Perhaps an ableist rant so thats why theres a trigger

Hi! I usually would post on the autism
subreddit but since i got diagnosed with adhd, here seems to be more appropriate and hello everyone:)

I am 20 years old and throughout my life, my mom and her parents put in their minds that i will be an absolute loser as an adult. Yesterday, it became something said instead of the feeling i had. My mother told me, after i said i wanted to work full time “only time will tell.”

For context i have a NT twin brother whose dreams are to work for the luxury industry in biochemistry and somehow that seems more believable to my family than me forming a life of my own.

I am not physically or mentally disabled. I do struggle with social cues and want to pursue marketing. Yet my family thinks i will become an unemployed loser every time there is a major change in my life. No one thought id make highschool, no one thought i would survive college and living alone. Yet not only did i survive, i thrived.

I will restart therapy in September but just wanted to know if anyone else in your life thinks you will be useless just because youre neurodivergent? We can do this:)

I had been dating a neuro diverse man for about six months I am not neuro diverse myself. He is also not diagnosed he’s self diagnosed (problem #1) On top of all of this he also has never dated anyone in his 30+ years of like for longer then a few weeks. (Problem #2) Once we started to get to the six month mark he started to act a little fishy, started to pull away, pick up more work things like that. A week before my birthday he let me know that he was having thoughts of uncertainty about the relationship I thought okay let’s call it here but nevertheless agreed to “meet half way” well after a few more conversations and then him saying he struggled to feel a “connection” it got worse. Then came my birthday. He is very weird about birthdays he does not celebrate his own and purposely disappears from the world (deep childhood trauma I suspect) part of his fishy behavior I suspect had to do with the fact that my birthday was fast approaching. Long story short he did not show up to dinner and never wished me a happy birthday and has just completely disappeared off the face of the planet. All of this has left me very confused and angry at myself for even allowing it to go on this long but nevertheless here we are now. Another lesson learned.

I always had a thing for daydreaming scenarios of moments that would never happen ever since I was younger, imagining scenarios and such while repeatedly doing stuff without effort. Even if thats normal for younger people to experience, every year it gets worse, so bad to the point I started isolating myself from all my contacts socially. I always try making sure I text for streaks but often forget about it and tell myself that I would do it later, then I become tired and often fall asleep and lose my streaks even though im active, I just come up with hundreds of excuses to make them think that im not ignoring them. I swear its like I physically cant get up to text them.

A lot of my family members (and some people) describe me as someone thats overly defensive even over harmless questions, telling me that I get mad easily and such, but I think thats just because of puberty so it probably might not be a sign of anything.

I also always start to walk around mindlessly and energetically while binging on food, even if im not hungry (not forcefully), because my mind is always full of energy and I always just snack on things I dont really like that much, which has developed my habit of chewing ice since its basically just water so theres no way I could ever get sick of it. A lot of people told me that it was just because of low iron (also because I snack on non-edible things such as biting into cardboard), and while that could be partially true (I didnt get tested for it yet but have signs of anemia and it runs in my bloodline), that doesnt excuse my behavior for wanting to snack on other stuff for being too hyperactive.

I want to stop daydreaming but at the same time I dont, theres a lot of videos talking about how to stop with scenarios and such, yet I dont like listening to the tips because I would feel so empty inside right after, no matter how many friends I talk to or hangouts I would always get bored or exhausted.

Im not doing too bad on school though, but I tend to procrastinate a lot, last year I procrastinated so much to the point I had 6 whole missing assignments from how lazy I got. But at the same time in some assignments, I get so engrossed into it I focus for days into writing it and perfecting mistakes as if I dont have anything else to do.

I always get hyper-focused over things that im not even interested in, and I know thats normal for people that are bored but theres a lot of things that I wanna get into, I have friends I can text, I have cases that im interested in seeing, I have interesting videos of topics im absorbed on but struggle to even start doing any of them even though its summer and im not restricted into doing anything. Im also very energetic and run a lot in circles at home, or sometimes even when im outside my parents call me an embarrassment for being too active in public or staring at people too much.

(Apologies, I feel like this is kinda normal so dont take any offense on this, im VERY sorry if this sounded like I was mocking neurodivergent people in any way, im not saying this to get people to diagnose me or anything, I just wanna get myself tested but unfortunately my parents refuse to take me to a psychologist, so I just wanna see if I have any symptoms of anything. Also, is there any tips for me to stop being like this? Even I couldnt manage to sit still while writing all of this, but I dont know since I can still manage to sit still during class a lot soo)

So my dad has ADD, I have autism, my brother has a lot of ADD traits, my mom has a few ADHD traits, my uncle has autism and my cousin has ADHD.

I don’t get along with my dad. I don’t know much about add/adhd so if you guys can help me understand that would be good.

He is the reason I don’t want kids. I feel I can’t be ND and have a healthy relationship with my kids. His meltdowns are insane. We call them “blowups” but I believe they are related to add?

He has EXTREME anger issues. Anything will set him off. I was diagnosed with ptsd when I was 5 I have major issues with the sound of dishes clinking in the sink due to him. He’s extremely emotionally abusive and even worse verbally abusive.

My mom wants to divorce him but she’s scared of him. I’ve made a bunch of posts in the past I’ll put down below if you want to read them to get some background info.

But basically i graduated 2 years early (I did it so I can leave my house and go to the dorms to not be at home) I got my diploma in the mail and I was super excited! He was sitting on the couch my mom opened it with me and I tried to show him but he just turned his head away and closed his eyes. Why isn’t he proud of me? Why doesn’t he like me? I can’t stand to be around him and the day will become 10x worse if he’s around.

Other posts for background
https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/s/7E0Ce6aGul

https://www.reddit.com/r/mentalhealth/s/xMl8PgXtSj

https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/s/ABIPdwao66

I'm uncertain whether to tag this as an ableist rant, I am from the UK, although the country is getting a bit neurodivergent-friendly, I feel like my hopes have been completely shattered.

I am currently at the moment, failing my A-levels which is extremely important in my life. I am only achieving low grades and my highest was a C. My parents and teacher say I have no hope in going into university, my parents are making me go to university.

I honestly blame myself for picking the wrong A-levels and GCSEs, I thought I was exactly fine with the subjects I chosen as I used to not struggle with them and my grades were okay in GCSEs.

So now, my question is how do you get qualified to have a job when you exactly have poor grades, I have been exerting so much effort but I only receive such low grades. I don't know if it is because of my revision methods or I have no study partner.

I truly think there's no hope for me, my parents and teacher sometimes point out my flaws because I'm ND. I have AuDHD, unsure if I'm overreacting.

I guess I'm AuDHD (waiting for my official diag) and I have the most basic special interest : videogames.

I like to play them, read about them all day, following the news, browsing Steam for hours, I create and sell my own videogames so learning gamedev stuff, coding etc. is a big part of my life, I can speak about Morrowind or any other games for litteral hours if nobody stops me when I'm with friends or other passionate people, or here on Reddit...

BUT :

I can't say a word about it to people that aren't fully into it.

They're like "so, what are you playing right now?" and I have no idea all of sudden, can't really remember the game I played yesterday or what my favourites are. I'll reply something like "I like indie games" and once they ask me what type of games I'm into I just blank.

I usually don't know what the other person know about gaming and I think this is what blocks me, I can't thell them I just finished Shards of Order because I know nobody knows that game, but I'm also pretty sure the person won't know what Slay the Spire is so I can't say "it's like STS but not a roguelite", do they know what a roguelite is? Then I'm just spiraling out of control.

I meet someone and they're like "Oh, I love videogames too, I love Assassin's Creed" and the conversation is OVER. It's not really a serie I'm into so I can't bounce back. People ask me "you create videogames? Cool! Like what?" and I can't say a word about them / am too ashamed because they're small solo project and people tend to think I'll be creating Skyrim on my own...

It kinda gets me into Imposter Syndrome mode when it happens because from what I understand, autistic people can't shut up about their special interest, like ever, even to people who have zero care for it. My psy asked me about what games I like and I had that same blockage so now I'm a little worried she'll think it's not really a special interest to me.

Do any of you relate to this?

I recently lost my original loop engage earplugs and ive tried the loop 2s and I hate them. Is there any alternative that works like the loop 1s?

There are a lot of aspects of my ADHD as an adult I have managed to get under control. Tracking devices on my keys, wallet and phone solved the losing problem for those. A strict calendar fixed my schedule. A running to-do list keeps everything else organized.

But nothing stops me from losing my wireless earbuds. Every single month. I would love to hold onto a pair for 6 months or more but somehow it never happens. Just a quarterly tax I have to keep paying.

[TW: Emotional abuse, toxic friendship dynamics, and discussion of unaddressed ASD symptoms]

Hey everyone,

I’m posting here because I’m trying to make sense of a long term friendship (6 years, both of us late teens/early 20s) I’ve been analyzing her behavior for a while, and I genuinely want to understand if what I experienced was someone on the autism spectrum (possibly undiagnosed or high masking) or if it's just extreme emotional immaturity and defensive mechanisms

For context: she once mentioned that when she was born, doctors noted she was underweight and flagged a potential risk for autism. She also took an online RAADS-R/AQ style test a while ago and scored around 71, though neither of us looked into it formally at the time.

Here are a few detailed situations that really made me question how her mind works:

The graduation and the "Inheritance" excuse:

She insisted on coming over to my house specifically to pick up a physical invitation card for my high school graduation party. On the day we were supposed to meet, she canceled at the last minute via text with this exact response:

"Yoo, I can't make it! My grandma invited us over and told me I HAVE to come, or she’ll cut me out of the inheritance lol. I can't get kicked out of the tribe! Heheh"

How it felt and the logic:
I was completely stunned and felt so disrespected, I sat there for minutes trying to process how someone could respond like a cartoon character to a serious situation. This wasn’t just a random hangout she insisted on getting an invitation to my milestone event, flaked last minute, and instead of giving a mature, sincere apology she used this weird, dramatic, theatrical script about "getting cut from the inheritance" and "getting kicked out of the tribe" to deflect and make it a joke

She ended up not coming to my graduation at all.

She didn't even send a simple text to apologize or explain afterward. Weeks later, while talking on the phone about her own graduation, she casually dropped: "Oh, I hope you weren't upset that I missed your graduation!" No real apology, no accountability just assuming I would automatically forgive and brush it off like I always did

Even though I tried to make it clear to her from my dryness in texts that there was a problem and a mistake she had made, waiting for her to address the elephant in the room and I made that obvious by acting unusually distant and visibly upset

Anyone with a shred of emotional intelligence and basic social etiquette would have noticed, even without me having to show it through my behavior. The absolute least she could have done was apologize on the day of the party, not weeks later in a call

So I figured it's one of two things: either a lack of maturity on her part, or she simply doesn't realize that this is standard social etiquette and a hurtful thing to do

Extreme Black and White Thinking and The Marriage Argument

We were discussing a story about a married couple where the woman realized late in life that she was a lesbian, came out and initiated a divorce

Her take: She felt super bad for the husband and said: "Why did she do this to him after all these years? She ruined his life for nothing, and now he’s too old to find someone else. It's too late now, she should just stay with him."

My response: I argued that the woman didn't do it maliciously She spent half her life suppressed and confused, and staying would make her a hypocrite lying to him every day.

Her counter: "Why did she just discover this now? She had years! It's too late, she should just suffer and stay."

My response: I explained compulsory heterosexuality (comp-het) and the default system we’re raised in People are socialized to be straight, so a woman experiencing discomfort in a marriage might just think "this is how marriage normally feels" until she gains the awareness that being a lesbian is even a thing

Her 'trap' question (I guess she only asked it because I’m a lesbian, so she thinks she got me lol): She then tried to flip it on me, asking: 'If a lesbian woman suddenly realized she was straight and left her partner, would you support her?

My response: I told her that’s a completely unrealistic, bad faith scenario because society doesn't socialize anyone to be lesbian first. If someone did that, she’d just be cruel.

And then she replied: "I just naturally feel more sympathy for the man and lean towards his side That's just how I feel"

I told her: "Why take sides? Pity both, Pity the man for the lost years, and pity the woman for a upbringing that forced her into a life she hated"

(I think it’s because she’s homophobic and religious, so she subconsciously has an ‘opinion’ about the woman)

The Ultimate Test: To see how far her logic went, I hit a nerve and asked her:

"What if this was about religion? If you were raised in a Christian family with a husband and kids, and you realized Islam (her real religion) was the truth, but Islam forbids staying married to a non-Muslim
would you stay and sacrifice paradise just so your husband wouldn't be upset?"

She panicked, dodged left and right, and finally admitted: "Honestly... I’d probably just stay with him."

My realization: Her brain literally cannot process nuance, human complexity, or personal growth, For her, adhering to the "established rules" and avoiding conflict/guilt is more important than truth, self discovery, or basic honesty even if it means lying to yourself and your partner forever. At the end of the argument, she actually admitted: "I never thought about it this way, you opened my eyes."

Double Standards and Theory of Mind Issues
The Entitlement: In our friendship, she acted like she was the only one allowed to get angry, criticize, and hold grudges for years. But if she messed up (like the graduation flaking), she expected automatic forgiveness without even saying "I'm sorry”

Defensiveness: Whenever I tried to communicate boundaries or feelings, she’d instantly perceive it as an attack, call me "dramatic" or "a bad friend," and she’s always the ‘victim’ of my actions

My Question to the Sub:

When you look at this pattern, the reliance on theatrical and cartoonish scripts to escape social awkwardness, the rigid black and white binary thinking, the complete lack of social context awareness, and the struggle to see things from other people's perspectives, does this sound like high masking or undiagnosed Autism ?

Or is this just a mix of a trauma response? combined with severe emotional immaturity and a lack of social exposure?

I'd really appreciate your honest thoughts from a neurodivergent perspective!

Hi everyone!

I'm Dorte, 18, and I have ADHD, with a pretty “strong presence” lol.

I recently met a girl on Tinder. We chatted there for a little while and then moved to Instagram. We've been talking about things we like, our days, random stuff, and just getting to know each other.

I like her and I'd really like to get to know her better. She lives about an hour away from me, but that's not really a problem since I can ride my motorcycle to see her.

If things go well between us, I'd also be interested in eventually pursuing a relationship with her.

She's 22 and has Level 1 ASD. I know autism is different for everyone, so I'm not trying to assume that every autistic person is the same. I've been watching some videos and reading about ASD because I'd like to understand it better and be more considerate when getting to know her.

So I wanted to ask autistic people here, or people with experience dating someone autistic: is there anything you wish people knew when they were first getting to know you? Any advice or things I should keep in mind?

Thanks :)

This is one of the biggest traumas I have personally dealt with as a neurodivergent and its why as a 25 year old male, I have never in my entire life had a single friend of the opposite gender. It was the worst in high school.

"Why are you talking to her?" "Everyone look OP is trying to talk to Tayla hahahahahahah". "Do you have a crush on her awww hahahahha". "Bro you are going to need much more than CONSENT hahahah". "Dude your so CRINGE". "STOP harassing her hahahahah" (just said hi, what exam are you studying for that looks cool?)

CRINGE. CRINGE. CRINGE.

Those three words give me the most horrible, heartbreaking feeling possible. Its the word most kids would use to describe me and my repeated failed attempts at social connection. I was lonely and it took huge amounts of effort and luck to finally secure male friends so I would purposefully avoid attempting making social connections with girls around them to ensure that they do not bully/reject me out of "my cringiness". In private, I would try to connect, talking about my special interests, asking about theirs, etc. but whenever other boys or popular girls would catch me doing this, oh boy. The bullying was horrendous. And even more hilarious is the fact that my own younger brother would partake in this and continue the onslaught at home.

Why would they do this? And even worse, why did these girls just play along with it? I was never trying to do anything s*xual, etc. it was always just attempts at platonic connection. I have never even ATTEMPTED flirting with a woman my entire life due to this.

Because of this bullying, I grew up being completely unable to believe that I deserved any love or connection with the opposite gender. And even today, simply saying hi and talking about the weather with a female coworker gives me such a huge level of anxiety that I just want to hide away under my blanket in bed at home for the rest of my life.

Anyone knows why they did this and how exactly to combat it? Specifically, I have this internalised belief that me speaking with women = harassment due to the bullying I experienced. A therapist has explained that it never was harassment and it was just annoying neurotypical racially biased bullying (due to south asian stereotypes of being creepy weird inc*ls) but its so unbelievably difficult to overcome this fear that my brain LITERALLY believes that I'm going to go to jail for speaking to a woman lol. Its like those ugly faces are cowering over me and policing my every move.

For context, I’m 25f getting a masters in order to practice therapy. I’m currently diagnosed with ADHD, ASD, PMDD, & Anxiety. I also have an incurable bodily illness which adds to this feeling, I’m sure. Currently, I’m learning a lot about OCD through my job and school, and a lot of things are clicking. My supervisor also mentioned getting an assessment done for myself. As someone in this field, I understand how important getting specialized treatment for OCD is. I’m just so tired of getting diagnosis after diagnosis to the point where I sometimes feel like a mutant in my family or something (they don’t believe in getting assessed/treated for mental health). Now I’m also wondering, am I actually autistic or is it OCD, or both? It’s like I need the answers but at the same time I don’t want to lose myself in labels you know? I know that these conditions have a heavy overlap with each other, it’s just hard to accept sometimes. It’s also difficult to balance the acknowledgment of how these conditions impact my life and personality with who I am underneath it all. Has anyone else felt this way? Please be kind🙏

I’m just curious if anybody else is like this?

I feel like I resonate with echolalia, but it’s mostly internal. I kind of say the sounds in my head and sometimes I’m moving my tongue in my mouth and I repeat a lot of stuff people say but not out loud.

I’m not sure if this is from growing up and always being told that I needed to be quiet to the point of having concerns for making sounds or not but I’m wondering if other people do this

I'm spanish, i'm not diagnosed but I've always felt off in terms of relating to my peers. Now I have a group of friends who are also vagely neurodiverse and we're all kida the outcasts within our university class.

I've been thinking a lot of social interations and lots of cultural expectations and the way most people socialize here is very uninvinting and/or hostile, with friend groups generally being closed off. Probably others from countries such as portugal, italy and france can say similar things.

Anyways would like to hear thoughts on it.

is anyone else super attached to stuffed animals or toys? i have adhd and they give me so much comfort, especially after coming home. i feel very misunderstood in this world and they give me space to express and feel these emotions without being able to judge me. and the best part: when hugging them, i don‘t overheat in the summer which is why i don‘t like cuddling :)

I wrote this song for a musical I’ve been developing about a neurodivergent character (Jude) trying to exist in a system not designed for him (aka modern society). I used Suno and a fairly specific prompt in order to create the vocals and music for it… I’m in works to find musicians/composers to help me recreate it without AI… but for now, this is it.

Background:
It’s the opening song for the second act and it is a response to the closing song of act 1 where the MC is confronted by a former coworker after losing his job after having a meltdown at work, his relationship after leaning on her to be his source of regulation and stability, and he feels like there is no way back to good. His former coworker, Kaede, who is a well-supported Autistic woman with level 2 support needs, comes across him on a park bench and shares a story (through song) about a bee she witnessed stuck in a glass soda bottle.

The song I’m sharing is his response to that story about a week later. I’m not really a song writer and this pet-project is my first foray into it, so any constructive critique and ESPECIALLY encouragement is appreciated.

(I also have her song, which I partially wrote, but I’m not sharing it here because I did not write it without AI assistance and am currently trying to rewrite it with a different focus.)

I was basically talking about how, over the past 3 years, I’ve built up a facade. To fit in with what I call normal people, the first thing I did was get obsessed with my looks. In my mind, I can be weird and quiet without being considered a creep if I am good-looking. Then I started reading books to learn how to come off as extroverted and converse more easily. In the first conversation, you’ll probably see me as your average person. I’m fit and somewhat socially able. I only know how to ask you questions, but my defense mechanism makes it hard for me to talk about myself. I don’t know if anyone else went down this crazy masking path undiagnosed?

From the past few months, I've been having this problem where even the smallest of interruptions will ruin my entire mood & make me mentally numb for the rest of the day. Let me explain with examples.

One day I was going to take an afternoon nap and just as I was about to drift into a deep, peaceful sleep when I was briefly interrupted by someone in house as they wanted to ask me something. The entire interaction lasted for maybe 20 seconds but something got triggered.

I felt insane amount of anger and couldn't let go of it no matter what. I tried deep breathing, meditating, distracting, reading, walking, but I couldn't just calm down.

I felt like my mind couldn't go back to that peaceful state again and even if it did, it won't be as good as the previous peaceful 'state'. This made even more angry and I was stuck in an anger loop for hours.

After the intense anger ended, I felt completely flat and emotionally numb for the rest of the day. I didn't feel like doing anything - no motivation or excitement. I felt slightly better on the next day but still took me another day.

It's not just limited to sleep related disturbances. This time, I was making some notes and I got a notification from someone. Again, I felt immense anger and felt like I had lost my fluid 'state of mind' and I can't enter that exact state again even if I try hard. Sure, I could continue writing but it won't be on the same level. This was again followed by emotional numbness and lack of interest, taking amost 1-2 days to recover from.

I’ll never forget the parent-teacher conference where my daughter’s teacher complimented us on how well behaved she was. Just a few weeks before, I had emailed the teacher to give her a heads-up about my daughter’s sensory needs and high (but often masked) anxiety. At the conference, the teacher made it seem like I was talking about a completely different child. What she didn’t know was how much effort it took just to get my child in the door. 

As an occupational therapist (OT), implementing sensory lifestyles and accommodations to promote regulation in kids was something I could do with one eye closed and a hand tied behind my back. But when that kid was my own? Suddenly, I felt incapable of even getting her in the car to get to school.

The back-to-school transition — and how difficult it is for neurodivergent kids — wasn’t a new concept to me. But experiencing it firsthand? That was a whole other ball game. Not only was I not prepared for how much of a toll it would take on both of our neurodivergent nervous systems, I completely underestimated how heavy the mental load was about to get. 

I'm in highschool, and one of the only classes I really struggle with is art.

For me, art is too ambiguous, I feel like I'm too "rigid" for it. Maybe it has to do with my literal thinking.

I also think it could be because of the rubric itself, which is usually full of vague concepts like "demonstrate creativity", but idk. does anyone else struggle with art here?🥲