nature documentary about a species we were desperately trying to infiltrate.

We dig into why Cady crash landing in American high school isn't just a fish-out-of-water story. It's an allegory for what it actually feels like to be neurodivergent: arriving somewhere everyone else already knows the rules, doing everything wrong, and having absolutely no idea why people don't like you. We talk relational aggression, why it's so much more damaging than just getting punched, and why so many of us would have genuinely preferred the punch.

We get personal about our own diagnosis stories, our masking histories, and how exclusion in girlhood turns you into the adult who will not let a single person get left off an invitation list. We talk friendship limerence, the social coordinator trap, and why "just text her back" is not the helpful advice people think it is when you have ADHD.

We close on the forward-looking stuff: self-trust, knowing your actual capacity, and learning to tell people how your brain works before the friendship implodes.

Alyssa DeRoche is a therapist licensed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. You can find her at seedoftruthcounseling.com.

If you're looking for therapy in New York, I'm at alyssazimmerman.com.

Timestamps:

00:00 Late Diagnosed and Finally Making Sense of It 09:16 Cady Heron and the Autistic Experience Nobody Named 16:08 Friendship Limerence, Executive Dysfunction, and the Group Chat 24:27 Is Regina George and The Case for Pretty Girl Autism 28:36 Janice Ian, The Role of the Outsider, and The Accountability Gap 33:32 Relational Aggression Is a Trauma Response 36:56 What Karen Smith Gets Right About Neurotypical Obliviousness 43:23 Why You Want an Autistic Therapist 48:07 Gretchen Weiners Deserves Better: Toxic Loyalty and Female Friendships 51:04 Self-Trust, Capacity, and Looking Forward