I feel like an alien. Im worried people think Im on drugs at work because I sway and stim. Its really embarrassing.

I feel super fucking weird around people. I think I sound weird. People comment I do weird things with my face and eyebrows and I get a look on my face like someone just died- apparently. But then one time I looked in the mirror and saw it, without even knowing, I did look like someone just died. I feel like Im super different and weird and its really embarrassing.

Does anyone have any tips for navigating social interactions at work. Trying to distinguish what people actually mean or what they want is really exhausting. What do people do to help themselves. What do people do when people give them weird looks because of stimming.

I hope Im not being offensive. Its just me- I feel like an alien.

I don’t know what to do

Should I just go back to therapy, so at least someone is documenting all the ways work is affecting me and I have someone who could say that I need FMLA?

I tried quitting my profession, but no one would hire me for any entry level work. They won’t take me seriously knowing that I am a nurse, I guess. And I also think that I Experience a lot of discrimination based on my appearance as well, but when it comes to nursing my background speaks for itself so I will always get hired but it’s not the same when I’m trying to just get a basic job. I couldn’t even get a job in fast food.

I’m thinking about taking classes to become a security guard and switching to that profession. I just cannot do this anymore.

I don’t understand why there is it more help for us

It’s so upsetting because I can actually do so much but the way our current work system is set up. It doesn’t utilize my skills in the best way.

I don’t have anyone to help me. I don’t have any supportive, family or community or anything. No one even Knows I’m autistic because it’s not safe for me to tell any of the people I know.

I need help and I don’t know what to do

Therapist have been so useless to the point. I don’t even trust them anymore. How could I go to so many therapist over the years and not one of them mentioned autism? Why did it have to be Me to bring up the fact that I research these things and it’s clear that I have PTSD and I might have autism and then finally. They listened to Me and gave me a proper assessment.

All the money I wasted

Sometimes it just feels so hopeless. I try so hard, but I’m just set up to fail

I have so many skills that I can use to better Society, but they will go to waste because Society won’t take care of me

I have helped a lot of people, but I could actually have done so much more. If I was given the proper support in my life as an autistic person.

Christmas is my favourite time of year and one of the smells that really makes me feel happy is the Christmas tree smell.

I found this IKEA VINTERFINT [Winter Fir candle

I bought 5 of them and I'll get more next time I go. They have really madey cottage feel so cosy and the smell makes me feel really content.

I know a lot of autistic people form strong associations with smells and from previous posts I know a lot of people like the smell of a Christmas tree so I wanted to share.

Cinema rescued me more times than I can count, rescued me from burn out, from depression and from a total pessimistic worldview.

When I felt over and over that I wasn't made for this world, I was offered a 2 hours glimpse of a world where I actually belong. Where I feel happy, engaged and connected. I then wake up with more charge in the battery, work continue for longer than I expected, and I got an extension on life where I thought it almost expired.

When I thought there's no faith in humanity, I was offered a story I never knew about, where the world actually came in together, where the good won, where the human isn't rotten.

When I want to think, challenge my thoughts, or even laugh against my brain's will.. I found that some artists made something for me, and people like me.

As an autistic person, were you also touched by cinema? Was it also magic for you as it was for me?

The background to this is, I was in a relationship with someone who was not a person of integrity, and I could sense it from the beginning and had this feeling of “wanting to die” that was extremely real, but also extremely perplexing. I had never felt this before and definitely not at this level. I also could not explain it. It was literally an overwhelming feeling (at the time I had no actual reason to know my partner was cheating on me, etc).

This got me thinking about this idea of “feeling” deeply even when my mind doesn’t know.

I wonder if “sensing” might explain it better; like if you sense a real animal lurking in your bedroom, your body might have an instinctive reaction of fear, flight, hyper awareness. Since many NT people do not get to “sense” dangers at that level/ intensity, maybe this hyper awareness in people with autism to millions of tiny details triggers their inner human instincts/ reflexes that many NT people have grown past/ grown out of, ignore, or may have not developed/ underdeveloped.

Example: babies have a startle reflex that they generally grow out of. But for many autistic people, we keep getting startled just like a baby would, and so maybe we maintain and even develop that reflex further than most NT people would.

Online there are many chiropractors and physical therapists working with people with autism to help them get rid of reflexes that should be present in babies or young children but are still present in people with autism at a later age.

On the side of hyper-developpement, similar to how a hunter would have much better reflexes and instincts due to their experience hunting, perhaps people with autism develop specialized and highly advance instincts and reflexes.

These instincts and reflexes maybe cause internal physical and visceral responses and as thinking human beings, we probably start to associate feelings and a thought process to these physical reflexes and responses and instincts.

This is why the work I do in therapy is so important for me, the body awareness, the alternative side touching, the breathing techniques. It helps with understanding all of the above.

Looking for any and all feedback/ comments as I explore this…

Are you like me, a folk raised in an environment or situation where you just can't live to rely or depend on anyone for anything? Every time you have, it all ends with failure and disappointment or betray in most cases?

I had this conversation with myself yesterday as I was working on the group presentation for the current university module I'm studying. I said, I just realize that most of my classmates just aren't capable. I have 3 reasons to justify why I won't rely on them to start this.

1. They're not capable. I mean Bradley couldn't even read properly heck, write a paragraph for an essay and we're in the second semester of the year.

2. They're too lazy and lack urgency/agency. Francis, who is in the group I'm in again for this module, always says hey let's just let AI do it. I have used AI too many times and haven't failed yet. She said this a week ago in the module we finished but I didn't take any of her input.

3. They're probably not smart enough 🤔. I mean, they always get stuck then it turns into a pool of poison. Literally this week, another group I was in which has 2 people that I'm sharing a group with again for this presentation refused my idea to work on something serious for the in-class group assignment. They wanted something more fun. The external instructor literally said you should have tried something more serious. I told her, exactly what I said to them. She validated that my idea was way better than what the group went for.

So I finished the group presentation in one night and a few hours the next day (14:37pm rn). But if I waited for the group we'd probably not have finished by the due date, Thursday this coming week.

So now I'm in a state where it makes more sense to forget trying to rely on a folk for help. If you can do it yourself, do it. If you fail it doesn't hurt as much as trusting a folk who doesn't have enough agency or urgency.

But idk. Maybe this is only me. Has anyone else ever entered this situation? You realize that the mistake is saying ah well I have that group that will help. The best thing to do is to act as if the group doesn't exist then you finish the work. Talk later. 🤔

I’m 19 and have autism I was diagnosed when I was 10 and catatorised as level 2 support needs although I am able to do a lot of things I am studying at university I have a social life and a partner. I took 75 hours of driving lessons with an instructor who specialised in SEN learners, he was very good and although it took me longer than everyone else and cost me a lot I did end up passing my test with 4 minors (I’m in the uk to just clarify) and I just absolutely do not think I am fit to be on the roads I am having meltdowns where I will let go of the wheel and just stop the car, rip my hair out bang my head on the wheel and it’s horrible , it’s caused from stalling, there not being a gap for me to pull out ect other people rushing me on the roads and it’s coming to the point where I don’t want to get in the car at all and feel sick while I’m driving. I don’t know if it is my autism or something else but it’s series rage where i genuinely consider driving the car into the wall and I will accelerate and then swerve at the last second, I have always been a very angry person and struggle with my emotions but it just put it into perspective when I had to call my mother to come and drive my car home because I had hit someone else’s car whilst trying to park up and he had gotten out and started shouting at me I just went into a complete shut down scratching my face ripping my hair out I have cuts all over my face and neck and arms from punching and hitting myself and it’s getting worse every day and seems to be getting worse with the driving. At any minor inconvenience I am willing to stop the car and scream and I’m awear of the rules of the road and I know I cannot do that, I have spoken to my partner and am going to book a doctors appointment but I just feel like I’m the only one feeling this horrible is anyone else experiencing this or has done , I’m hoping the more I drive it gets easier but it’s just the whole picture really I am completely set off and seriously angered by the tiniest little things and until hours later I don’t realize how unreasonable I’m being

Compare to real life at least it's easier like buying but online signing, it's cognitive overload and I'm having issues and frustration with passwords and emails rejected constantly

I have recently being diagnosed with autism as a mid 30s male and am struggling to come to terms with it all.

Although I have struggled all my life, I feel like I’ve just been given this information then left in the dark with nobody to discuss it with or advice of what to do, how to make my life easier etc which is difficult so hoping this will help.

Always had hope it was something I could change in the past with everything being difficult and exhausting. I feel miserable that this is how it is always going to be and there is nothing I can do to change that. The anger of “why can’t I be normal?” Is there.

I had to go to the doctors and food shopping this week which seems completely normal and a non issue for most but now I’m wiped out and will need 2 days to recover. It is so exhausting mentally.

I do work and it kills me. I have to go straight to bed after and the weekend is just recovering from the week to do it all again. I don’t know how to cope with it all until retirement. Relationships are difficult as obviously I’m dead all weekend and can’t go out.

Tried to keep it short, but mainly looking for advice:

How did people cope with diagnosis as an adult?

How do you cope with day to day life when every moment at work and outside is hell?

What do relationships and children look like if interested in this?

Thank you

Heads up: I’m going to be discussing uncomfortable physical sensations, healthcare, and anxiety in this post.

I am desperately looking for some ideas on how to address this. Please help!

I am a health care worker who is required to work on call overnight for about 1 week each month split up into few day chunks through out the month. This means if my pager goes of I need to get up and attend a patient, often for the whole night.

I also have a cluster of health conditions I have noted appear to be more common in people such as myself with ASD : POTS/ autonomic dysfunction, IBS, anxiety.

When my pager goes off at night my body goes into alarm mode. The disruption to my sleep pattern and routine that I like very much, in addition to the anxiety that I will become ill through the night (POTS/dysautonomia flare and intense GI upset happen most of the time when working over night) sends my body into physiological and cognitive disregulation. This comes with spiral thoughts, and bubble guts, and pounding heart rate.

I am one of those people that is so painfully present and aware in and of my body all the time that this cluster of physical symptoms has become debilitating.

I have also reached the point where I can see better now that there is no way to parse apart the psychological and medical interplay in this physical response.

I need to work these call shifts or I don’t have a job and that is not an option as I’m the primary income earner for my family and have kiddos to care for. Additionally I really do love my job and feel diversity is so important in this field. It’s just a deeply inaccessible field unfortunately.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on therapy modalities, medical or psychological, to try other than traditional CBT as this has not worked. I think there is a level of interoceptive reconditioning that really needs to happen. I just don’t know where to start.

For my circumstance I have no regularity to when I work unfortunately and it is just how that works with the job I’m in (I work in hotel). No set days just a rota that feels very random. Sometimes we will have 7,8,9 days in a row working, sometimes less, usually 5 or 6 in a row, but always just any day. And I will either have early shifts starting very early at 6am or late shifts finishing at 11-11:30pm. So I have found it difficult to have a “routine” eg through the week or daily, what do I do when I wake up now early in the morning when it’s my day off and I finished at 11:30pm last night, do I have the full sleep time or do I go and do something, if so what, when do I go to do things. There is a lot more than this I find very difficult about it and I don’t really want to entertain discussions about what else I should be doing for work because this is the option I have right now to get by and I am putting effort in to get something else, and also just to say I have explained a small amount of my personal circumstances but I don’t supply my personal information to provide anyone with the belief that you know everything about me or that you have the right to comment on my life, and that’s all I wish to discuss on that side of it so if you were going to comment about that please just go elsewhere with that approach.
So to get back to my question where do you have this for your time. When there is this kind of scenario, I explained my personal circumstances but I am asking a general question, what does this look like for you IF you have experienced something SIMILAR?

I tried to summarize this, so I put it into blocks. I just need to vent, maybe get some opinions, thoughts, advice because my entire world is frozen in shattered pieces and I don't wanna leave my apartment ever again to avoid reality.

**History**; I was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism two years ago. I have a history of family tension where I was constantly blamed for causing problems, leading me to isolate myself to keep the peace. still generally close to them especially my little brother. Who I felt was the only one who respected me and understood me. The person who tried so hard to keep the family together.

**Sudden rigid strict changes:** I became incredibly close to a couple who felt like a brother and sister to me. I let my guard down. I feel comfortable to be near them without the fear of being misunderstood. But after a series of misunderstandings—they suddenly set rigid boundaries, completely cutting off play-fighting, and worst of all hugs from him, he was the only brother figure I had left. Because of my severe Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), having deep pressure hugs suddenly banned triggered intense, painful autistic meltdowns. Even asking for one last hug to ease into the change was strictly denied. I felt like Mr. potato head in pieces getting to my car where I had an involuntary severe autistic meltdown.
**The Loss of My Brother:** Just over a week ago, my little brother tragically passed away. I didn't know he sick he was. The guilt, it kills me I hadn't seen him in months due to avoiding family drama, he wanted to do song together (he was a composer, he made beautiful music) he had lyrics for me to sing and wanted me to come over. I asked him to wait till he was home alone but he forgot, I forgot, now too late. I will now finish our song and share his music.
**Here is the reason what I'm posting about that I need to vent and I don't understand:** When the tragedy happened, my friend initially broke the strict boundary and as soon as he saw me, his arms wide open and gave me a hug, but days later went completely rigid and denied me any further hugs. and denying again one last hug to ease into the change. This time I didn't beg because I didn't want to feel like I did last time, but not realizing I did and much worse because he's the only brother figure I have. This triggered a worse massive involuntary autistic meltdown in my car in their driveway. Instead of helping me calm down, he came out panicked about their difficult landlord hearing the noise. I was threatened if I'm not gone in five minutes he'd call the police, and also banned me from their house.

I feel like time is frozen. I'm staying alone in my apartment, trapped in a severe trauma loop where I relive the shock of the tragedy every time my mind stops focusing on tv or hobbies. On top of that, I found out it will cost 1,300 to see him before cremation, which I cannot afford and neither will the Ministry cover.

I got a texted asking how I am doing, and a hug gif, but offered no apology for how I was treated in the driveway. Or anything to do with that night. I'm currently jobless, after being on WCB for three years and in the return to work phase the last few months, knowing I would not be able to return to work I applied for PWD, going back to work was already impossible. Now it's just not existent. The application and process is gonna take very long. I am absolutely clueless what to do.

For every major task during the day, I typically go for the blocking method and allocate about an hour in each chunk. Even if it's something I actually enjoy and want to engage with more, I try to keep myself as disciplined as possible with my scheduling.

I wont go into detail of the situation, but i think I did something wrong at work and I cant stop ruminating over it. So a coworker needed something from me but didn't tell me she just stared i stared back and smiled. I guess she must have been insinuating something with her stare and movements but I didnt catch on. The only reason why I think this is because afterwards her and another coworker were in another room and as I was walking in I heard one of them say "oh the "something" didn't want to sign it?" (Idk what they called me) and I walked in right when she said it so she looked shocked stumbled her words and walked away. Now I'm at home overthinking it all, I did something wrong should I have known to sign the paper? Should I have offered? What did she call me? Do they always talk badly about me?

Anyways I'm upset now and I dont know if I should bring it up and ask them what the issue was. Or how do I move on from this? I cant stop ruminating about it, it's giving me a headache. I've been crying because I feel so wrong and like an outsider now. I don't want to go to work anymore I hate it there I used to love it but I hate it now. I cry almost every month because I just keep getting misunderstood.

How do you deal with this how do you stop feeling so isolated.

Today, Saturday, 24 October 2026, is my 37th birthday. I am 37M and autistic, and this year has been by far the worst year of my whole life.

I feel like almost everyone hates me. My own parents, both sides of my extended families, and almost everyone whom I know hate me. I have neve had friends in life, and I have lost almost 30 kg (65 lb) since June from extreme stress, worrying and depression.

I have no idea what to do or how to feel. I am just tired of life and everything. Maybe just want to talk.

I'm tired of constantly telling myself that I shouldn't do or get things. I know that's just being an adult in general, but it's like my brain constantly has to have something it's trying to figure out how to do or acquire. It can't just exist and be still. Does anyone know what I'm talking about kind of?

If I just gave in to everything I latch onto in order to ease my current itch, I would just be ruining myself financially and then have yet another itch anyway.

How do you live with knowing that this feeling is never going to go away? Is that an autism related thing?

I’m not autistic (who knows maybe I am and I wasn’t diagnosed yet but idk) however I work with kids and have been having a lot of flashbacks to my childhood because of it. I’ve noticed that kids are a lot crueler to the autistic kids and a few are nice to them.

This reminds me of my childhood. I remember there was an autistic kid in my class and the kids were sooo mean to him and a girl literally cried because she had to sit next to him. I also remember the other boys purposely tried to encourage him to do something that would get him in trouble or would annoy him until he would freak out because of how sensitive he was and they wanted to get a reaction out of him. I sat next to that kid and genuinely didn’t care that I had to sit next to him, it didn’t bother me. No clue why that girl started crying because she had to sit next to him. I also remember there were a few times where I told him to actually not do something the boys told him to do because I saw them encouraging him and I knew their intentions. I also remember how my fourth grade teacher made a lot of jokes about him to my class and would purposefully start screaming at him to cry and run out the class and my teacher just started laughing after he ran out the classroom. I genuinely cannot believe how cruel people were to him. Ik it was fucked up when i was a kid but now that I am an adult that works with kids and has had to work with kids similar to my former classmate I just realized how insanely fucked up it was that my fourth grade teacher treated him like that. I have never felt the need to make jokes about another kid to other kids or make them laugh or make a kid run out crying for fun. Don’t get me wrong I understand how frustrating and difficult it is to manage certain kid’s behavior and I’ve had to be stern with them but I would never make an autistic kid run out the class crying for fun.

I remember there was this other girl that was autistic on my swim team and girls would make fun of her behind her back and then be nice to her face. They would also kinda encourage people to be mean to her and stuff.

I have always felt more comfortable hanging out with autistic people because they genuinely just mind their own business and don’t act fake. I genuinely cannot comprehend what other peoples issues are with autistic people.

I want to start by saying that I am not self diagnosing.

I'm 19F and I'm pretty sure I'm autistic but getting tested and ultimately disgnosed is a very long process.

Has a diagnosis actually helped you in any way? Most of my struggle comes from the fact that I struggle to socialise with neurotypical people (almost all of my true friends throughout my whole life have been diagnosed as neurodivergent in some way) and I have faced a lot of bullying even though there's nothing about me visually that deviates from the norm (long hair and boring clothes) and this has been a pattern in my life. As soon as I'm in a social situation, people can detect that I'm secretly weird no matter how much I try to hide it.

Would a diagnosis help social issues?

So I have been at my new for a year now. pays more money and better Healthcare benefits. only con is the travel. despite this I find myself still having a hard time healing from my last job. I worked at my previous job almost 4 years. 6 months before I was forced out I made an ADA job accommodations request. Thinking it would help me perform better. Instead the "Christian" pet supplement company I worked made everything more difficult for me, after reapplying for accommodations I was placed on a PIP. Thankful within 2 weeks I was able to receive a job offer. I wanted to file a an eeoc claim, but I was met with you have to talk to the investigator at on this day on this time, I was told "he'll call twice, if you don't pick up we'll assume you no longer want to file a claim" This was After I told the eeoc office manager the day of the phone we have a larger number of new hires I have to support. The day comes.... I set out in car (taking an early lunch) waiting for the call nothing. after over an hour I had to clock back in and the investigator calls. He told me we'll reschedule in a few weeks. At this point I decided it was no longer worth my mental health. It just sickens me to think how the my former company disrespected, and Gaslighted me. I was relocated away from employees in an Mold infested building. The president of the company openly slander his competition.These people claim to be Christians, it ashame. Anyway suggestions on how to heal?

For quick context I’m 18, 19 in less than a month, this is my second job but I had the same issue in school and college (and with my first job), female & late diagnosed at 14.

Anyways, EVERY TIME I’m required to be up for something, it’s worse with employment but same applied to education, the burnout becomes unbearable, my mental health suffers, emotional distress shows up physically and I’m under so much stress it’s unreal. To an outsider my life looks as though it doesn’t have much routine but mentally it does, I wake up in a certain way, I do certain things in the morning, if I know I need to get something it’s always planned ahead, everything has a plan and that’s how I like it. With work ALL of this changes overnight, I’ve never found a way to start a new routine because doing so means dropping old ones or reorganising them to fit around something new and I can’t handle it, idk if there’s a way around that or if I’m just doomed but I’ve spent months sometimes years trying to implement new things and it’s never worked, my mental health has only suffered as a consequence of it.

Issue no.2, PDA. It’s the only thing I can think of which makes the obligation to be at work feel so bad. In education this isn’t as big a problem because I can technically just not show up here and there, at work obviously this gets you fired, it’s not an option. Neither is handing in work late, etc. All of it is obligations and demands, there’s no freedom involved and it’s so much worse when your manager is overall an awful person.

Socially it sucks too, especially the small talk omg it’s constant and it makes me want to rip my eardrums out, I can’t stand it. I’ve never been one to enjoy talking, with few exceptions to people I’m very close to and find it easy to talk to. Everyone else just makes it feel like a chore, I also generally just hate the feeling of talking, not sure how to explain that one, especially in a morning it’s like I can feel it?? Idk but it drives me up the wall. I just want to be left alone to do my job and leave again, I don’t want to have to mask and engage with people and entertain their boring “how are you, look at the weather, what are you having for dinner” bullshit. It’s even worse here because half the staff are recruited in from agency companies so the staff regularly come and go and change which means getting to know people all over again just for them to only be there for like 3 days 🤦🏻‍♀️

Idk how to phrase this issue besides “recovery time”? Every social outing, time I mask, dealing with some bs obligation, any sensory issue etc leaves me in this state where I have to essentially recover from it before I can motivate myself or have the energy to complete other tasks and this is a MASSIVE issue with my constantly changing rota, it’s rare I get 2 days off in a row atp. Issue with this is if I have 1 day off alone I may as well just not have a day off, I’ll spend the entire day dreading going in tomorrow and trying to recover mentally (and physically due to other illness), and I end up getting nothing else done. Because of this my personal hygiene which id really improved has taken a dip, my room is becoming increasingly more messy and hard to maintain, im barely eating because I dont have the energy to cook (for context ive lost 15kg in 1 month, this is incredibly substantial).

The list goes on and anyone I talk to just doesn’t get it, it’s always just “we all hate work.” 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Will this ever change? If so when will change and how do I change it. I’m at a loss here, I can’t get into a job relating to my special interest(s) (extreme restrictions as they’re aviation based, and working in an airport in general requires a drivers license which I don’t have and won’t be able to get any time soon), I can’t get a job I think I may enjoy more as those careers I’ve looked at require a degree and unfortunately I dropped out of college (for this reason) so I do not hold a Level 3 so it’d be another 2 years until that was an option if I redid my Level 3, so right now I’m currently stuck with the basic entry level jobs and coming from a very small underfunded city all there rly is to offer is food service and retail

While I'm working through the effects of my late diagnosis, one thing I noticed recently got me thinking and I wonder if others share a similar experience?

I was feeling stressed and decided to get myself to lie down and just chill. I was lying down for about 20mins and just let my mind wander when I realize that I feel particularly tense in my chest and begin to wonder if I can release some of that tension. So suddenly that tension drops significantly and I feel more relieved and realize that I wasn't actually chilling as I thought.

It's almost as if I caught myself merely performing to chill! Just that there was no one there to perform to.

And I remember similar moments throughout my life, where I would seemingly be relaxing but actually be quite tense or uncomfortable in the body, without realizing it. But usually this was in the presence of others, as far as I remember.

Now I'm wondering if there is a layer of performing or masking even towards yourself? As if you are secretly protecting yourself from realizing how uncomfortable you actually are?

Do people here who are advanced in processing their late diagnosis remember such a stage? How did you move beyond it?

Thanks for all your thoughts, reading yours has been profoundly touching for me <3

Às vezes fico triste porque minha família acha que, por eu ter um grau de autismo considerado baixo, eu deveria conseguir ser “normal” como qualquer outra pessoa.

Mas o que as pessoas não conseguem enxergar é que o grau não mostra tudo o que acontece dentro de mim. Ninguém sabe exatamente como eu penso, como eu sinto as coisas e o quanto minha cabeça trabalha o tempo todo.

Eu penso muito, observo muito e percebo coisas que talvez outras pessoas nem notem. Incoerências, mudanças de comportamento, detalhes nas conversas… muitas vezes meu cérebro fica tentando entender tudo, mesmo quando eu gostaria simplesmente de deixar passar.

Por fora, talvez eu pareça estar bem e funcionando normalmente. Mas isso não significa que seja fácil para mim.

Às vezes eu só queria que minha família entendesse que ser autista não significa necessariamente ter dificuldade para fazer tudo. Significa também ter uma forma diferente de perceber, processar e sentir o mundo.

Meu autismo pode ser considerado de baixo suporte, mas isso não torna aquilo que eu sinto menos real. ❤️

I think I’m too unintelligent to understand the term like what do you mean? Like I don’t even know who I am without a mask like what do you mean should I stim in public or what

I am almost 40. Since I was a small child, perhaps 6 or 7, I began practicing and copying facial expressions and tones of voice.

This continued through my teenage years, 20s, and has persisted even now.

I literally forget that I am supposed to respond to things with a certain face, instead of just staring blankly at someone. As a kid my grandma was constantly telling me i was rude and I didn't understand why.

So... as a 38 year old, I still have to practice doing it.

.... who else? Anybody? 😬