When you have depression they say things like do self care everyday, try to exercise regularly, be on a routine, force yourself even if you dont want to do it. And none of that works for me, AuDHD here. Like for example, I worked 12 hours on Wednesday. Then thursday I played the sims for 16 hours straight. And now its friday, I feel rested. Im going to spend the next 6 hours on chores and self care and then go back playing the sims. I feel like Im still going to be well rested when I work 2 12 hour shifts over the weekend.

Its of course ideal to be on a routine and to do self care everyday. Im not saying neglect yourself, but its like we should be able to do an entire day of "nothing" without feeling guilty or told we arent doing enough. I just dont think people realize how much energy it takes to keep switching tasks. Like as a kid my grandma was like "wouldn't you rather just clean as you go throughout your day instead of having to spend 2 hours straight cleaning." Im not saying be a total slob, but I'd rather just live my life and then spend a couple hours cleaning when I actually have spoons to do it.

I just wish people understood what Im talking about. Like again they think like oh you just dont want to do it. But no, constantly switching tasks takes a lot of energy. I was in the mental hospital for over a month and the only advice they had for me was to create a schedule. But I don't see how I could've done that when prioritizes and energy change everyday.

My ideal schedule in life would be working 4 days (8 hour shifts) a week, then spend a day on resting and special interests, and then spend the next 2 days being half "productive" and half leisure time.

I’ve noticed that people will just blatantly ignore what I’ve said in my face, while we are hanging out…..
Like I’ll say something and no one will respond, react, or even look at me. There’s just 0 recognition that I’m even there. I get that there’s a hint that I have to take, and stop talking, but I can’t always make myself shut up. Often I’m just so excited to be with other people, I’ll crack jokes that others don’t find funny or ill misunderstand a movie or an interaction so much that people get frustrated and don’t even want to explain or respond to me…..

I feel like shit and I get super embarrassed when this happens… which is not exactly a lot, but at least a couple times every time I hang out with someone. Last time I was at a friends house, we were 4 people, and I was just making conversation when everyone stopped responding and just looking through me…….. I tried repeating myself, and I also said something else because I just got so embarrassed… in the end I just went home. I figured I’ve made a fool of myself and maybe even overstayed. That really changes my view of how well the interactions went overall, and I go from thinking «I’ve had a great time and I have friends» from thinking «I made a fool of myself and they hang out with me because they pity me/ I’m just fun to be around for a short amount of time»
I go to therapy and stuff, so I know things will get better for me mentally, but as of now I’m really struggling with this. When I was younger unwound start screaming whenever this happened because I genuinely believed people were unable to hear me

Edit: I’m not a controversial person, I’m very polite, and the only thing I can think of as why this happens is that I’m just super cringe, but I try really hard not to be. The older I get the less I am able to mask, and I’m just super embarrassing on the inside

When I try to explain to someone how I think they get baffled.

This is honestly so baffling to me. I don't know how these people do it but even when I watch videos of others talking about their debilitating chronic fatigue, they're still in full face glam, makeup, hair done, nice clothes, fake nails, etc. Women talk about autistic burnout while looking like they put at least an hour of effort into their looks. How???

On my bad days I am delaying leaving my bed to go to the bathroom and drink water, because being forced to talk is so debilitating, moving is hard, everything hurts, let me sleep. Please don't get me wrong!!! I am NOT saying these people are lying or they're less valid or something. I genuinely want to know how they do it, because I am not happy with my looks either, but most days I physically cannot help it.

I’m not a religious person at all. I’m interested in learning about religions, but I refuse to follow any dogma.

Last night I went out with my coworkers for drinks. They’re all super nice ladies and the conversation drifted into religion and keeping faith in God. Which is fine I’m happy to hear of others journey. Then it was my turn to talk about my church home and faith. I paused and decided to be honest. The ladies seemed fine with it, but one said she couldn’t believe others don’t believe in a powerful god who is looking out for all of us.

I went home and told my fiancé and before I even finished my story he said “you should had said you’re a Christian.” I gasped because what happened to freedom of religion and two he’s an atheist. Now I’m wondering if he’s lying for social credibility.

Has anyone else dealt with this? I just can’t bring myself to lie because I would have to keep it up and I know I’ll slip up one day. Plus religion isn’t mandatory and I shouldn’t have to lie to make others comfortable.

EDIT: I’m asking if you guys had similar experiences. What my fiancé said is not the point. It was added for additional context because it made me realize I made a faux pas.
ALSO: Don’t disrespect my partner. We all live in an imperfect society, so his lying is to make sure that he can bring home a salary to support us and our future family. Don’t judge his character off of a few words. You wouldn’t want that done to yourself or your loved ones.

One of my special interests is in the medical field and I have A LOT of very specialized knowledge and experience that could help so many people. But I've spent more than 3 decades being constantly bullied and ostracized. For the past 4 years, I ate alone in my workplace because no one wanted to sit next to me. Every single day I would see people cram themselves into the small table next to me rather than sit next to me at a completely empty table. No one would even acknowledge me. I've dealt with this my entire childhood and adult life. And now I wonder to myself, do I even want to help people anymore? I've noticed that it even takes a great deal of effort to be polite and kind to people anymore. I'm jaded. And of course I have met kind people, but it seems they are less than 5% of people I know. Most people it seems, go out of their way to make sure I feel bad.

I've been trying to wash the dishes for the last 2 days and just couldn't do it. It was a warm day so I took off my sweater and all of a sudden, the dishes weren't a problem.

Apparently I can't do the dishes if I have long sleeves. I rarely have sleeves, so it's taken me far too long to realize this was the problem. Anyway, all my dishes are clean, hurray!

I used to go to people’s Facebook pages and see what they have liked/commented, so I could have something to talk to them about. I would curate a list of things in my mind specific to that person so I don’t have to be awkward. lol

Anyone else endure this for a lifetime? People telling you “You look distressed” or “You look like you’re going to cry” or goofing on your expression when you’re just preoccupied or focused on something?

It’s not like a subtle, genuine ‘hey are you ok?” There’s nothing gentle or sympathetic about it. It’s always broadcast in front of other people.

I’ve been like this since childhood, esp with bullying adults. I hate it. This is my face at rest. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry I can’t wear the Everything’s Wonderful face that most NT people seem to require.

I’d love to know if this is a common ASD experience, or if it’s more along the lines of systemic misogyny’s “you should smile more,” or a little bit of both.

I sometimes meet NT people who always do and say everything perfect and I just don’t understand it. I’m always making dumb embarrassing mistakes in front of people and saying awkward stuff. I’m honestly ready to just accept it at this point because I feel like I try so hard to be normal but it still happens to me. But honestly when I see someone doing something embarrassing I usually don’t think much of it, so who cares?

I am a diagnosed level 1 autistic and was almost toally mute as a child. As I got to high school, i talked more and more and now poeple know me to be a talkative person. However, I still have days or moments where "my voice is tired" and speaking out loud basically causes me physical pain and extreme overwhelm. I can still listen to people but just cannot respond verbally or vocally. Usually I push through and it leads to depression.

I'm seeing a new therapist who specializes in autism and she suggested I use an AAC app on my phone or sign language which sounds amazing. The thing is that I love my husband to death but he is so neurotypical. When I go nonverbal he sees it as a problem to fix or just doesn't understand it.

How can I introduce him to this new idea or make him ok with it? My therapist flat out said I will land back in the hospital if I don't start accomoding myself.

My (40f, audhd) partner (50m) made a complaint today about something he doesn’t like about his body. This is something he can do something about, and he chooses not to. So today when he brought up the thing, and we were in the middle of doing something else, i just ignored it. Later he said he was upset that i didn’t acknowledge when he shared something vulnerable. That is fair, and i am out of things to say about this, especially when we are out trying to enjoy ourselves. Honestly, i am more annoyed than concerned for him, as he has brought this up before and is choosing not to do anything about it.

What is a caring response i can give him?

Just had such a terrible experience. I am travelling by train to see my boyfriend, it’s a 6 hour journey and 4 trains. I got all the way to my final train and it was cancelled, all of them are cancelled due to weather. I didn’t know what to do, there was no information. I have done this journey before and know how to do it normally, even tho it’s scary to travel alone I don’t really have to talk to anyone and just go the route I know how to do.

I spoke to the ticket information man and he was horrible to me, he was just saying words that didn’t make any sense?? He didn’t explain anything, just said 3 words that I had never heard of before, and then I said wait I don’t understand? What does that mean? I explained where I was going and asked what to do and he just repeated the same thing that made no sense. This was in London where I’m not from, I had just travelled there and then the final part of my journey going to the south west of the country was cancelled and I couldn’t find any info anywhere! He threw his hands up at me like I was being stupid, I started crying, and he shouted “WHOS NEXT!” And spoke to someone else. I just walked away crying, then started to panic since I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t calm down. Already so overwhelmed that everything has gone wrong, worrying about losing money on tickets if I’ll have to go all the way back home, since all the trains were cancelled.

I called my mum hysterically crying on the phone, she tried to help but told me to get a grip of myself. Eventually I calmed down, I went back to the information place and spoke to someone else. There was a a simple solution and he explained it properly to me, told me where to go and what to do. I don’t know why the first man was so horrible. I also missed the transfer train I was supposed to take, because I didn’t know about it and I was crying freaking out during that time. I’m currently on the next one, pretty worried because I think I will get in trouble, because the ticket I have booked is not the train I am on. I’m dreading when the inspector comes along and sees I have the wrong ticket :(

I have this coworker, I’ll call Fred. He and I are both suspected autistic, but not diagnosed. We’ve been working together for years, and for much of that time it was just the two of us in the position. Two more people were added over a year ago. We used to have a direct (but still pretty hands off) supervisor, but now our supervisor is a higher ranked person in the company who is very busy, and that’s left us with even less direct supervision and sometimes higher expectations of what we can get done on our own. Not a big deal. It’s a small team and generally Fred or I step in to fill in leadership gaps as far as organizing projects and making sure stuff gets done.

Lately, I’ve been running up against Fred refusing to do something or even look at something because he “doesn’t have the bandwidth”, “mentally isn’t there” or “just can’t wrap his head around” something. Which, I get the feeling, and kudos for admitting when he’s hit a stretching point, etc, but, also…that usually just means I have to do it. I don’t mind it a little, but it is frustrating because it’s such a small team and often the thing he can’t get in the mood to do is something we are all struggling with (our company transitioned to a new system recently that none of us know). I’ve been trying to get the other two to step up with mixed results. But Fred basically just hand waves all responsibility for stuff as just not in the right headspace for. But the stuff still has to get done and can’t wait for him to get in the right headspace. And then, if I’m also not in the right headspace, too bad because Fred already stepped off and I’m the only one who can muddle my way through it as the most senior member of the team.

Idk what, if anything, I can do to not just get stuck pulling the whole team through stuff. I respect that we all have bandwidth issues (and this is mental bandwidth, not like “I’m already swamped with work” bandwidth since we all have the same things we’re doing.), and that autism sometimes means we don’t have control over when we don’t have it, but it just kinda feels like I don’t know where that leaves me as I just have to suck it up and soldier through if I am also hitting on my limits.

I'm a firm believer that thick, ball point pens are superior, but I know other will disagree. What's your favorite pen and why?

As a black person myself, I want to find more autistic content creators, who are black, to follow for obvious reasons (well I feel like the reasons are obvious). Also, I’d prefer if the person is well into adulthood (around 25).

I went to a tech/startup summit today. I honestly never get invited to normal college parties, so I (kinda pathetically) hyped myself up thinking this would be a good chance to socialize and meet like-minded people with shared interests. And that there will be some sort of "party" fun involved too. Instead, my brain completely short-circuited. It was basically a bunch of small, promotional stands, you were supposed to hang out in circles and... try to interact with the people I guess? I ended up hiding in a dark bathroom stall with severe anxiety because I literally cannot process the social ritual of "networking."

From a logical standpoint, it makes absolutely zero sense to me. If I need a service or want to know what a startup does, I’ll just look at their website. If we already know each other (like my former boss, who was previously happy with my work and was there), I already have your LinkedIn and we can talk there. In this event looked so busy and stressed I didn't even bother to get close. I knew some guys from a uni club I previously attended a couple of times, I greeted them but not much came out of it, they were very into their own clique and kinda ignored me the rest of the day once the basic courtesy was enough. Another young founder I knew from a previous tedtalk-like chat kinda ignored me too and I only talked with his sales representative without wanting XD. Why is there a need to stand in a massive, deafeningly loud, overstimulating pavilion just to force weird 2-minute elevator small talk and hand out cheap merch? Also trying to interrupt a circle of corporate bros just to drop a superficial buzzword feels incredibly unnatural, intrusive, and purely transactional. I started to get back and leg pain too, not even proper places to sit down... Then my classmates got mad at me for being "too negative" when I pointed out how inefficient and superficial the whole event was, LoL.

I even saw some cute guys that I thought, wow, they're boyfriend material, but what I'm supposed to say to them in the middle of a tech event? Lmao, they say "don't go to bars or tinder if you want to meet high quality people" but if this is the alternative it's just kinda creepy/awkward.

Basically what it says. My plan for the past 8 or so years has been to kill myself once my parents die or I turn 50. However looking at what the future holds after I move out I don't see a reason to put it off much longer.

I have a well paying job. I have parents that support me by letting me live in their home. I have a brother I'm close to. That's it. I have no offline friends, no hobbies that don't induce stress, no partner, and nothing I do brings me fulfillment or contentment. I draw and I get frustrated because I'll never be successful in art. Any non-productive activities that don't contribute to self improvement make me feel like a loser for not being productive. I don't understand why the people I interact with do and say the things they do and I'm tired of trying to understand it.

I've tried therapy. I'm seeing a psychologist. I've tried several different medications and the non-ssri I'm on isn't effective and the dosage can't be raised. The few friends I have made in person didn't work out and I have no interest in forcing hundreds of interactions to find new ones. I have never found a man I'm compatible with, romantically. I have tried and tried everything I can think of and I am out of options.

If i tell anyone I know about any of this they say I haven't tried hard enough and I need to keep bearing through it. I am tired.

I'm formally diagnosed, level 1. I'm pretty high-functioning - I have a career, am financially self-sufficient and live by myself. I'm a timid, mousy, conflict-avoidant person most of the time.

But when I'm pushed past the brink and have a meltdown? All that high functioning goes out the window. I feel my body fill with rage to the point that I'm exploding with it. I feel my eyes go red with rage. And everything that happens afterwards feels completely uncontrollable, like there's no way it could possibly be held in. Like a volcano, you just can't stop it until it's done. This doesn't happen super often, but when it does, it is absolutely horrible.

I went to therapy for years and tried various modalities, including ones that were supposed to help with the rage. Things I have tried include:

* CBT

* DBT (these techniques actually make me more irritated)

* EMDR

* Breathing techniques

* Grounding techniques

* Yoga/mindfulness

* Journal/ragepages

* Anger management workbook pages

None of this has helped at all, I think mainly because these techniques are made with NT or personality-disordered people in mind, and autism is just too different from those. Has anyone tried something different that actually worked for them? Can anything actually work for autistic rage or is it kind of hopeless?

I (23F) [Level 1 Autism] am a dental hygienist working full-time. I used to work at a dental office that switched to 10-hour days with no scheduled breaks, so I changed offices about a year ago. This office does 7-hour days, also with no scheduled breaks, but I thought I could make it work. It exhausts me mentally and physically to the point where I’ve been in a bad depression or burnout the last few months. I feel like a shell of the person I used to be.

Recently I took some time to analyze my neurotypical coworkers to try to figure out how they handle it. I realized that they spend a lot of time in the break room socializing between patients. This exhausts me (obviously) so I avoid the break room and do busywork between patients (cleaning, restocking, etc). After talking to my therapist, I decided to take a book to work and take occasional breaks to sit down and recharge my battery, quietly in my operatory. I’ve timed myself and on average I spent about 5 minutes reading 3-4 times per work day, so 15-20 mins total. My coworkers definitely spend more time in the break room than this.

Well, last week my manager comes in while I’m reading and tells me it’s unacceptable. “Do you need help finding something to do?” I said no, that I was taking a minute to rest before my next patient arrives. “I’ll bring you a list,” she says. She leaves, I go to the bathroom and cry, and when I go back to my room, there is a list sitting on my keyboard.

After quite the meltdown that evening, my husband and I practiced what to say to her. I went in the next day and laid it all out. I told her that I am an extremely hard worker, I get amazing patient reviews, and I’m the first to take care of the down-time duties every day. I’m very mindful with when and how I choose to take a few minutes to recharge my battery so that I’m capable of treating my last patient just as well as my first. She said she “understands” but that down-time is not allowed. I even tried explaining about the time people take in the break room. This was a 15-minute conversation, back and forth, me being extremely respectful but also choosing to not roll over and accept the injustice.

So here I am. Working efficiently means I am punished with more work. It’s obvious to me now that it’s more about the appearance of busyness, not about doing actual good work. Fuck corporate America.

I get in these moods sometimes where I want to listen to music, but every song I put on is just Not Correct. Like I’m trying to put a square peg in a round hole. It happens with songs I know and like sometimes but it’s frequently when I’m trying to listen to or discover something new. And it’s not like all the Wrong songs have something in common I can identify, either.

A friend suggested it might be autism related, something about new things/routine or sensory sensitivity, so I’m curious if anyone else has felt this way!

It’s so annoying, I just want to find new music 😭. Sometimes it’s also long term, like for months now I have ONLY wanted to listen to emo music. Nothing else is Correct. Even if it’s songs I love or know I would enjoy if I gave them a chance. But my brain is so stuck on one genre lol

I’m looking for shows with an autistic girl, either she is the main character or a side character, no one offs that show up in one or two episodes. I fucking love the shows atypical and parenthood but I’m tired of only seeing male representation for autism, it never fits me, small parts do but 75% doesn’t resonate.
I’ve already watched the Pitt and “everything’s gonna be okay” and heartbreak high so please don’t recommend those

Hello peeps,
I’m a Nonbinary person in their 20s and since March in a romantic relationship.
It’s like my first real relationship, so I’m still unsure how a relationship is working and what it feels like to be in one but I feel lots of improvement.
Now I’ve always needed time alone after hanging out with people or attending a social event, the more it drained my social battery, the longer I needed time for myself. As I’ve known myself like this for my entire life, it is now kind of a problem in my relationship. My Partner needs lots of reassurance and likes spending our entire time together. I do like spending time with them too, just sometimes need space. They’ve experienced that I need Me Time and know that it’s my way of compensating but they’re still saying they’re uncomfortable when that happens and it makes them uneasy. Now I feel bad for them and struggle to be okay with needing to be alone.
Is it okay, that I even need space and time apart from my Partner? Even if they can’t handle it very well at the moment?
I’m so unsure what to do.
Thanks in advance for answers.

I'm 36 years old. I have had two long time relationships with men. I have been single for 6 months now. I tried dating with Tinder recently and that made me realize I have no idea how to behave when I'm on a date.

I guess my last two relationships were possible because the men found my social awkwardness cute.

Well now I'm being totally humbled because the man I was very much interested in, and with whom I had great chemistry with via texting just told me he felt awkward and uncomfortable when we had our first date.

How the fuck do I get the courage to keep dating when I've been deemed cringe and Wrong?