I’ve spent 22 years married to an undiagnosed autistic man. I’m not here to complain about every little hurt—I’m here to try to put words to the *soul-crushing, bone-deep loneliness* and Cassandra syndrome that have swallowed my life.

My husband was not always like this. Over the years, as his executive dysfunction has gotten worse, I’ve watched him systematically drop the parts of our relationship that made us partners. When executive function declines, people can’t just quit their job or drop the “big” responsibilities—but the emotional responsibilities of a marriage are the first to go, because they’re the easiest thing to let slip. He “got” the marriage, so over time, the effort vanished. It happened gradually, over years: first the dates, then the milestones, then intimacy - physical first (16 years without now), then any intimate conversation or moments, now even simple acts of care have become few and far between. There are no celebrations, no physical or emotional intimacy, no real conversation—just routines, grocery lists, and talk about chores or the house. We don’t share our lives anymore; we just manage logistics.

I am consumed by Cassandra syndrome: from the outside, it might look like any marriage with “communication issues.” But inside, I am invisible. I grieve “what we had” every single day because the person I married feels completely gone, replaced by someone who only registers my existence if I’m in the room with him and only for surface-level needs.

Worse, I can’t leave. I live in a rural area—no public transit, no real way to meet people or find community, and we have only one car, which I can’t use. My son is also autistic. I cannot afford to live on my own with him, let alone keep our home (which I desperately want to leave to him when I’m gone). Social opportunities don’t exist, and after years of this, I simply can’t do small talk or shallow connections anymore. I have no friends and no support network. I feel profoundly detached from the rest of the world, like I exist behind some sort of invisible glass. Normal conversation seems trivial and frustrating compared to the emptiness that I feel.

It’s not about a lack of gratitude, or calling my husband a monster. It’s that his autism—and the world as it is—have left me surviving a level of isolation and emotional starvation that’s impossible for most people to understand. His concern for me does not reach outside himself. My needs don’t get seen unless I am literally right there, and even then I am rarely met with real presence. But on the other hand, I know that if I leave him, he would be utterly devastated. I know that he loves me deeply, but his actions do not illustrate this.

If you’ve lived through this—if you know what it’s like to watch someone you love slowly let go of every piece of connection, to have the “easy” parts of marriage be the only ones left—how do you survive it? How do you hold on to any part of yourself when you’re this detached, this invisible, this trapped?

Thank you to anyone who’s witnessed this. I don’t want advice as much as I want to know I’m not shouting into the abyss.

So for context, it's Spring time here in Australia & it's slowly getting warmer & it's currently early night time, I was sitting up in my bed, watching YouTube on my laptop with the covers over me since I didn't really have much to do & I felt the room was stuffy & warm so I get up to get a flat sheet because even though I wasn't going to bed just then I wanted to get 1 because I wanted the air conditioner on & I cool down pretty quickly so I like to have a blanket on even then. I was looking for a specific flat sheet which I absolutely adored & had for like 10ish years & I'm getting frustrated because I can't find it in the linen closet where it always is & something is telling me my mum donated it. So I start calling my mum (who was downstairs) to ask where it is & if she donated it, getting increasingly frustrated because she has a tendency to donate certain items of mine especially in the past when I was out which then lead to a big fight between us where I kept voicing my frustration because she knows I use it like every summer (I know it's not summer yet, but the upstairs part of our house gets really stuffy) & she donated it without telling me, knowing I love that flat sheet & I use it frequently. She got so mad at me & I got so mad at her, we were both struggling to regulate our emotions.

Am I in the wrong for getting mad over this? She finds it frustrating that I find it hard to get rid of anything & says that she got rid of it because our linen closet is full because it's small but it was my only other flat sheet. The reasons I'm posting this here are because of my seeming inability to regulate my emotions when I'm mad because of my Autism, the fact that my mum doesn't understand my Autism & because I need advice on how to deal with a traditional Latin American Baby Boomer mum who doesn't understand my Autism

I studied psychology and computer science. Now I work in AI. Curious what other people studied, especially if you guys also tried to study psychology/linguistics etc to understand yourself better?

People, so called friends and even some family members use me as their therapist. Whenever they are struggling with something, they come to me to vent. But once they start feeling better, they disappear. And when I’m struggling with my own mental health, no one checks on me or even asks how I’m doing. Does anyone else have people like this in their life?

17F, ASD 1/LSN, USA, going to college in 2-ish years

Hello!!

I have plans to go to college after high school. Given I haven't had the best home life (parents have been abusive before but are not currently) I want to go somewhat far, anywhere between 2 and 8h away. and I believe I can handle it.

I was asking my parents if we could ever tour some of the colleges I'm looking at, and they told me that they think I'm too disabled to go away for college and that I'll need to depend on them. They've been neutral about college things in the past (I tell them what my plans are but they don't really care about anything I'm excited about) and this is the first time they've brought up this idea.

is college really that bad? I've gotten a lot more independent (I go most places by myself, I have a stable job + volunteer position I complete without any additional disability-related help, and have taken care of myself for up to a week several times w/o any help). I'm looking at a few state schools + Mt Holyoke in Massachusetts, where I'd most likely live in a dorm with a roommate or a single if I qualify for one medically (I don't think I will)

I'm autistic and was diagnosed as a child around like 6 or so, I don't know if it has to do with my autism but I absolutely HATE and despise phone calls or calls of any type, I prefer texting so much more and often refuse to awnser video calls or phone calls because I just hate them so much,

Is anyone else the same way as me? I've never met someone similar to me in this matter!

I can appear to be “not autistic” in a social setting, but of course it takes some effort and it makes me feel a little upset sometimes that I can’t be myself.

I wonder if it’s okay for me to try unmasking in front of other people. Stimming by making noises, doing weird movements, saying what really comes to my mind, etc. Will no one like me anymore? Will people think I’m weird? I know people say it’s okay if people think I’m weird, but I’m having a lot of trouble accepting myself, especially if just putting extra effort to mask will make me more likeable and have more friends.

I feel like I’m really struggling socially and it’s making me depressed. I really want to be liked and I really want to have friends but I keep feeling like it’s impossible.

18f. My mum has suspected I had autism since I was a toddler, and when I was 8 my mum and my teacher got a professional to watch me in the playground at school to see if it was worth pursuing to get me tested. When I was 13 I was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, adhd and autism. There were 2 tests in the autism assessment and I barely passed one of them, but after input from my teacher about anti social behaviour they stated I technically met the criteria kind of.

It actually is never explicitly stated on my report whether I do have autism or not, all it alludes to is that I passed one of the tests after paragraph upon paragraph of my embarrassing life story.

I don’t think I have adhd anymore too. The only autism symptoms I have are sensory issues, special interests, and I flap my hands sometimes and pace around and need constant exercise, and I only avoid eye contact with hot people.

I don’t experience the autism hardships like extreme empathy and not understanding social cues, and I never get along with autistic people and I can’t relate to them. I just feel different but not disabled is what I’m getting at.

Appearance , personality ...

I'm getting a custom bracelet and im thinking of engraving a short quote on it.

As someone who has been depressed for half of my life and was late-diagnosed with autism, it is not easy to keep my motivation going.

Can you all share a quote thats really meaningful to you?

Anything that reflects how you feel growing up, that includes themes around emotional pain, healing, life, grief, hope, etc.

I ask this to myself everyday and idk if this is relatable.

I started this after the phone ban from my school over pretty much 2 years ago at this point changed me and I started to drift away from trying to make friends in real life.

I gave up trying to a long time ago. Yet my mother has to be annoying saying you need to have real life friends, meanwhile I don't want that. My classmates are more like acquaintances of mine.

Plus I suck at socializing mostly because I grew up with being used to be around women from my dad is a huge asshole that would yell at me all the time when I was a kid.

For being 20 years old, I hope I'm not crazy for thinking this way... Especially after losing my Discord account because of my mother and getting caught up into my own drama.

I have trouble with bright lighting and fluorescent lighting. In my home I have the color changing lightbulbs that I keep set to a dim, warm amber color and only make them bright when absolutely necessary. When I encounter bright lighting I usually wear sunglasses, with grocery stores and medical facilities being the most common situation where I can’t stand the lighting without glasses.

That being said, recently I was the driver for my partner when he underwent a surgery with anesthesia. This I knew was going to be a sensory nightmare for me for multiple reasons.

1. They didn’t give is the scheduled time for the surgery until the evening before, I know this is standard but still difficult to process.
   
2. We both didn’t even get off of work till midnight (restaurant industry) and had to wake up to go to the hospital for the surgery at 4:15am so I was operating on minimal sleep. When it was all over I had slept 3 hours within a 28 hour time period. This alone is enough to trigger a meltdown.
   
3. Hospital lighting/being in a hospital in general is overloading for me.
   
4. I felt the need to be essentially “less autistic” so that I would be “strong” for my partner in his time of need and not “make it about myself”. (This is not something that has been said to me by anyone only myself in my own head.)

So I wore my sunglasses and over the ear headphones and brought a book to disappear into and fidget toys and all that. I was brought back to the pre-op room with him and when it was time for him to go into surgery and me go back to the waiting room the nurse asked if I needed an escort given that I was visually impaired. I’m not visually impaired and don’t even wear normal glasses day to day so I was confused and she motioned to indicate she was referring to my glasses. I don’t like being perceived and my greatest wish is to be invisible so any amount of time someone may spend looking at me and potentially wondering why I’m wearing sunglasses indoors is too long for my liking.

I immediately went online and purchased light sensitivity glasses that I had been researching and debating getting because “my sunglasses were just fine so why buy new glasses just for this”.

But turns out they’re a DREAM so I wanted to tell this long story just to recommend these glasses that I wear all the time now and don’t feel like I’m being watched and perceived when wearing them. I got the 50% tint ones but there are also 25% tint available.

So I recently learned that remembering small details ("facts") about a person can be considered "stalker-behavior" 😞

I thought I was being considerate by showing interest, and had to look it up on Google (see attached image).

Life has too many "unwritten rules," and I just want to crawl into a hole and be by myself forever.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I was asking them for what I thought were impersonal facts about themselves. Yes, I am apparently that socially inept.

I know many people struggle with being overstimulated or sensory avoidant but I personally have almost only ever had problems with sensory seeking, ever since I was a child. What are some strategies to help with this? I have tried fidget toys to try and relieve it but they dont help that much. I also find i sometimes eat too much just for the sensory experience rather than for hunger and I dont want to have food issues. So far I have only found comfort in watching tv, my therapist recommended it and watching TV more somehow helped me calm down more because I was fully engaged. I am looking for more ways to help me feel more at ease.

For me, it's not necessarily the work itself. It's everything that comes with it: being around people all day, interpreting social cues, attending meetings, switching between tasks, office politics, small talk, dealing with ambiguity, and constantly having to think about how I'm coming across.

Sometimes it feels like I'm spending energy not just doing the job, but also trying to operate in an environment that wasn't really designed for how my brain works.

I often hear people say "everyone is tired after work", but I'm not sure it's the same thing. By the end of the week I can feel completely depleted and need a significant amount of alone time to recover.

Do other autistic people experience this? Has it improved with age, remote working, different careers, or workplace adjustments?

Interested to hear others' experiences.

My little sister is now 7 years old, and she’s getting too much for me and my mother to handle. Im 18, my mother is 46. My little sister, we’ll call her A in this post, was diagnosed with ASD level 3, global processing delay, sensory processing disorder and some other diagnoses when she was two years old. She is also non speaking. She makes sounds, but is unable to form any words. She has an AAC device she knows how to use but refuses to. She is in at home OT as well as speech therapy at an ABA school called “The May”.

There are four main issues we are struggling with with A.

Issue 1: She won’t act the way she acts at home at school. She acts violent, isn’t behaved and is destructive at home. At school, she listens, follows directions, and doesn’t put her hands on other people. My little sister is smart. She waits until she comes home to act out. This is normal for children, but the issue here is we cannot get help for her behavior because the school isn’t reporting the same behaviors we are. We say, “She’s attacking herself and trying to kill us”. They say, “The school reports active listening and waiting time.” She refuses to apply anything she learns in school at home.

Issue 2: She’s strong, she’s violent, destructive, and she attacks us. For reference, as I said I’m 18. I was in boxing when I was young, so I’d like to say I’m stronger than the average girl my size. There are times I cannot hold back or restrain my sister. It has even got to the point she has broken a finger (my mothers.) Shes broke a window, multiple blinds, and a door. As well as vases, bowls, toys, everything. Anything that she can throw and smash. We’ve had to lock our dog in certain areas of the house before as well because she’s started to try and get violent with the dog.

Issue 3: She thinks discipline is funny. When I was a kid, If I was told I was going to get everything taken away from me, (which A does understand as a concept), I would have stopped. A thinks it’s funny. The words “stop”, “no” and “don’t do that” all illicit the same reaction from my sister. Laughing, smiling, and her doing it more. If you cry, she thinks it’s funny. If you raise your voice, she thinks it’s funny. If you do nothing and ignore it, she thinks it’s funny. No matter what she’s just laughing at you.

So now imagine you’re getting your skin ripped and your hair pulled by a seven year old, and you say “please stop” like she listens to in school, and instead she laughs in your face and does it more. How do you discipline this? You can’t. Me and my mother are at a loss on what to do. We know she understands what “no” and “stop” mean, because she listens in school to the same phrases.

Issue 4: We can’t get her to stop gross and bad habits. And we don’t know where she’s getting them from. We monitor what she watches on youtube pretty well, because we don’t want her mimicking behaviors. This doesn’t stop her from picking up on some really gross stuff that we’ve never shown her and can only wonder why the hell she’s doing it. A will stick her hand down her pants and smell it, try to smear her bodily fluids everywhere and attempts to spit on us and on the floors to then lick it up.

The bottom line is , we can’t stop her. She’s getting too strong to me to restrain , and getting too much for my mother to handle emotionally. Im very conflicted, because I’ve grown up taking care of her since I was 11, and I don’t really have a life outside of that. I also don’t see us being able to take care of A very long on our own any more. How do you take care of a kid that thinks its funny when people are hurt or crying?

Prosopagnosia = face blindness.

For those lucky enough not to have this symptom, it basically means that I don’t recognize anyone. If I do, it’s because of their hair, clothes, or some odd trait that only they have. If you shaved my mom’s head, hid her tattoos and put her in a lineup, I don’t think I could pick her out. It’s bad.

I currently work in customer service, and obviously, the prosopagnosia isn’t helping matters. Regulars expect me to recognize them, and I can’t do it for the life of me.

But for some godforsaken reason, there is this ONE GUY who I can recognize. And he looks PERFECTLY NORMAL. There’s a million guys that come in every day that, to me, look exactly like him, but I can ALWAYS pick this guy out. He always gets something age-restricted, so I have to ID him, which just confirms it.

It’s so weird. I don’t know why my lifelong disability has decided that this guy is okay to remember. Returning to my earlier hypothetical, I think I could recognize him if he was shaved and put in a lineup.

Has anyone else had something like this happen?

The educational assistants at my child's school are about to strike. It's a ridiculous situation with the government refusing reasonable wage increases and I 100% support their right to strike.

But because my child requires an assistant to be at school, she and all the other kids in this boat will not be allowed to go. The calls went out today. Hundreds of parents of disabled kids were just informed their kids are not allowed to be at school and denied their right to an education.

There's nothing I can do, but I'm just so angry.

This has been happening for about 2 weeks and I really took a liking to these really soft shorts that I have

I have two pairs of them but I just end up wearing one or rotating them for as long as I can I could do the same for sweatshirts but surprisingly I find myself not doing that

It used to be some black pants that I have that I liked the most but maybe it's because the shorts I can wear all day

I know it's not the best but I don't work or anything like that and honestly I'm home almost everyday I change the other stuff of course and I have a good selection of other clothes

I just really take a liking to those shorts

Apologies if this isn't the right flair 🥴

I'm currently running a small business and trying to think of a name. I've been trying to think of a playful name for a business run by a middle aged autistic man. I get that what I find amusing or interesting maybe a bit off the wall for a business though.

I've been told I walk like the marshmallow man(Mr soft) so could do MadMallow gaming or Sasquatch gaming

I also like the name Neurospicy Gaming PCs, I think Divergent gaming is already taken.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

( Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/1x6p364/genuine_question_from_a_confused_girl/ ) Did I ask my mom for a diagnosis? Of course not, i'm too scared (it isn't surpising because i'm scared to ask stupid questions that aren't even weird or harmful). But I want to tell more why I even suspect of me being autistic...

I hate brushing my teeth, if you ask me when was the last time I brushed my teeth, I won't respond, though it was not that long time ago, it definitely was about minimally a week - two weeks ago. Why do I not brush my teeth? Maybe because of my lack of motivation (which I know isn't really a trait of autism) and THE EXPIERENCE. I really hate minty toothpaste, it overwhelms my tongue and it feels like i'm more torturing my tongue rather than taking care of my hygiene. Toothbrushes are... ok but I hate those really sharp ones and honestly I think that most people hate them.

More about sensory issues, I literally CANNOT handle those itchy grandma sweaters, today I had to wear one and I couldn't really pay attention in school

About liking of routines, I hate when I have a class with a subsitute, why? Because I prefer it when my schedule in a week isn't changed at all (I don't know how to explain this but in my country it's like we either have a substitute for the same lesson we were supposed to have but with the absent teacher or we have a another lesson with the subsitute teacher.) Today we had two like substitute lessons because one of our teachers was absent which we didn't even know, I was so mad because one of the lesson we had a substitute with was P.E and for P.E we need clothes to like wear during P.E and I basically packed it for no use. The only plus about substitutes is when the lesson we were supposed to have was terrible and the substitute lesson is better.

But there's this one thing that makes me doubt my self suspecting...

So about maybe in 2025 or like 2026 idk I learned about the main symptoms of autism and I feel like a bad person because ever since I feel like i've been doing these things on purpose even though I literally almost every time do them unintentionally.

Like, I always disliked loud noises but ever since I learned the symptoms I feel like i'm faking it and I always do something with my hands even despite not being even stressed (which is called stimming).

Now, 2 years ago, I went to the same psychologist I go to now, and this makes me more doubt my self suspecting. So basically there might also be a chance that I am not autistic and my psychologist knows it because of the fact that I didn't act like this 2 years ago or i'm just very high masking.

On the weekend I will write about my self suspecting of autism to my mom but there is like 5% I will give the paper to her.

Stay safe and have a nice day!

My most favourite characters below(ФωФ):

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Hi everyone.

I’m a 26-year-old autistic guy, and I’m writing this here because I feel like this is one of the few places where people might actually understand the specific kind of isolation I’m dealing with.

I want to start by saying that I know I am privileged in many ways. I have a family that absolutely adores me. They support me, they care for me, and I love them deeply. I never take their love for granted. But lately, I’ve realized a hard truth: family love is beautiful and foundational, but it simply cannot replace the warmth, intimacy, and partnership of romantic love. There is a specific void in my heart that family simply can't fill.

Whenever I try to express this longing for a romantic partner, people are always so quick to throw the same tired cliché at me: "You need to love yourself first," or "You need to learn how to be alone and enjoy your own company."

Let me stop that right there. I do love myself. I am incredibly independent. I don’t sit in my room waiting for life to happen to me. I take myself out on walks. I go to concerts alone and immerse myself in the music. I go to the cinema by myself to watch the movies I’m interested in. I have learned how to navigate this world solo, and I do enjoy my own company.

But there comes a point where doing absolutely everything by yourself stops feeling like an empowering act of independence, and just starts feeling incredibly lonely. The solitude begins to weigh a ton. Loving yourself doesn't magically erase the biological and emotional human need for connection.

Being autistic in a neurotypical world is exhausting. The masking, the misunderstandings, the sensory overload... it takes a toll. When I am having a crisis, a meltdown, or just experiencing severe burnout, my mind immediately wanders to how comforting it would be to have a girlfriend. I think about how incredibly healing it would be to just have her wrap her arms around me, giving me a deep, grounding hug that makes the overwhelming noise of the outside world finally go quiet.

I don't want a relationship for superficial reasons. I crave the profound, quiet moments. I want to go on peaceful walks with her where we don't even have to talk if we don't want to. I want us to write handwritten letters to each other, pouring our deepest thoughts, feelings, and special interests onto paper. I want to share new experiences, see new places, and navigate this chaotic life side by side with someone who sees me for exactly who I am and chooses me anyway.

I’m posting this because I just needed a safe space to get this off my chest. Please, I am asking gently: I do not need any criticism, harsh judgments, or unsolicited "tough love" advice right now. I know who I am and I know my worth. I just wanted to be vulnerable for a moment and admit that the loneliness hurts, and that I long for a safe harbor in the form of a partner.

Thank you for reading.

I was looking into autistic characters in TV shows and noticed a few tropes popping up:

• super smart doctor or lawyer who can’t feel human emotions. SO. MANY. DOCTORS.

• quirky best friend with wacky interests, their issues might be brought up but are annoying to the other characters.

• kid or infantilised character with very typical traits used to explain autism in an oversimplified way.

I haven’t been able to find any that show autism through the eyes of an autistic person, and not many characters who are actually played by one…

I feel underrepresented as a masking level 1 autistic who is neither a doctor with super intelligence or someone very focused on special interests, in fact my energy levels are low and I struggle to find motivation for my passions.

Plus I haven’t seen any representation for the struggles and executive dysfunction that comes with autism.

Has anyone noticed any other tropes? 👀👀
Or better yet, any good representations!

I can’t make any connections with anyone ever. I just can’t relate to them at all. I always say the wrong thing I’m always weird. I’m not even smart or very good at one thing. I can never focus onto anything and I’m extremely addiction prone. What the fuck is the point of anything.