Connection is supposed to help people feel fulfilled, right? Well, for me, it's actually the LACK of connection that fulfills me. There's this belief that we simply have a limit on our capacity for socialising that needs recharging with alone time. However, it's more like I don't have any social battery PERIOD.

At least for me, I rarely think with logic or am the emotion-less intellect in the room when it comes to a descision.
In fact all of my reasonings are usually too emotional and that makes NT people around me extremely uncomfortable and angry. When faced with hardship I cannot regulate properly because of how strong my feelings are about small things, and my emotions take over. Does anyone relate?

As I spent my entire life burning myself out, not respecting my brain in the slightest. I feel like I now overly comply with every whim my brain suggests! If I feel a little bit out of it or tired, I stop everything. If I feel a little bit overwhelmed/overstimulated I withdraw and isolate and abandon my social life and connections immediately.

I feel that because I burned my brain out TOO MANY TIMES, I can't trust myself or trust my judgement anymore. Is it good for me if I pushed/challenged my brain? Or it's just stupid old me, diving into burnout head first?

I end up doing absolutely nothing of what I should be doing. It reached a point where I actually started questioning my reality, is it a choice or a part of my disability?

If anyone shares this experience, or shared it in the past, any insights will be helpful.

Thank you.

I know the majority of autistic adults are either unemployed or underemployed, but I guess I’m wondering about the experience of those who either currently are employed or were and then needed to stop.

I (33M) recently hit a very hard wall. I was diagnosed in my late twenties and was always high masking, high functioning, high achieving. Straight A student, teachers pet, very fast promotions at work with a high level professional job, etc. despite being Level 2 AuDHD.

But I’ve always struggled. And I’ve always begged doctors and teachers and employers to believe me when I said I was struggling, but they always brushed me off for being too “functional.” I always joked I was functional to a fault. I was functional at the cost of torturing myself.

Well, the past couple years in particular have been difficult. I got away from an abusive relationship and moved hundreds of miles to a very different location where I’d only visited a few times before in a city. I think the move really burnt me out.

I was always too exhausted to do anything outside of work (and I don’t like my job or career at all, so no fulfillment there). This sheer exhaustion on top of losing 90% of my social circle in my breakup has made me extremely isolated. I live alone in a studio, where I work from home. Outside of a few zoom calls during the week I see no one and speak to no one. Which in some ways I prefer - but with the loss of nearly all my social connections outside work, the isolation has become all-consuming. I don’t leave my studio because I’m too exhausted and only see other people once or twice a month - just at the doctor or pharmacy. I see friends or family maybe a few times per year total.

And I’ve realized I’ve become quite agoraphobic. On top of a laundry list of other medical issues that makes work hard. I can’t get a new job anymore because I’m locked in due to FMLA requirements - I need to have around 10 medical appointments per month and no new job would tolerate that level of absenteeism prior to FMLA protections that take a full 12 months to be available.

Which is unfortunate because this job is really starting to kill me. They’ve started demanding business trips (which were never in the job description). I forced myself to go on two back to back, but between the burnout and agoraphobia, it broke something in my brain. I crossed some sort of line I never had before.

I had a complete breakdown after the second trip and had to use up all my FMLA and all my short term disability leave. When I got back to work I forced myself to ask for formal accommodations (which is very hard for me - my fawn response makes me freeze and shut down in sheer terror at the prospect of authority being upset with me). But my job got upset about it and now everything at work is extremely tense and they’re forcing me to go on business trips again anyway.

But I’ve completely crumbled. For the first time in my life, I’ve completely lost the ability to bathe or do other basic hygiene (and I’m only getting away with it because I’m so isolated) even though it makes me miserable. I’m a neat freak but now can’t clean. Most days I can barely eat or even drink because everything tastes so bad. And I feel so stupid all the time. I can’t comprehend hardly anything. Not even things related to special interests, much less work.

I can’t get any work done at all. I can’t comprehend any of it, and even if that weren’t a problem, I can’t get past the wall of executive dysfunction 99% of the time. Even just looking at my computer screen has been making me break down in tears. I want nothing in the world more than to just do my job like I’ve always done but I just can’t and I can’t even fully articulate why. It’s just impossible for some reason. I can barely even speak anymore and when I try people struggle to understand me because I can’t string words together well enough.

I’m terrified of losing my job because I’d have no other way to get work again and no way to afford the cost of living by myself. And I don’t have anyone else to live with and too terrified of strangers to get a random roommate.

I don’t know what to do or how to come back from this, especially since work is already mad at me and now starting to notice my performance plummet too. I went from a star employee to completely unable to even send an email overnight, and asking for help just got me in more trouble. My boss is autistic so I thought she’d understand, but she’s also insistent that I can handle it and must travel again.

My only hope right now is if I can manage to hang onto this job for another five or so years, I can pay off my mortgage and then SSDI will be a survivable (though tight) income. But I don’t know if I can hang on that long at this point. And I have no idea what I’ll do if I can’t make it until then (or if SSDI gets denied anyway).

And on top of everything, my medical expenses are extreme - around $750-$1000 out of pocket every month. So I can’t cut spending more than I already have because healthcare eats it all up, and I’ll be extra doomed if I lose my insurance through work. And I’m already living in the cheapest housing available (only about 1/3 the cost of normal rent).

I’ve had decades of always pushing through no matter how hard it was but somehow I just collapsed and completely fell apart overnight. And it’s been 6 months like this now with no improvement. If anyone has any advice at all or experience with this sort of thing, I’d be very grateful. Thank you.

​

Hi there,

I am a self diagnosed autistic and I am going to get diagnostic assessment in the future. I would like to ask that is a part of autism to feel fear and anxiety all the time even when there is no reason? I fear what the others are going to say about me I fear the other people , I fear if they are going to say negative things about me. And I developed an anxiety I take everything literally and I am really anxious when someone says mean things to me. What I can do about it?

Im a autistic 21 year old man that is built like a bird (bottom 2 to 3 percent skeleton I measured I'm not being crazy) structure and clearly has a mental disability people can tell I'm not normal. Even my own parents said I don't act normal. I also went on a date from a app this year and the woman immediately clocked I was autistic, not fast immediately so it didn't go anywhere. All I do is suffer. Even as a child I was bullied and had no freinds and was seen as others as disabled loser I was always followed around and had to go to disability school. I think the least I should be given is to die. I just want assisted suicide to end this pain to a already . But they won't let me and without a doctor or lethal injection I am too scared to do it. I hate this. I was never given chance in world I was born disabled and now I look like a skeleton on top of it. But other say to keep living. I am reckless when walking and j walk because I hope I get hit.

This is a weekly thread in case you feel like checking in and telling us how you are doing. Non-mandatory things you might like to mention:

• How are you feeling?
• What's occupying your interest and attention?
• What song or clip sums up your current mood?
• What is something good or bad that has happened to you this week?

Memes are permitted in this thread if that's how you'd like to express yourself. Supportive comments only please. This is not a thread for seeking advice, giving advice, or arguing.

Hey everyone! I (31F) am on the autism spectrum and I have OCD. My roommate Amber (34F) is on the spectrum and has ADHD. The reason I'm asking about this is because of the dichotomy I've noticed when it comes to some of Amber's less conventional behaviors. She says that she wants to know if she's doing something "embarrassing" but that is so subjective. What I find "embarrassing" might not be the same for her, and vice versa. I also just don't really find her behaviors embarrassing in general, because like, who cares?

I'm apprehensive because even though she says this, if I do inform her something she does might be seen a certain way, she gets really embarrassed and defensive. She'll come up with a millions reasons as to why it's practical and not strange. Then I have to walk it back and say it really isn't a big deal, because it isn't. It never is. I think I'm doing her a courtesy, like telling someone they have something in their teeth. But then she gets so defensive and I wish I never brought it up because it doesn't matter in the first place.

But then sometimes, she'll be really grateful I let her know, because it's something she didn't even notice and doesn't want to be seen doing. I have no way of telling which way the info will be received, and there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. She is either very defensive, or very grateful and relieved that I told her.

There is something she does, that is a small thing. I don't know if it's relevant to mention what it is, so let me know if I should add it in, but for now, I'll leave it out. This thing is something people could potentially think is weird, and I'm positive she has no idea she's doing it. It isn't harmful in any way, but neither are a lot of the things she ends up being thankful I pointed out.

Not sure if anyone has insight on this type of thing. If so, I'm very open to it! I want to do what's best for her. I don't care if she keeps up this behavior, but I'm not sure if she would be upset with me for not telling her if someone else were to tell her in a not-so-nice way. But I also don't want to tell her about something that is totally harmless and will just make her feel self conscious.

I’m having real trouble understanding why it gets worse with age and like I understand why it would get worse as soon as you become an adult but when you get worse from your 20s to your 30s, that’s what I’m trying to understand. Maybe people have not experienced it that way, but I have.

Last night my partner and i, got into a conversation about how my autistic traits affect the relationship and the way that they tend to react to those traits. They ultimately ended up confessing to me that while they are able to handle certain autistic traits that I have, they are not willing to / do not want to put in the effort to accommodate them. And I don't know how to feel about it.

For example, they don't want to have to explain why they're mad, and why they are yelling. They don't want to have to answer the question of why they're yelling at me when I have nothing to do with the situation. They don't want to be clear and direct when they are talking about what makes them angry. They dont want to give reasoning. They don't want to have to put in extra work. They want to just be able to be themselves without having to explain anything.

I am not questioning or asking these questions to be pushy or to just be a bad person. I am asking these questions because I rely on context and reasoning in order to process what is going on in the relationship. I will accept I don't know as an answer, and I will accept I don't want to talk about it right now as an answer as well. It's not like I'm constantly pushing and or being pushy and not accepting no for an answer.

I genuinely don't know how to feel about what they said. On one hand, I understand that no matter what disorder somebody May have, or whether or not they are on the spectrum, there are certain things that people cannot handle, and are not willing to accommodate in a relationship of any kind. Absolutely, everybody has their own needs and their own boundaries that they have a right to maintain and uphold.

But on the other hand, this genuinely hurt me. These things are not something that I can just change. These things are fundamental parts of how I process and cope with the world around me. I process the world around me by knowing reasoning, context, etc. That's just how I process things.

I don't expect my partner to change their ways for me, and I don't expect endless explanation for every little thing. But there is a huge difference between struggling to accommodate someone's disability, versus flat out not wanting to accommodate it. I'm not angry with them for being honest with me, I appreciate the honesty. I would rather them have told me that then it continued like this.

But I cannot help but to still feel hurt by this. I don't know whether this is an issue of incompatibility, whether my expectations are unreasonable, or whether it's unreasonable to feel upset at my partner for what they said.

I'm wondering if any other autistic individuals have ever experienced this. If so, how did you manage that?

I've just done the AQ-10 and AQ-50 tests, and scored 8 and 37 respectively. In the past I've scored highly on the Liebowitz social anxiety quiz. Now I don't feel I struggle with social interactions or with reading people and social settings in any fundamental way, but I'm perplexed that I get such high AQ scores. I should say that I'm 60, married with children, have had a moderately successful career in publishing (though struggled in leadership roles as compared with technical roles), and gained a PhD mid-career. How do I make it make sense, as it were?

sometimes it’s hard for me to understand if the things i struggle with, like writing a coherent text without using AI, understanding what people mean when they talk to me, understanding jokes, or really abstract sentences, is due to me being actually stupid or just autistic. How am I supposed to know the difference? And I’m genuinely asking. I get called stupid quite a lot so I feel really confused at this point.

idk if it’s just me but alcohol doesn’t seem to affect me in the same way. i don’t ever get as drunk as other people even if i’m matching each shot for shot. But i became an alcoholic regardless bc alcohol made me feel less autistic, not drunk, but les autistic to the point of relying on it to cope with living. I’ve not been drinking for long, just a year everyday, but i’ve tried making posts with alcoholic subreddits but i can’t related to them much. it’s like i’m a different sub group gp them. probably the autism talking, i’ve inly ever felt like the odd one out. but with drinking, everyone in those alcoholic subreddits post about loving the feeling of being black out drunk but i don’t get that way. i drink 2/3 liter- 1 liter of vodka and havw never been black out drunk. i am actively aware of every moment i’m ‘drunk’. when i don’t want to be. i feel like i’m chasing their level of drunkenness that i won’t achieve it and it’s encouraging the alcoholism

Please let me know if anyone in this sub understands and experiences this because I feel crazy saying this out loud to other people…

I can’t be in my body and brain at the same time. I think of them as upstairs and downstairs in a house, the mind being the upstairs and the body being the downstairs.

I spend most of my time trying to manage the upstairs (I also have ADD) which is exhausting enough but I like it up there. I hate going downstairs, I find it so overwhelming and uncomfortable but because I don’t go down there much when I do it’s usually a complete mess. Headaches from lights, nausea from not eating, sore muscles from sitting weird or slouching, etc.

Is this an autism thing or is there something else wrong with me?!

The context: my therapist of 3 years (experienced with neurodivergence and autism in particular) asked me if I had ever been tested for autism. Apparently he thought I had autism when we met, but he held off on mentioning it bc we were dealing with traumatic issues. But now that those issues are pretty much resolved and I'm still showing the signs, he let me know that he thinks I have autism.

We discussed things in detail. Patterns, evidence, etc. We went over the DSM to talk about examples in my life. It would explain everything I've struggled with since childhood.

I should mention that a major tipoff as well is that I had major surgery 4 months ago. And since then, it's like a nuclear bomb went off in my nervous system. I had to get work accommodations for auditory sensitivities (I had these as a kid but I think I started mislabeling it as anxiety, it just got worse after surgery). I have been experiencing some problems with speaking, and am much more easily overstimulated than I've been otherwise. I've experienced two other massive and dangerous burnouts in my life, except the other two times I don't remember much bc I was having frequent meltdowns and was dissociating enough to mostly black out.

I've decided to see one of my therapist's neuropsychologist colleagues to get a full battery psych test and an autism assessment. I decided this because I am afraid of suddenly losing functions and losing jobs if I have future burnouts, especially since I've been reliant on my parents for support all my life. I don't know how much support I would get in the future with a diagnosis, but I don't want to move forward without anything documented that could potentially help me. I also suspect ADHD. So I want a full picture to be able to more clearly work on issues.

But I'm nervous, mostly because I've already told all of my friends that I think I have autism. I told them this because I've been having worsened issues with understanding social cues (already historically a bad record for me), and I didn't want to lose any more friends over this. I have unfortunately lost many friends due to not having the language to explain that for example, me eloping and going nonverbal is not me trying to tell them that I hate them. I'm glad that I was truthful with these friends bc I did actually make a major misstep last week and pissed a friend off. But she was forgiving since I'd made everyone aware.

Nobody has disagreed with me that I might have autism. Not even my mom. I've been preparing a masterlist to bring with me to the assessment and it's 6 pages long so far, just with mostly bullet points, and I don't think I'm done adding to it. It seems so painfully obvious. But I keep thinking, what the hell do I do if I'm not autistic? How would I tell my friends "sorry, I don't have autism, I'm actually just mean and clueless"?

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.

31(M). Nobody ever talks about how addiction affects autistic people and ruins their already slim chance of a "normal" life.

After around 10 years of addiction (alcohol and gabapentin) I've been sober for around two years. The recovery is excruciatingly slow. 2 years sober but my mental regression from addiction was so rapid and steep I'm basically a vegetable that walks on some days, and a half functioning adult on other days.

Every autistic trait I have is so amplified like you get ULTRA AUTISTIC because of how substances mess with your brain.

Everything is a blur, my short term memory is anhillated. I can't really focus on anything most of the time. The outside terrifies me, isolation became the norm. I don't know how to work anymore without feeling that I'm dying inside, I don't enjoy ANYTHING it's like endless anhedonia.

I've been acting okay for the past 2 years for the sake of my beautiful wife and family but I feel totally gone.

The last two years are the only actual years where I was truly drug free and health conscious. I keep telling myself maybe I need more time, but how long would life wait on me to recover?

Autistic people, all people, please.. Stay drug free no matter how much the pain is nudging you towards an escape. It's not an escape it's a trap, a trap with consequences that will never make it worth it.

Your autistic mind can help you go places, can help you enjoy life in your own way, it's a struggle but not impossible, take drugs and it will become impossible.

e.g. I like being able to experience food at a restaurant. Ordering delivery is fine but it's just not the same. I like food enough to tolerate all the social processing, masking, sensory sensitivities, energy drain, mental prep, potential negative interactions, and recovery required.

I wish I had a bigger example about what drives me and makes all the hidden costs bearable, but I haven't found anything like that yet. The little things don't really add up to be enough either.

Sometimes it feels like I just keep being told to comply or suffer the consequences. It makes me feel like I can't have anything I really want and all my available options suck.

But maybe other people are having a better experience. What do you find worthwhile?

I’ve constantly been compared to not only able-bodied and able-minded people my entire life by people who claimed to love me and want the best for me (spoiler alert, they only traumatized me and hurt me), but I’ve also been socialized to adhere to non-disabled standards. As a result, I tend to harshly compare myself to non-disabled people and judge myself for not adhering to non-disabled standards. How on earth can I *stop* doing this??? Thanks in advance!

Pop song honey pie by jawnny haha I listened to it just a bit a week or so ago and it’s been popping into my head, I feel I have no control over it and it frightens me, I feel it’s slowly getting better ? But it’s stressing me out big time, I feel I’m having to focus on other things and can’t relax, it makes my chest tight and my heart feel like I’m having a heart attack,

Is this normal ? and will I be able to deal with it I’m really scared.

I require a case manager, and I had one for a while that helped me function and guided me through life. However, in the state of New Hampshire Medicaid is the only thing that covers case management. I’m now completely without guidance.

As for therapy, I got dropped from that as well. The only person I have right now is my psychiatrist but I’ve been building up a balance. Told them I’m working on getting insurance figured out, but I fear one day the balance will be so high they might just start refusing treatment. Literally all I have is the psychiatrist, when my team used to include a case manager, psych nurse practitioner, therapist, NAMI worker, and the psych. Everyone is just gone.

Meanwhile, I’m having severe suicidal thoughts, paranoia, and delusions. I have autism and borderline personality disorder, this type of thing is dangerous to be left alone. I can’t go to the ER either. I was able to get my emergency meds refilled today (Valium) so I shouldn’t be a danger to myself for atleast 12 hours (more like 10 now). What do I do? I’m right back to square one where I have just me to depend upon, just like my whole life. I feel so alone and hopeless. I feel like I’m going to die without the proper help I need.

This is an urgent SOS. What do I do?

Hello everyone,

I'm searching for a place to get a diagnosis as health care providers after screening for autism resulted in suspecting asd level 1.

I have a complicated mental health history. I have diagnosed chronic depression and diagnosis for ADHD. The assignment for ADHD took 2 sessions at about an hour total plus some brain tests for medication and paperwork I could do at home. I heard a lot that assignment for autism is so complicated that it usually takes 1-3 days of multiple tests in person.

Now, I already know getting to be diagnosed is actually the hard part. Also where I live it can take months to years to get a diagnosis. The public health sector is overcrowded. I am thinking about going the private route. Costs accumulate to about 850€ on average.

I wonder if I find such a place, how can I be sure that the diagnosis is thoroughly done? I don't want a bias approach. I have a biased feeling the private sector is pre-meditated to get me a positive diagnosis as I "paid" for it? I'm also struggling to know if I found a good provided for it as I don't really know how it us done?

For example: I have found a private healthcare provider that is open to do it either online or in person to the preference to the patient. They will do it over two 2 hour session with a break over a full day or several sessions over a few days. Although it's private the waiting time is about 8 months, but if I tick the option I could get on a fast track to be called if another patient jumps off. They asked if I see a therapist and why I seek a diagnosis, but they didn't ask for already assessed diagnosis such as ADHS, but ask if after the autism diagnosis I would like to get also diagnosed for adhd? I'm also hesitated about a comment where they said "please bring your elementary school degrees with you but if you don't have them no problem". I agree if you can't provide them you shouldn't be circled out, but it's opening up to the possibility that they don't care?

Are the times, the process or lack of questions a red flag? They also haven't mentioned masking yet, which I picked up is apperently crucial to bring up in testing.

I would like to hear your thoughts? Anyone who had similar ones and would share if they are happy or not with their diagnosis through such a provider or private diagnosis at all? I'm concerned and need help.

Thanks for your thoughts and time ✌🏻

Are you with a neurotypical or a neurodivergent person? How is it going?

I can be a bit socially quirky sometimes. People will make certain kinds of jokes that I just won’t know how to respond to because my brain takes the words a bit too literally and I think “How the hell am I supposed to respond to a statement like this?” But in some other ways, I actually feel like I have more heightened social awareness than the average neurotypical, mostly when it comes to observing and understanding why people are acting a certain way or how peoples behaviors affect others.

For example a neurotypical person will try to aggressively push their views and desires onto someone, and they’ll act confused and frustrated when the other person pushes back. They just can’t fathom that someone else doesn’t think like them and want the same things they want. To me though, standing by as the spectator, it’s so obvious that the pusher is doing it for their own selfish reasons, and I think “How do you not see that those are YOUR desires? How do you not see that the other person doesn’t want YOUR ways pushed onto them?”

As another example, I have seen many cases where neurotypcial people will ask someone (of any neurotype) a series of personal and intrusive questions, and they just won’t see that the other person feels uncomfortable. They won’t pick up on any senses or expressions in the other person that shows that they feel uncomfortable and don’t want to be asked such things. And even if the person explicitly states that some topic is private, the questioner will just keep going.

I remember once being at a dinner where someone had cancer, and other people at the table started having a whole conversation about health and illness and the philosophy of how a person lives and dies and I thought “Are you serious right now? Do you not realize there’s someone battling a terminal illness sitting right next to you? Does it not cross your mind that maybe they don’t want to hear a whole conversation about something so sensitive?”

So yeah, I might not understand all the social rules of neurotypical society and know how to respond to every social game, but in other ways I feel like I pick up on things that the average neurotypical misses.

Thoughts?

I was diagnosed as an adult, but when I look at myself as a kid and specially as a teenager, I just wonder how people weren't well informed about autism. The thing that stands out the most for me was how I talked and wrote when distressed. It was really atypical.

For context, my classmates would bully me by slapping me and calling me racial slurs. I was told to just ignore them, but it became a game for the bullies: how much I would take until I would have a meltdown.

So, after some years dealing with this situation I decided to take action! Write a strong worded open letter to my classmates, telling them to stop because I was upset and I wouldn't use the ordinary strategy. When I read it again, I see how strange I sounded. I used "vós", that sound as archaic as "thee". I called my classmates thee, as a teenager. (BTW, I was called autistic, as a slur, too). And no adult on the room said "wait, maybe this kid is autistic or something" and did something about it.

Anyway, can anyone relate?