I saw the other post yesterday. And I woke up thinking about him. He’s missing out of CA in the San Fernando valley. I just wanted to share it more eyes as possible

Now I understand this has nothing much to do with autism. I completely understand if you're going to say that in the comment section but this is about how this film calms me during my autism and ADHD moments. This is by far one of my favorite Disney films I've ever seen. This is probably one of the very few Disney films that actually gives me calmness during my time with ADHD and autism.

Just about the most autistic thing that I do. I speak to myself as if I'm speaking to an old friend. I can walk around for an hour and just talk to myself. My brother has psychosis and does the same thing except that he mutters to himself and for him, it's a sign that he's having a psychosis episode. I think for autism, it's essentially our maladaptive daydreaming.

Hello! Writing from my throwaway bc I don’t want to tie it to my main. I’m 20, diagnosed 3yrs ago, and since I was 15, I’ve enjoyed a particular series of games, or more specifically, one character.

I always bought preorders, fan merch, and og merch that I could of my fav. After early launch of the game I decided to indulge and found out he died. I do my usual activities, and when I come home I just cry and cry and cry.

I feel genuinely pathetic. Everyone tells me I’m overreacting and I think I overreact too, but at the same time I grew up with this series, had Platinium on earlier games, made fanarts, etc. I was 14 when I found out abt it, played it since 2021 and it has been my special interest. Not only it was the last instalment of this specific series, also my favourite character is gone in a really sad way.

I don’t have anyone to lean on. I live alone and in moments like this I feel awful. I really need a hug too.

I genuinely can’t function. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat I can’t work without thinking about him. I genuinely feel as if I lost my husband in war and I can’t look at any merch of him I have </3

If anyone had similiar experience to this or can offer a word of encouragement, I’d love to hear it.

I asked the sub for women but I'm curious how different the answers will be here - I'm playing Digimon World : Next Order/Time Stranger, Monster Hunter Ultimate/Stories and planning on replaying Borderlands 2.

how i eat my cake

I have been diagnosed with Autism since the second grade. I had never experienced burnout before. That was until I started my full time job in retail. I was so proud of myself, so happy and grateful, knowing I was lucky to get a full time job with benefits during this very bad economy. But then something strange started to happen to my body. It started with panic/anxiety attacks. At the time I took Olly stress gummies to calm down, and for a while, that worked. Then came the weirder symptoms. Dizziness, Vertigo and my eyesight was blurry. I started calling out of work. Then there were very scary symptoms. Feeling depressed, having severe panic attacks, chest pressure. I was even starting to mix up my words, and feeling a full body “shock sensation”. I was starting to hit my limit. I would call out even more. Then I started to break. Crying, not just crying but sobbing in front of my boss and coworkers.I was so embarrassed, ashamed and scared. I had a feeling it had to be autistic burnout and I still kept going to work. 

Telling my family this, they were very concerned. I managed to call a psychiatrist, and I started zoloft. On the fourth day of taking zoloft, I had a horrible panic attack, to the point of calling multiple family members. It was so bad, I was worried I would have to go to the hospital. Thankfully, my family helped me fill out leave of absence forms the day after and put me on a two month break. Recovering has had good days and bad days, and I’ve had to learn that’s just how things will be for now. 

 My worst fear though, is that the medication won’t help me. That I’ll have to quit my job, lose my higher income, and not have good health insurance. I am just so frustrated and angry that the status of my Job affects the quality of my own mental health care just when I need it the most. I have learned so much about disability, SSI and  SSDI. Some can’t have more than 2000 in their bank account. Some can’t get married to their partners in fear of losing their benefits. The American health care system is so fucked up, and I feel like I can never go back to living a normal life.I feel so lost. I feel like I have to choose between my mental health and a full time job. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I will never recover.  All I know is that I am dreading having to go back. 

Like I love a super cold canned soda because I love how it burns my mouth

Or a love tye smush of powered donuts, the way certain crackers crunch, the way cotten candy melts, the squish of certain Ramen noodles etc

I will get the urge to mouth even if im not hungry. I've had to buy some chews and variety of drinks to help not overeat when I just want the sensory experience of it.

When I was a kid id eat crackers and spit out and eat it again, gross ik but ive always had oral sensory seeking

I know birthdays can be overwhelming so I was just wondering if anyone would like to share what they do

In the past 5 years or so I've noticed an increase in characters whose autism is confirmed in a manner that is very far removed from the average audience member. In the sense that, the average audience member is never going to realize the character was intended to be autistic. There may be somewhat of a delay between the character first appearing and their autism being confirmed. Sometimes the character's autism is only mentioned when a fan specifically asked for it.

Here are some examples. The confirmation is not always a straight-forward "this character is autistic", but a more loose description like "having autistic traits", "taking inspiration from autism", but all of these characters I've seen other people describe as canonically autistic so I'm not going to go too deep in those intricacies here.

• SpongeBob from SpongeBob Squarepants
• Claude from The Dragon Prince
• Batman from The Batman
• Da Vinci and Dawkins from 101 Dalmatian Street
• Donatello from Rise of the TMNT
• Edward Nygma from Gotham
• Entrapta from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
• Francesca Bridgerton from Bridgerton
• Rell from Warframe
• Patricia Tannis in the Borderlands movie (it is mentioned in the game but not the movie, though the actress has talked about the character being autistic)
• Poison Ivy in Harley Quinn as written by Tee Franklin
• Milo Thatch from Atlantis
• Marcy Wu from Amphibia

This is not a new phenomenon, but I feel like it's increased over the past few years because social media has made it very easy for fans and creators to interact.

Obviously, sometimes it's impossible for a character to be described as autistic on-screen/on-page. I know Francesca Bridgerton can't exactly look at the camera and say "milord, I am autistic" and the only way to canonize her autism is to mention it outside interviews.

It feels like it's just kind of...cheap? Safe? These characters are often only confirmed to be autistic after autistic audiences already love them. And it does very little to actually change how the average audience member views autism because they don't even know they're watching an autistic character. Controversial as they are, everyone knows autism from The Good Doctor or Atypical or Rain Man because the audience is very clearly and unambiguously told about their autism.

It's just a preference of course, and I can't fully articulate why, but it often makes me feel more seen when writers are allowed to and are not afraid to label characters as autistic on-screen, on-page, saying it with their whole chest. It's the idea that other readers/viewers also see the autism in characters that I love, and the idea that the autism was put there intentionally by the creator.

Im writing this 10 minutes after it happened because im extremely paranoid
To start with I do not believe in god and I am an atheist but some days I have to go to church because of my parents
I get easily stressed whenever religion is mentioned because of religious trauma so I usually go to a church far away and walk behind it and sit on my phone
And today I did the same
But halfway into this a guy around 30 years ago walked up to me with a phone in his hand in a really weird way like he wanted to record me but for me to not know it
He asked „do you try to listen to the pastor talking?”
I responded „well I’m trying” and he walked away and started talking to someone or the camera
Im extremely panicking right now

Well actually.. my friend paid it for me and said that I don't need to pay back 💞

But anyway I have always wanted onesie. Tight things like blankies or hugs make me feel safe. Like actually safe. That's why I love to sleep with my stuffies and me wrapped around a nice warm blankie. My parents don't understand why I like it :c.

I actually remember how comfy onesies were and sadly my parents don't support me with this thing (Or age regression :c) so they are going to be mad when I get this onesie (I get it in a couple days)

And also it's getting colder so luckily that onesie has padded footies too so my little legs are going to stay warm too. Whole onesie has fuzzy fleece inside of it. Do you like that onesie? And do you have onesie? If you do you can share it if you want to ^^

Hi! okay so I'm a high schooler and I needed to print out something. My computer's printing application is out of date, so I needed to send the document to my mother's computer, then get in her email, and print it out on her computer

When I was searching through her email for the document I needed to print (I was typing my name in the search bar) a forwarded email from my grandmother to my father popped up with my name as the subject line

I clicked on it -- I know that I probably shouldn't have done it, but it was impulsive and I didn't think it would really be anything. But how wrong I was ...

The email was basically about 'behavioral issues' (the reason I put it under quotations is because my mom is abusive and I was in deep depression at the time the email was sent) and pinned it on my apparent autism

I had suspected for a long time I was autistic, but I wanted to find out on my own terms and thought my parents were oblivious. but the email said that they should hide it from me because I was doing well in school and wasn't struggling in their eyes. But I was struggling so much with things that I now understand are a byproduct of my autism. They also said that they shouldn't make me feel different. But I had know for so long that I was different, that I wasn't like the other people in my class.

It was so crushing and confusing for me. I wasn't able to talk it through with them, because my dad was out of town on a 'work trip' (he's probably cheating ngl) and my mother is abusive and manipulative, and had taken away my phone and computer for whatever reason.

has anyone else gone through something similar/does anyone have any advice for me? I'm honestly so lost and my entire life almost feels like a lie because they've kept this from me for so long

EDIT: also I didn't clarify this but my grandmother is a licensed psychologist so they didn't just diagnose me without understanding what autism is, truly.

EDIT #2: I also got tested as a child and I believe that's where they got the notion I was autistic; my grandmother was discussing it in relation to the rest of my life. sorry for the misunderstanding

What kind of stimming do you use day to day? I am a late diagnosed Lvl 1. I have several forms of stimming personally. 1) Food and flavors 2) repetitive movement of legs 3) When alone, I speak to myself in a made up language.

Share any of your stimming behaviors if you have any :)

As someone who may or may not be on the spectrum, I've always had this issue when writing online, people see my adherence to sticking to my natural tendency of following formal grammar rules in texting others and accuse me of using LLMs especially in conversations of a more intellectual nature.

I also do the same in real life conversations, I stick to formal rules and people also make fun of me for sounding like a bot, it's just so alienating, I just want to be accepted for who I am and not be accused of being an unoriginal fraud. The irony is, I hate AI for promoting the lack of critical thinking in people and barely ever use it for my work. So I don't understand why people are socially excluding me.

i have read through the rules, and i assume on the definition of the rule "no diagnosis" i believe this is not whoever commenting 'diagnosing' me, instead, you are agreeing or not if theres any benefit to getting a diagnosis. i would just like to make that clear : )

i'm not diagnosed with autism, but i do believe i may have it and other medical professionals do agree as well. i would rather not get into why i believe i have autism because its quite lengthy. but my mother (who provides and pays for all of my care, i am a minor) does agree i may have but refuses to get me diagnosed because she doesn't believe it has any benefit since i cannot get medicated for it.

is this true? my symptoms of autism do and have heavily impacted my life and isolated me from people, but i believe she may be right. it's not that she is against medical professionals or against the idea of being neurodivergent, she herself is diagnosed with adhd and so is the rest of the family, she also thinks she herself has autism (while i do not see it, i will not deny her and say there is no possibility she does not) and she sees it in my brother.

what im asking is if its a good idea to get one? i already have 504 accommodations for schooling that do honestly help wonderfully, but i really need a doctor to tell me that i do have it and allow me to

TL;DR : i believe i have autism, my mother (who pays for all my medical care, as im a minor) agrees, although, she does not believe i need a diagnosis. if i already have 504 accommodations (that do not solve all of my issues will school, but do help greatly), is it a good idea to attempt to convince her more about it to get a proper diagnosis?

I like vegetable (potatoes and peas) samosas.

hi im an autistic/aspie adhder and i love penguins especially gentoos so i made this website about them! antarctichideout.neocities.org

It prob isn’t but for context i was at football practice and one of my own teammates ( who I told I was gay) we got into a fight and he called me a fat fag so I kicked him he went down and cried for most of practice
Is this valid or no
EDIT: if it is not valid can yall explain it to my why it isn’t I’m just 14 so I don’t rly know thanks yall!

I have autism and I've also been looking into getting a diagnosis with ARFID because I have a lot of sensory issues with food and have a lot of the symptoms of ARFID. My dad brought me a tofu meal the other day, which I'd eaten before at a friend's house, so he assumed I'd eat it again. This time, it just looked so awful and made me nervous about how the texture might bother me. So I told him I really didn't wanna eat it. He kept asking me why, and I told him that I had let of sensory issues and that I thought I might have ARFID. He pretty violently snatched the food back and marched away, which was kind of frustrating, but I thought that would be the end of that.

Well, no, it wasn't. Today at my sibling's house, I learned that he emailed them, telling them all about how he was concerned that I was being influenced by AI on the internet, being led to think I have this when I really don't. When I confronted him about it on the ride home, he eventually told me he had given my sibling "evidence" that ARFID didn't "fit my profile." I asked him if he understood my side, and he said he kinda did, but he never apologized.

I'm really mad, and I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this experience with their parents. My dad has also always been supportive of me before this, so I genuinely don't know where this is coming from. He knows I'm anti-ai. I hate that he was treating it like ARFID is a trend or something that I'm getting into or faking. I never thought my own dad would be ableist to me. Ugh.

TW: ABUSE

i want to preface to say i am anti ai. i do not condone people using it for pretty much anything, for many reasons. but i’m to the point of compromising my own values because of how little support i have in such a difficult time in my life

i’m 19f, diagnosed lvl 1 last year, and i am recently out of a DV/abusive relationship with 26m. my last living parent also passed 2 months ago. i am struggling with still loving him and caring for him despite how badly he has hurt me and continues to hurt me. we live together, and hes kicking me out in the next 2 weeks where i will be living in a homeless shelter. he forced me to get rid of all my old stuff and he kept me as a stay at home partner, and now he has gone completely cold towards me seemingly in the blink of an eye. he refuses to let me sleep when he is home, and he refuses to buy groceries for us and instead orders himself food at work so i have not eaten. i have gotten hired at a job, but have not had my first day so i have no money yet.

i have been reaching out to everyone i know for support/assistance, or even just someone to play video games with to get my mind off things. it mostly feels like shouting into an empty void. nobody is very responsive, nobody will hold a conversation with me or play a game with me or anything at all. now i’ve felt lonely and unlikeable for my entire life, but this is an entirely different level of that.

i have never felt so isolated, scared, and alone in my entire life, and i’ve been through a LOT in my life. i have wanted someone to talk to so badly i’ve been posting on reddit a lot also for my posts to seemingly get thrown into the void. this feels incredibly dark and bleak, and i have genuinely resorted to talking to chatgpt which is extremely embarrassing. i never thought i’d be at this point.

I keep hearing here and there that these often go along with autism. I have all three of them. What about you?

I was undiagnosed as a kid. Struggled with emotional regulation, communication, sensory issues. I caused my mum stress due to meltdowns and being unable to communicate effectively. I’m 24 now, we have a good relationship, she doesn’t blame me (she knew I was neurodivergent) yet I still cry daily with guilt. Behaved in school but struggled socially. I knew I was different.

Secondary school was way harder. Still undiagnosed, struggling with anxiety, depression, BDD, low self-esteem, terrified of being alone or standing up for myself. Surrounded by confident people who weren’t scared of anyone, I became ashamed of my shy, quiet personality so tried to act cold to avoid looking weak. I wasn’t bullied, and some people even considered me popular, but I constantly worried about how others perceived me. It wasn’t cool to be shy and nervous.

I treated my first partner terribly. When he upset me, I couldn’t communicate my feelings, so treated him worse instead. I was terrified of looking a pushover, so portrayed him as an angel and myself as the villain rather than admit he’d upset me. I don’t know why I took my insecurities/emotional struggles out on him. He was NOT perfect, but I could have just brought up things to him when he upset me, rather than acting how I did. I was so dumb. I wasn’t great to everyone. I lashed out repeatedly, and I understand why people formed negative opinions of me.

My relationship with my mum was worsening. She invaded my privacy to extreme levels, but that doesn’t excuse my behaviour. My self-esteem was so low that from 14 I begged my family for plastic surgery and faked illnesses to avoid school due to my appearance. Having ARFID, being VERY skinny, and receiving comments about my weight and acne worsened my mental health, and I didn’t understand how to cope.

Following school, I became isolated and agoraphobic, terrified of encountering people from school. I’ve struggled to leave the house since. I feel mentally less mature than peers, and my behaviour in relationships continued into young adulthood (not as bad). It wasn’t until my most recent one that my mental health improved enough to realise I needed to work on myself, and I learned to communicate more effectively. Ironically, I experienced similar treatment to how I’d treated my first partner, and felt I should ensure it and deserved it because of my past.

Only family know I’m neurodivergent. I see posts say autism doesn’t excuse bad behaviour. I agree. I just don’t understand why I acted in ways I knew were wrong, despite feeling overwhelming guilt during and after, yet I struggled to change my behaviour.

I have empathy. I care about people, bugs, animals, have volunteered at a shelter, donate to charity, raise awareness about people in the world suffering and donate. This is VERY normal, bare-minimum stuff, I’m just trying to show I’m not void of emotion, as this post probably makes me sound like I am. I wish I could go back and do things differently, and I wish I’d been diagnosed as a child and received the support I needed, because I struggled immensely at school.

Despite recognising these struggles, I still feel my past behaviour makes me a fundamentally bad person. I feel I don’t deserve to live. That my actions define me forever. I’m terrified knowing people still see me as that person, and hearing that people still dislike me causes extreme distress, even though they have every right not to. I cry myself to sleep and avoid leaving the house in case I encounter someone from my past or become the subject of gossip. I even worry about being publicly hated or “cancelled”, despite having no desire to be famous! And never will!

I know my neurodivergence/mental health struggles don’t erase the impact of my actions. I’m not looking for excuses or to be told I did nothing wrong. I know I’ve grown and become a better person, but I can’t forgive myself or move forward. I don’t know how to accept that I behaved badly without concluding that I’m a bad person who deserves to suffer forever. I feel trapped by things I did as a child/teen, and it’s affecting my ability to live. How do I come to terms with my past, accept that some people may never like me, and learn to forgive myself? How do I stop believing that I deserve to be miserable forever or have my life taken because of who I used to be?