Embrace the X

When I stumbled across the concept of strawberry people, I became really engaged. Maintaining friendships has always been hard for me. So I did what I had to do and did a deep dive into that topic and re-organised the contacts in my phone.

I read about strawberry people in the book “Unmasking Autism” by Dr Devon Price. He shared the story of a neurodivergent person marking trusted friends with a 🍓-emoji on their phone.

These friendships aren’t about obligation or constant contact. they are about emotional safety, trust, authenticity. Why a strawberry? Because strawberry’s are soft, sweet, and rare in a world that often expects resilience like steel. So choosing your strawberry people means choosing relationships where you can be exactly yourself.

Reflecting on My Own Strawberry People:

• Friends I never felt I had to perform for
• The ones who stayed close during shutdowns or chaos
• The voices that reassured me “you are worthy” even when I felt broken

These friends taught me that friendship can be nourishing, not draining.

I started to think about friends I still have and about people I’ve lost over the years. There are some people I disappointed and I really had to take a moment to let that sink in. But to be a better and authentic friend, I have to learn to communicate my needs and look after myself.

I also realised that some people I thought were my friends drain me or treat me wrong without me even realising. When I start fawning and people pleasing, I am not an authentic friend and I am giving away energy that can be used so much better, especially when you are chronically ill and energy is therefore limited.

Contacts in my phone now look like this:

• 🧸 (name) – these are my core people, the strawberries
• 🌸 (name) – a soft contact. Someone I can talk to, but I don’t need to share everything
• 🚧 (name) – energy draining people, but there is still contact. I can take my time to answer
• 🖇️ (name) – information only, no personal details
• 🌀 (name) – chaos zone. I am not quite sure yet

What really blew my mind is that I automatically thought “oh, person (name) needs to be in this group” when I found that the contact is draining and I feel bad afterwards. This simple change of how I save people in my phone showed me that I can make decisions based on my energy level and on things that are important for me instead of obligations. Because I am autistic and really struggling at the moment this helps me find my way through social interactions and look after myself. It helps me decide if I really have to feel bad for not answering or if this text might be important right now.

I reflected on people I have a good relationship with, but want to spend more time with or engage more in general. So right now I am thinking about an extra category for that. As you can see, you can build your own system and it flows with your needs in time. As long as it serves you (please don’t spend too much time on finding “the perfect system“), that’s totally fine.

Journaling Prompts:

• Who in my life feels safe even when I am not at my best?
• Who doesn’t demand explanations or masking?
• How can I nurture those connections with gratitude?

Until next time – stay messy, mindful and magical. ✨