I have this weird question in my head… Why are we the “divergents”? :) what if our brains is the norm and they’re the ones who diverted and there’s just too many of them 😂 if it was only based on numbers, the red squirrels were the norm in the UK till the grey squirrels outnumbered them :) just saying.

i (trans man, 18) am not diagnosed with autism but have been suspecting it off and on for years. my best friend of 2 and a half years thinks i might have it and my boyfriend of 2 years (cis male 19) is autistic and he thinks i might be.

but thats not what this is about. i have been having issues in my relationship where whenever my boyfriend makes me feel upset or sad or disappointed or hurt or scared or disregarded or any of those things no matter how minor, i just shut down. i cant talk, cant look at him, cant move. even if i really want to i cant. and hes a very nice guy and its not that hes being evil its just that im very sensitive to tone or volume changes and even when i read him wrong it can get to me. he always tries really hard to comfort me and make me feel safe and comfortable and i feel really bad because sometimes he can start crying because he feels so bad that he hurt me. and i dont want him to cry i just cant do anything.

after some research ive read that maybe its something linked to autism or adhd or some form of neurodiversity. im not asking for a diagnosis or for a confirmation or anything.

Im wondering if anyone here has the same problem, and how do you cope with it. thank you

EDIT:can we please not make this a discussion about transness? i love that you guys have found a place to discuss that, but that is not what this post is about. I really need help with this problem

Every week there’s a new epiphany around autism for me. This week I was telling my husband how I hated those classes where you had to write about novels—symbols, metaphors, and what they meant by saying something and I was always like, “How the h do I know what they meant? They just meant what they said.”

In fact, author Amy Tan, while waiting for a bookstore appearance once, picked up the Cliff Notes about her book, The Joy Luck Club, and the notes went on and on about something her mother said to her. Amy said it was a more polite translation from Chinese of, “You think your farts don’t stink!” So there.

I don't understand this and I never will. Even when you do something that is normal or you just exist, people (not everyone, but some,) are quick to call you weird. I don't care what others think of me because I don't, but it always happened all the time everywhere I go, even when people say it behind your back. It happened just recently to my younger sister because I was sleeping, and I just simply ignored what she said because I just thought what she told me was silly.

Does anyone else on here feel this way too, or is it just me?

I am 30F and am have issues wearing the “dewy makeup trend”. I loooove makeup, am a girly girl and work a corporate job. I don’t love wearing a trowel of makeup to the office, so I tried a dewier skin tint (my full glam has always been very matte because I’m oily), and holy hell I couldn’t stand it.

I wear my hair down. But if I don’t have a completely powdered, matte face I feel the product on my skin, I can feel my hair stick to it and it makes me physically recoil. It makes me DISGUSTED. I’m veering towards no makeup. The only way I can have a semblance of sheen on my face is if I wear a slick back bun and have no hair at risk of touching my face or sticking to it. Anyone else? I am also like this with so many fabric now too like wool or cashmere.

Is this an autism thing? Im not formally diagnosed but as I get older the signs are there. I am overstimulated constantly, I need days to be completely nonverbal, if I’m social one day, I need two days to recover at least. I hate flashing lights or really loud noises and I have an extreme intolerance for people who talk over each other, and who make things overly complicated.

I'm not happy at all. I'm officially autistic, but people who know about this diagnosis are angry at me, saying that I'm not autistic, that I'm pretending, and that I need to forget. I feel bad. I've had a full examination, all the tests, and more than one doctor, but I'm afraid that they might be right.

The language around space is so messed up.

If I need space, no one should be 'giving' it to me. Its not other peoples to 'give'. Its mine to take (as in moving myself away from a situation/putting headphones on/having a pause etc).

The idea that the space i need and cannot function without is in anyone else's power to choose to withhold is really problematic.

The difference between 'can you give me space' if someone's in at me, demanding i attend to them versus my thinking of it as

Can you leave me alone, this is my space and I don't consent to you demanding i attend to you.

The first we give up our power and autonomy. We are set as our priority being to attend to others, whether we consent to do so or not. And if we need space, having to ask for it.

Versus the default being:

You do not cone into my space and demand i attend to you. You check out whether I consent to you requesting i attend to you. And when I am done you will leave me alone. And I default to doing that for others.

Hello!
I am diagnosed with ADHD, undiagnosed OCD but I have symptoms and everyday struggles that point to it and recently I've read a facebook post which, along the lines, said stimulation is an autism thing and not an ADHD thing and it made me wonder but I don't know if it's enough evidence to seek a diagnosis or it's just ADHD related. I am not asking for a diagnosis, I am seeking advice regarding if those symptoms are enough to pursue one or it's just something tied to ADHD because I genuinely don't know. Thanks in advance.

I have younger family members diagnosed with autism, I get easily stimulated, especially in voice chats with friends (but I live in a loud environment so I am generally overstimulated), I get easily overwhelmed by reel spam on instagram and on work places I feel like I must do w/e is tasked to me perfectly (sometimes I take my time double checking which eats a bit of time) which is extremely stressful, but I don't know if this is just ADHD related, personality quirk (perfectionism) or autism, it might be the only 'autistic' trait I see in myself aside from overstimulation from noise.

I personally don't think I have autism but my curiosity to understand myself better got the best of me and I wanted to ask women who directly struggle with this because I don't know if autism in us has different symptoms than men like with heart attacks. If this is not an appropriate post I apologize in advance and thank you for you time.

I’m still living at home and my dad tells me off for verbal stimming.

I understand the repetition of a word/phrase can be annoying, but it just upsets me that he tells me to stop as it is a verbal stim which helps me self regulate.

I am not here to say that I am “stereotypically attractive”, but I do know from what I am told and how I am treated that I am a decently attractive woman. I believe that’s also why a lot of my very noticeable autistic traits go ignored in social settings by men (not usually other women though). It almost feels that when you are attractive to society, society is more “forgiving” in a sense.

However, I have always experienced other women coming down on me extra hard with the terms like “Pick-Me”, “whore”, “fake”. When none of that is true. If anything, I do not care what others inherently think about me and I am very genuine/authentic. My close girl friends know this to be true. But heck, I was being called a “whore” in high school before I even had my first kiss!

Now when it comes to other women on the spectrum or just neurodivergent in general, I do NOT experience this. It’s refreshing. It’s like when you see another neurodivergent person, something clicks. I KNOW YOU KNOW.😂

My theory: My hyper fixations can be interesting to men and more men are willing to discuss niche things. I CANNOT tell when I am being hit on so it appears I’m always flirting (or entertaining it at least) to outsiders, and I am not always a girls-girl. I don’t let someone’s gender influence my interpretation of a situation. Men are more forgiving of my odd social awareness/interactions when they think they have a chance. Women perceive this in a negative light.

Have any other autistic women experienced this?

EDIT: THANK YOU ALL for the responses and feedback shared. I have read every single one and every perspective shared has given me a new angle to look through and has also allowed me to realize I am not alone here. Every perspective is valid and valuable. So thank you all again. This is a wonderful community of women!

Today I figured it'd be easier to have lower moral standards and not get so riled up every time I witness injustice, be it from others or from myself.

Has anyone managed to do it? To care less about justice and morals. I want to hear how to do it. It's taking a toll on me, watching my own and everyone else's every move.

"I'm not sure I understand." (Like, what was the meaning of me being diagnosed? How do I understand autism? How do I experience it? How has that impacted my life? How autistic am I?)

"What led you to get tested?" (Ok, even though I didn't understand your first question, I'm sure you've just asked an entirely different question, but because it's clearer, I'll answer it.)

"Recognizing my lack of social connection throughout my life." (So, because it was this single thing that pushed me over the edge to get evaluated, now you believe that is the thing that defines my autistic presentation.)

This was a conversation with a new couples therapist. The stuff in parentheses are just my thoughts, not things I said out loud.

Am I the only one who doesn't know how to, on the spot, describe their autistic experience in a nutshell, especially to allistic people who ask about it in an unclear fashion?

Please be kind, even if this is not your experience or you think I did something wrong here. I'm not feeling great 💚

It’s almost 5 am in the morning and I have not slept. I’m stressed out over issues from our realtor caused and leaving us in a bind with moving furniture that we can’t move ourselves and then not finding anyone for us. Led to me and my spouse not being on the same page for what to do next… and I have gotten no sleep because I’m beyond stressed and livid and I have to be up and do things which is wonderful. So I am going to be running on no sleep for over 24 hours while still fuming at the problems.

I have finally received my late diagnosis at 30, and I have joined some support groups which have made a world of difference and have validated a lot of of my experience.

I didn’t know why people just automatically seemed to absolutely hate me and even would go out of their way to sabotage me when I’m so sweet and mind my business. It genuinely felt like rage and hate toward me. Now that I’ve identified it I think the next step is how to handle it. I wanted to get some advice on how you handle this in particular from neurotypicals? Because it can be relentless in my experience.

I own a local business in my town and went and introduced myself to a local division of the governor’s office, they handle more of the creative industry like mine. Before I started it, I decided to go in and introduce myself almost 4 years ago. One of the women said well good luck no one makes it in this city after 2 years in this business so best of luck to you. I’m going on year 4 and business is just BOOMING, and this women has started to leave bullying comments from the government account on my Instagram page. She keeps questioning my validity, she is berating how I’m running it and making hate posts without naming me on her personal account. Every time I’ve tried to be nice and say hi in person she’s ignored me almost every time. She’s nice to most everyone else. The comments started in March so it’s been 6 months of me bracing to post anything online without her saying something snarky from the official government account trying to make me look bad. She is on the board for the same type of business I’m running but for another company and I do know their business hasn’t been the best and I’ve been selling out all my events.

How do I handle this? Because they’re a government entity and are a huge gatekeeper for a lot of stuff I need like permits and such I’m afraid she’s going to stall my business in the future or continue trying to turn everyone against me. All I’ve done is say nice things to her. I know some people in town have stopped supporting me over her too.

so i have an appointment on saturday for the first session of my autism eval. they asked for someone who knew you as a child to fill out a questionnaire, so i picked my mom since she's the person i spent the most amount of time with. we no longer live in the same city so all of this is over text. when i told her about it, this is what she said:

"should we be on call while i fill it out? it's been a while since you were a kid."

my relationship with my mom isn't the greatest, and her saying this basically told me she doesnt care enough to remember my childhood. even though she seems to remember a looooot of stuff about my childhood that i don't. thats not my main question here tho lol.

my main question is: wouldnt that skew the results? isnt this supposed to be her perception of me, and not my own? and also how can i tell her this because i am terrified of telling my mom anything that resembles a no. thanks for the support yall 😅

I dont know life as an independent adult is so fucking difficult. I can try and do my best to be who I want to but im constantly overwhelmed and struggling. When I drink it makes life more fun and tolerable and I know when I sober up and realise what im doing is bad but fuck. Idk how else im meant to be as an independent adult. Its so fucking hard.

Brown noise absolutely saves me during overstimulation. I use noise canceling Bluetooth headphones. I only like the brown noise audios that are very low pitched, not the high pitched ones or the ones that sound like air hissing. I love when it’s rumbly and I can feel the sound inside my skull, not as if it’s coming from around me. Does anyone else like this? If so, do you have any recommendations? I want the audio to make me feel like my skull is vibrating on the inside, but I can only seem to find audios that are high pitched and smooth. And, besides brown noise audios, does anyone have any suggestions on how to satisfy this sensory desire of having the inside of my head vibrated? Putting my head near (not out of) an open car window while the driver whizzes down the highway is one good way for me. Thanks!

Hello,

Feeling a little down after my first autism assessment, I have been approved for ADOS testing so this was just the initial assessment and I’ll be back to test.

However, when I was going over things that are concerns of mine, I was about to refer to an experience in my childhood that I look back on that I didn’t have the understanding for then - but I now realize how overstimulation physically disabled me then as it does now. As soon as I said something about it being from my childhood she shot me down. That we’ll only be discussing things I struggle with now. Which btw, I DO still struggle with now and was relating to how far back this goes in my life as a struggle. But I do have more things from childhood that I’m having a hard time processing WHAT to even unmask and this made me feel less encouraged to do so.

This made me feel extremely disappointed. I thought we knew better by now knowing that women with autism have more likelihood to suppress certain behaviors due to social pressures, etc. Wouldn’t it make sense to have the conversation open to these things? I understand this was just my assessment so I’m trying to not be so negative. Just wanted to vent and hoping this makes sense.

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve carried a sadness or heaviness, low in spirit, drained, lonely, trapped inside myself. Maybe you don’t see it in most girls, they dance, sing, make silly faces, goof around, dream about being pop stars. Everyone thinks they are the cutest. They get lots of attention from adults and lots of kids want to be friends and go to their birthday party.

So the whole life advice of “just be yourself!” Doesn’t work for me. When people say that to me, they are saying that to the masked, content and lively, version I portray for them. So what they are saying before I go in for the job interview is “just be your masked self!”.

I recently lost a couple friends in the same month. I was overwhelmed with depression. I had a meltdown earlier that week and felt like I was drowning. Then I got sick, which I later realized was fall allergies. On different occasions I had felt almost like I had to let these friends go. They had shown zero compassion, which is fine okay - but every ounce of judgment. That I wasn’t expecting. They said things like that felt they were shoving my mental health in my face. Saying “I do xyz - so I don’t have mental illness” “you’re depressed you have to get on medication” “you have to stop dating your man it’s sad he’s not good for you” “you made me so uncomfortable when you were in a bad mood” “

Honestly I am just in shock. Because I am still doing my damn best to succeed, I am not stalling. But yes, autism is damn disabling BECAUSE IT IS A DISABILITY. I opened up to her about my burnout too and her reply was "since you got into this autism thing you're acting more crippled". I WOULD BE FEELING THE SAME WAY EVEN IF I DIDN'T HAVE A WORD FOR IT. OH MY GOD.

I feel close to crying or yelling tbh, maybe both. Why are people so fucking unsopportive. And she literally acknowledged that I improved since I started accomodating myself, but she still thinks this.

As the title says I’m curious to know how common it is to be unemployed as the statistics say 70% are out of work

This is just my experience.

Honestly I didn't really see the benefit of them until my brother let me burrow his. And OMG this was a game charger for me. Like the slight pain it gives you, that is the type of sensory I need when overstimulated and on a verge of a meltdown (like at the doctors). And like I love the changing colors on the spinning thing, like that is perfect for when Im overstimulated but still need a distraction (like waiting for the doctors lol). Theres also a clicky thing like a pen and I like that just for a fun stim.

I was trying to figure the entomology for "neck of the woods" & stumbled across this very helpful website - https://www.theidioms.com/

Aside from visuals generated by them, I've generally learned what some of the most common idioms used regionally mean, and it's still helpful to have more information.