You were looking forward to seeing them.
At least, you think you were.
The plan sounded good when you made it. Maybe it was coffee with a friend, a family gathering, a social event, or even something you genuinely wanted to do.
Then the day arrives.
You’re tired.
Your week has been busier than expected.
Work has taken more out of you than usual.
Everything feels a little louder, a little harder, a little more demanding.
Suddenly the idea of leaving the house, making conversation, being around people, or simply having one more thing to do feels overwhelming.
So you cancel.
And almost immediately, you feel relief.
The pressure lifts.
You can stay home.
You can rest.
You can finally stop performing for a while.
Then, not long afterwards, another feeling arrives.
Guilt.
Disappointment.
Loneliness.
You miss the very thing you no longer had the energy for.
If you’re autistic, ADHD, or AuDHD, this experience may feel very familiar.
Relief Doesn’t Mean You Didn’t Want Connection
One of the biggest misconceptions about cancelling plans is that relief means you didn’t really want to go.
In reality, many neurodivergent people deeply value relationships and connection.
The problem is not usually the person.
It’s the amount of energy required to get there.
By the time a social event arrives, you may already have spent days managing work, navigating expectations, coping with sensory demands, making decisions, switching between tasks, and responding to other people’s needs.
Research suggests that many autistic people experience social interactions differently from neurotypical people, often requiring greater conscious effort and adaptation (Crompton et al., 2020).
The relief that follows cancellation is often relief from the effort, not relief from the relationship.
The Part People Don’t See
Many neurodivergent adults become very skilled at appearing fine.
You show up to work.
Reply to messages.
Meet responsibilities.
Keep going.
What other people don’t always see is the energy this may require.
For some people, socialising involves a degree of masking or camouflaging—adjusting behaviour, monitoring responses, and managing how they come across to others (Hull et al., 2017).
Even when those interactions are enjoyable, they can still be tiring.
This is one reason why socialising can feel both meaningful and exhausting at the same time.
Why the Guilt Can Be So Strong
After cancelling plans, many people immediately turn against themselves.
“Why can’t I just be normal?”
“I always let people down.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
Yet these thoughts often ignore the context.
Perhaps you have been carrying more stress than usual.
Perhaps you’ve been masking heavily.
Perhaps you’ve had very little time to recover.
Research into autistic burnout suggests that prolonged demands and insufficient recovery can gradually reduce a person’s capacity to engage with everyday life (Raymaker et al., 2020).
Seen from this perspective, the cancellation may not be a sign of failure.
It may be a sign that your resources were already running low.
The Loneliness Paradox
One of the hardest parts of this experience is that two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time.
You can need time alone.
And feel lonely.
You can feel relieved that plans were cancelled.
And disappointed that they won’t happen.
You can care deeply about people.
And still not have enough energy to spend time with them.
Many neurodivergent adults spend years feeling confused by this tension.
In reality, it may simply reflect the difference between wanting connection and having the capacity for connection in that particular moment.
A Kinder Question
Instead of asking:
“Why do I keep cancelling?”
It may be more helpful to ask:
“What was happening for me that made cancelling feel necessary?”
Perhaps you needed rest.
Perhaps life had become too demanding.
Perhaps your energy had been going elsewhere for weeks.
Understanding the answer won’t always remove the disappointment.
But it may help replace self-criticism with self-understanding.
And that is often where change begins.
References
Crompton, C. J., Hallett, S., Ropar, D., Flynn, E., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2020). The Double Empathy Problem: A Systematic Review of Interpersonal Experiences of Autistic People. Autism, 24(8), 1908–1925.
Hull, L., Petrides, K. V., Allison, C., et al. (2017). “Putting on My Best Normal”: Social Camouflaging in Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(8), 2519–2534.
Pearson, A., & Rose, K. (2021). A Conceptual Analysis of Autistic Masking. Autism in Adulthood, 3(1), 52–60.
Raymaker, D. M., Teo, A. R., Steckler, N. A., et al. (2020). Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew: Defining Autistic Burnout. Autism in Adulthood, 2(2), 132–143.