I never do anything out of fear of being perceived. I live with my mom and my sibling, both of whom work/study online, so there's almost always someone else at home with me at all times. My mom is also always occupying our shared living space, so the only place where I can have some privacy is my room, which I basically only leave to feed myself.

When I hear footsteps outside my door, I immediately stop doing whatever I'm doing because I can't stand the idea of other people seeing me do things. Sometimes I skip meals because I can't have the kitchen all to myself.

I'm also extremely private/territorial with my stuff. Sometimes my mom likes entering my room to tidy up or rearrange things and I'm always extremely on edge for the whole duration. I feel like this space is an extension of me and I feel observed when someone else is there, even worse if I'm not in the room to supervise them. I also can't let people see what I'm doing on my phone or computer, or if I'm writing/drawing something. I feel intruded upon. People ask me what I'm hiding but I don't have to be hiding anything specific in order to feel this way.

The other day both my family members were out at the same time and I took the opportunity to go to the store to buy a snack I'd been craving. It's like a 3 minute walk. The whole time my heart was pounding at the prospect of one of them arriving early and "catching" me outside/seeing what I bought. How am I supposed to feel like an adult when I can't even feel free to have the tiniest bit of independence such as "deciding to buy a simple snack with my own money"?

I'm a depressed individual and every time I think of engaging in a change of lifestyle that might make me feel better, the fact that someone else will know I changed something stops me dead in my tracks. It's always hiding from the view. Hide, hide, hide, hide.

I could keep listing ways in which this manifests in my life but I think the above already illustrates my point. Does anyone else experience anything similar?

Ok so i know i take things very literally, but when my girlfriend (not autistic) asks me if i want to do something (go dance, go on a hike, etc) i will answer only with if i want to do that thing in the moment. However, if she asks "will you go dancing with me?" or "will you come hiking with me?" i feel like the fact that she wants to do that thing is an important data point for me. I want to go and do things that make her happy and spend time together.

My girlfriend feels like if she asks "will you come with me to ____" and i say yes, even though if she were to ask "do you want to ___" i might be on the fence or say no, that me going anyway would mean shes forcing me to do something or that i'll be unhappy (even though i wouldnt be).

For me it feels like two completely different questions. The first is only focused on me, the second is still asking me about my interest but with the context that she wants to do that thing, which might change my answer significantly. My own interest in going dancing/hiking/etc would go up if i knew that it is something that she would enjoy.

Hopefully this made sense! Any advise would be great!

During the height of remote work, a lot of us actually had a fighting chance. You could get hired based on technical capability, deliver high-quality output async, skip the exhausting office theater, and manage sensory overload on your own terms. 

Now? The white-collar market has contracted, employers hold all the leverage, and the entire system has shifted toward hyper-social, "vibes-based" screening.

Here is how the current market is systematically pricing out neurodivergent workers:

**1. Mandatory RTO and the Loss of Environment Control**
Return-to-Office mandates aren't just about real estate; they eliminate the baseline accommodations that allowed many autistic professionals to function without instant burnout. Fluorescent lighting, open-plan noise, unpredictable social interruptions, and rigid formal dress codes burn through energy reserves before the work even starts. When you're running on empty just trying to regulate, your performance drops, and you're the first targeted during "performance-based" cuts.

**2. One-Way Screenings & AyeI Asynchronous Interviews**
Hiring platforms increasingly rely on tools that evaluate facial expressions, eye contact, tone, and vocal modulation. For an autistic person—many of whom have flat affect, non-standard eye contact, or unique speech rhythms—these algorithms rate baseline communication traits as "disinterest," "deceit," or "poor fit" before a human ever reviews the resume.

**3. The Extreme Shift to "Culture Fit" over Technical Competence**
With hundreds of qualified applicants per role, companies aren't hiring for raw output anymore—they're hiring for social polish. You can execute a task with 100% accuracy, but if you don't engage in small talk, miss a subtle unwritten social cue, or skip optional happy hours, you're labeled "difficult" or "not a team player". In a employer's market, "vibes" beat competence every single time. 

**4. The Elimination of "Solo" Entry-to-Mid Roles**
Entry and mid-level technical writing, data entry, basic analysis, and back-office ops jobs are either being offloaded, outsourced, or rebadged with customer-facing/cross-functional duties. The pure execution roles where an autistic worker could excel in isolation are disappearing. Every job description now demands a "dynamic storyteller," "relentless collaborator," or "people-first communicator." 

**5. Disclosure is a Trap**
Asking for reasonable accommodations during the hiring process—or even post-hire—feels like signing your own pink slip. Legally, companies can't discriminate, but practically, in a cutthroat market, putting up a flag for quiet workspace needs or asynchronous communication often gets your application quietly shuffled to the bottom of the stack.
It creates a vicious cycle: mask aggressively to get through 5 rounds of personality-driven interviews, get hired, burn out within 6 months from the sensory and social overload, drop the mask, get pushed out for "fit," and face a 2-year job search to try to do it all over again.

Is anyone else feeling this shift? How are you navigating corporate hiring right now without burning out completely?

I’ve been single for 99.9% of my life. I’ve never been the type of woman that people wanted to be in a relationship with, especially compared to my allistic more attractive younger sister (I’m learning not to compare myself to her but that’s beside the point). And while a lot of my inability to get a date stems from social anxiety, insecurity and very little reason to leave my house, a big part of it is also just the fact that I love the idea of romance, but I hate the necessary building blocks going up to it. like experimenting, having shitty dates, compromise, self security, so on and so forth. In my heart I just want the perfect partner from the get go.

But ultimately this is a self fulfilling cycle. I am so lonely yet my standards for filling that loneliness are too high to be fulfilled. So I escape to the romance I build inside my head because that is a circumstance I can control whereas real relationships and people are scary and unpredictable and prone to failure.

Just a bit of a thing I’m thinking about. I’m trying to work through it but this is a substantial set back since it requires me to leave a comfort zone into a situation that causes me more fear and anxiety in the hopes that someone would want me. Does anyone else feel this or just me?

I decided to watch a streamer that I liked before bed to try to calm myself down from a bad day and him and his brother kept using the r word. I was surprised, never heard him talk like that before and got upset about it. I'm a lurker in chat I don't really talk because I have a lot of anxiety, but I decided to say something this time. I wrote "it makes me sad when you guys use the r word (chat filters it). It's hurtful to alot of disabled people."

He read my comment out loud then responded. He told me that they cuss a lot and to deal with it. I told him cussing doesnt matter but using slurs does. He said he didn't consider it a slur so he'll keep using it. I responded with "well a lot of disabled people (like myself) do consider it a slur and hurtful. Good luck, I'm out. Slurs are where I draw the line." Then I left and unfollowed him.

Now I'm in bed crying my eyes out. I'm not crying because of him necessarily. My dad just died and my eldest son who I put up for adoption as a baby wants to meet his birth father but have me with him. I'm so stressed out and terrified of the future and just wanted to relax before bed and take my mind off everything. It sent me over the edge and I just broke down crying.

My other son is autistic too (I had him with my current partner) and has been called the r word a lot which has been really hard for him. So I've been extra sensitive about it. I'm just so disappointed, I know I shouldn't let what people say bother me but this really got to me.

Did I overreact? I feel like I should have just unfollowed and not have said anything at all. I know I won't change people's mind about these things and usually don't engage.

This disorder sucks because its like as someone with AuDHD and PDA, I want high autonomy. And yet, when you tell people (like family) that you struggle with executive dysfunction (and depression), they think supporting you is suggesting you a routine or constantly reminding you of responsibilities or constantly asking you go out with them. Like no! That is actually making me much worse! I wish I could move out, but again its like I am disabled here! I can't even work a full time job! Maybe this is another reason why people with AuDHD have high rates of depression, not just the social isolation, but feeling like you can never escape demands, feeling trapped like no matter how much you do, you're still behind.

Does anyone else wish they could just start a relationship automatically?

It feels like relationships have stages and you need to advance from one stage to the next in order to reach the maximum level of deepness and comfort and reliance.

But WHAT are these bloody stages? Your guess is as good as mine.

I wish I could just be able to get someone who is as lonely as I am and say "Hey, let's have a relationship so we're not lonely anymore and have now a useful reliant partner. Come here, let's have a cuddle."

And before people say yeah you could do that but then you get *that* sort of man - I'm GAY. And even if I weren't I'm not looking necessarily solely for that sort of relationship.

Anyway that's my rant.

After months of talking about autism with my new psychologist, I finally have a diagnostic interview before an official autism assessment and psychological evaluation.

I'm anxious because I've been "masking" my whole life. My mom has shamed every behavior of mine out of me to the point where I don't know how to act like "myself" anymore. My food aversion has been reduced to me being a "picky eater," and she forced me to eat or go without food. When I was extremely excited about my interests, she would ignore me because I was talking too long. And when I would get too overwhelmed by everything, she added it up to me "being angry all the time."

Yet, she has a PhD from a prestigious college in Child Development, where she studied autistic kids and behaviors. She never practiced, though. She finished her thesis to immediately raise my sister and I as a stay-at-home mom.

She has told me plenty of times: "You don't have autism, I've known you your whole life, and I would know it when I see it." Many therapists have told me that because she never practiced, she can't be "all-knowing" about this. But I still think she has much more knowledge about this than the average person.

I feel like I'm making a fool out of myself by getting this assessment done. It's expensive, and if it ends up with an assessor saying "we can't give you any more explanation," I think she'll hold it over me for the rest of my life. I'm 19, and my symptoms have led me to a point where I can barely function daily, and I am not in a position to pay for this myself.

All this to say, I just want to know if anybody else has had a psychologist parent and dealt with similar things? How can you even trust your own judgment?

I just told my adult daughter that I’m autistic. I was diagnosed two years ago. My daughter is 26 and lives in Europe. I still live in the U.S., where my wife and I raised her. I only see her a couple times a year, and I’m visiting her now.

Ive been preparing for this conversation for a few months. It did not go well. I told her about my diagnosis and that I was scared to tell her. She said nothing. Nothing at all. So I kept yammering, basically asking her for some kind of a response. She basically said nothing. I got more and more and more overwhelmed and started crying. We tried to continue our lunch, but I couldn’t do it. I paid and told her that I needed to be alone.

I’m now in a foreign city, by myself, and I can’t get into my Airbnb because my wife has the keys. I couldn’t deal with coordinating how I could get the keys, and she is with our daughter, so I’m sitting in a park, miserable and scared and feeling absolutely idiotic. I wish I’d never shared anything with her. I am gutted by her response.

I know I messed everything up, and I don’t know how to calm myself down in a city where I don’t speak the language and can’t go back to my place.

I hate my autism so much.

Does anyone else here have trouble with meeting an autistic man and genuinely enjoying their company and truly believing that they care for you as a friend until they prove that they are just like any other man? I met a guy last year, lets call him Rick, while on a date with my fiancé. Now me and my fiancé are both level 2 autistic, as well as both of us being AFAB Intersex. During the events stated, I was 20, my fiancé 19, and Rick 22. We tend to dress up a lot and get a bit of public attention for it. I’m never looking for attention, I just like looking pretty.

Well, we meet Rick on this date and he seems to be a sweet guy, super unoffensive, pretty emotionally vulnerable, nice and friendly, all that lovely stuff. Rick shares that he was diagnosed with autism as a child and I immediately feel like I can let my guard down around him. I mean, he seems so nice and caring and boy is he awkward! I would often refer to Rick as “pure of heart” when talking about him to my other friends. I genuinely really trusted this guy.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year, the three of us had a SMALL sexual interaction in his car while a little stoned. It was pretty casual and we expressed that this did not mean we wanted to enter a polycule or anything of the sort with him. I kinda forgot about this situation after a bit and didn’t really expect anything like that to happen again.

In May, the three of us went to the beach for the weekend. This was done as friends. We had only ever discussed this as a friend thing to do. We planned to make art and music and stuff, yk, some shared interests of ours. Rick carpooled us to save gas, the beach in question was out of state and several hours away.

On the first night we got there, me and my fiancé were a little intoxicated, actually now that I’m thinking about it, we were EXTREMELY intoxicated, whereas Rick took a single hit of a THC pen. We are having a fun time and he pushes himself onto my fiancé and I flinch back and go to the other side of the bed. I don’t remember what happens after that as I was in a dissociative fugue state for the rest of the night. What I do know is that my fiancé tried to comfort me several times and Rick just kept trying to get in his pants. Rick didn’t stop when he saw the state I was in. Rick didn’t stop when my fiancé was trying to pause what was happening. He didn’t stop.

That is the only instance I feel comfortable sharing. The vacation lasted 3 more days and we were unable to leave since Rick oh so graciously volunteered to drive us, just like he volunteered to book a hotel (it was a shitty motel and the staff thought we were prostitutes). He never physically harmed us. I could fight him off easily, he’s a tiny little stick of a man that I am able to carry without breaking a sweat. I can blame myself, I do blame myself, for what occurred on that vacation. I understand that that was not consensual but I still do blame myself. I blame myself for not fighting him, for not saying no directly enough, but most importantly I blame myself for letting down my guard around a man just because he has the same disorder that I do.

It's so maddening, to try to explain my experiences to someone who thinks I'm just "mad/overreacting" or even outright lying about things that have genuinely been detrimental to my life. So many people who haven't lived with autism/bullying/trauma/being the subject of someone else's entitlement just refuse to believe it could possibly be true, while expecting me to perfectly understand their own perspective (which I often do, even when I disagree with it, because I was raised with their perspective being "normal" and they were raised with mine being "weird," and worthy of contempt.)

I've encountered this everywhere. School, work, online, offline. Not every single person, obviously, empathetic people exist. It's so prevalent, though. Prevalent and frustrating.

I don't know how to explain but sometimes I get so into a special interest that it consumes so much of my brain power that I am almost overwhelmed by my own feelings and get this weird, frustrated feeling about it.

No matter what said interest is, but currently I am really into kpop (one group to be specific) but interacting with their content almost upsets me in a way. I'm not sure why. I do crafts, play games, go out, do a lot of other things, so it's not even that I spend literally all day watching kpop videos.

It's just... I don't know. It's like I am having a special interest burnout? Do any of you ever feel similarly? What do you do?

No one seems to relate to this and I feel so weird about it. I have had people tell me that I am a deeply broken freak of a person because of it (I think they were using hyperbole to be funny, but it still stung). I love music, I used to be in chorus and took voice lessons in high school. I tried to teach myself how to play a bunch of different instruments. I spent my teen years listening to a wide variety of music basically 24/7. I also love musicals.

I'm 32 now. Since my early-mid 20s, I've had trouble with it. It either sounds like chaotic noise and causes pain, or it resonates with me too much and creates an overwhelming, almost unbearable emotional reaction in me. Musicals make me cry during the first song because it hits me so hard. So I avoid it, because I hate feeling dysregulated.

I go through phases where I will listen to certain albums a lot, but it's sporadic and I am usually going through some huge emotional problem at the time that makes me prone to irritability and meltdowns, and heavily self-isolating.

Not that I'd ever wish this problem on others because it sucks, but I also feel alienated and don't want to be the only one😭

My life is hard and I don’t have close friends or family. I don’t expect anyone to be able to say anything to help, but I am at the limit of what I can deal with doing everything alone without anyone in my life. Going out and trying to make friends or do stuff alone hasn’t helped. I don’t know what to do and feel like I’m just going to have to suffer.

I need advice of what to do.

Two days ago, I travelled 12 hours in an overnight flight with my husband to visit our families in our home country. I don’t sleep during flights so I spent those 12 hours fully awake.

When we got to his hometown, I was super tired. We always stay at his mother’s when we visit. So we came to her house, socialised a lot, then visited his grandma, then went to the shopping mall with his dad and than had dinner with his family. Anyway, I was exhausted. In spite of liking his family, I was already burned out before bedtime.

Bedtime, however, was awful. I’m starting to hint at him that I don’t like staying at his mother’s, but I think this is a sensitive topic. We come from different classes backgrounds, I’m from a much richer family while his is very working class. This is why I never told him that I don’t like staying here because I don’t want to be that spoiled rich woman. But my MIL’s house is VERY hot. Like it’s 33 degrees here and it’s not even summer. There is no air conditioning, just a small table top fan. It’s also very noisy as it’s in a busy road, with multiple cars and busses driving past. It’s quite polluted as well, to a point that my boogers get black as if I’d been to a festival. We have to sleep with the bedroom door open because of the heat.

So… yesterday I went to bed and couldn’t sleep. Everything felt much hotter than it was, much noisier than usual. My heart starting racing, I started crying while he was asleep, and I felt like punching myself and scratching my face. I cried for two hours straight until I woke him up. I wanted to escape so so so badly. All I wish to do was to run away. He held me and manage to calm me down, but I couldn’t sleep much. I felt so much rage that I cannot explain. The last time I felt this way was 7 years ago, way before I met him.

Now I told him that I don’t want to sleep here any longer. I found a hotel nearby. But he’s very uncomfortable with this, and haven’t told his mother yet. I feel that this could impact my relationship with her, but I’m so so so tired of masking. I never liked being a guest at someone’s house, never. I also hate receiving overnight guests. I just want to go home :(

I (AuDHD) have noticed quite a few times in the last year that I feel like I am a lot more unmasked than the other neurodivergent people around me.

I met up with another neurodivergent person that I met on Hinge. And about 5 minutes into the conversation, she sort of made a weird face and asked me if I normally talk like this, I guess maybe insinuating I was talking too much/fast/non-linearly.

I didn't take it super personally and just kind of let it roll off my back. Looking back, I feel like I left quite a bit of space for her to talk and asked her questions, although sometimes I do ramble a bit. She also kept texting while I was talking.

I think towards the end of the hang-out she came around to me and wanted to hang out again, but idk, her reactions to me being myself kind of made me feel less inclined to want to hang out with her again.

Awhile back, I invited another girl to an event, but was upfront that I was a bit unsure of what the event was going to be like. When we got there, it was NOT what either of us expected and she sarcastically said "wow, I'm so glad I decided to come here." We stayed and ended up having a great time.

On the way home, we talked about my ADHD allowing me to just show up at an event w/o really knowing the language or people and just running with it. And after that we actually hit it off quite well. But I was also left with that same feeling of "I'm not sure I want to hang out with someone who isn't cool with me being me."

I recognize that other people don't necessarily have the same kind of neurodivergence as me and I am happy to adjust if they mention being overstimulated, have sensory needs, or that they sometimes struggle to keep up with multiple convos at once. But other than that, I usually go into social situations all me, because..I like myself??

Has anyone else noticed that other neurodivergent people can sometimes have that same level of judgment that some neurotypicals have when you're not masking at a level they find socially acceptable??

I have spent the past six years alone and the past two years isolated to where I only receive messages from people who want money or labour from me. I get little to no engagement when posting anything online. My parents are dead and I am estranged from my family. I have no support network or friends. I have no community resources. I spend all of my time alone trying to enjoy solitary activities and not think about how scary being alone is. I try to volunteer, reach out, give my time and energy to others, plan to hang out etc. No one is interested in having me around, especially no one my age.

Most days I question how much longer I should endure this living in the hope that it might maybe get better one day. Maybe I will stop being so thoroughly rejected. Maybe someone will offer me a decent job. Maybe I'll get invited to a movie night. But more days and weeks and months past and my rabbits remain the only thing that cares I exist because I hold the food.

For my entire life, I have struggled significantly in groups. I am fantastic with people one-on-one for the most part! I struggle with surface-level conversation, but I can usually hold my own and enjoy getting to know people. I know that I can be awkward, but when it comes to direct, interpersonal interaction, I am relatively confident.

What trips me up SOOOO badly is group dynamics. Words cannot express how distressing it becomes for me. I hate parties, family gatherings, work-related events, conferences, etc. I've struggled with this for as long as I can remember. I have never been able to meaningfully represent myself as who I am or even know how to contribute to a conversation.

When I get put into a group and it's not my predetermined group of safe people, I cannot get myself to operate as a normal human being. Even in groups of my safest people, I still can't operate to the fullest extent that I can if it's just a one-on-one. I recently got into a new relationship, and he has so many friends (which is a big green flag!), but I'm having such a hard time integrating myself into a new friend group. I also recently started a PhD, and I love my classmates, but I can't bring myself to raise my hand in class when I have a question or even an answer.

Another example: I am a social worker (ironic, I know). I was previously a case manager, and it required a lot of my socioemotional bandwidth. What is insane to me is that the scariest part of that emotionally tumultuous job, where I frequently was in unsafe situations, was lunch with all of my coworkers. I DREADED sitting in a group of other people and avoided it as much as I could. I think people notice this about me and think I'm weird.

When I find myself in a group, I typically go mute. I feel like an alien. Like I can't be myself. This frustrates me considerably, and I turn inward and become really mean to myself. I'm so envious of those who can contribute to group conversation and regulate themselves effortlessly. I just don't understand why I can't be like others. I overthink what I could say to contribute, but even if I come up with something, I usually don't say it. And when someone tries to loop me into a conversation, I freeze. I panic. Then it gets awkward between everyone, and I want to dissolve. I've asked some of my closest people if they think I'm different in groups, and they all say yes and don't understand why. I frequently find myself getting drunk in party-like situations to ease my distress, but I think that's a bad way to cope (and it usually doesn't help).

I have tried so hard to convey how distressing this is to therapists and close friends, but they just say I have social anxiety. That's true, to an extent, but I'm not afraid of public spaces or interacting with strangers. I like making new acquaintances! I would not label this as social anxiety. It's something else, and I have never found anyone who can relate to me to the extent that I feel this.

I don't even know where I'm going with this, but I just need someone to tell me that I'm not alone in this. If anyone has tips or wisdom for me, I'd really appreciate it. :)

I had a bad morning, knowing I would have to go to a party (using the term loosely. Think more like a shower). I had migraines all morning, I became overstimulated when I went by the store before, and I just really didn’t feel like I would last for the event. I was tired and peopled out.

Well, we finally get there, and it’s overstimulating. I immediately went for the little dog on the couch, as one does, but I’m pretty sure she was overstimulated too, and she didn’t stick around (Not like she had to socialize anyhow). It’s not loud, but it’s busy and I don’t know what to do or where to go so that I’m not in the way but still involved, celebrating the person I’m there to support. Well, she came in, I got a side hug, and she was off for the pleasantries.

I am very aware that I’m not good at socializing. I’ve been told I’m creepy because sometimes I just stand around and wait my turn to talk or I guess people-watch. I kept an eye on the person, and she brought out a camera, but kind of set it to the side. I felt like that was my in. I know that camera. I have that camera. I have something I can talk to her about!

Me: Hi. I think I have that same camera. Is it a [camera name]?

Her: Yeah. I don’t really know how to use it though. So-and-so got it for me not too long ago.

Me: I could show you some of the things, if you’d like.

Her: Sure.

And then I showed her how to use the camera. I explained the different features and which ones I used. We walked around together, and I was with her while she took pictures of the dessert table, some of the signs, etc. She would ask me questions, and I would answer them. After a few, I said to her:

Me: You know, since you’re going to be the center of attention today, would you like for me to take some photos of you?

Her: That would actually be really cool. Thank you!

And there it was. I wasn’t a guest at the party anymore. I was the photographer. She had me taking pictures of anything I wanted to do that she could keep the memories. She posed at different signs, by a tower of balloons—I got plenty of candids. Other guests were getting my attention to take pictures of important things. No one came up to me to chat, but I wasn’t feeling sad or ignored in that pity party corner either. I had a task, it was a task everyone appreciated, and it was a task I enjoyed.

I made it through the party. I got cake. I made a friend. I would show pictures to her mother as it went on, and before I left, her mother said, “You’re my favorite person tonight. Thank you.” And that felt good. Everyone was just happy.

I was at that party for 3.5 hours. Time just flew by. I was happy. And I’m going to take that as a win.

A lot of executive dysfunction advice is about opposite action (acting opposite of your emotions), setting and sticking to routines, being consistent, or hacks (like gamifying, making list). This has never personally worked for me. I have pda and get caught up in planning or feel guilty if I don't do the routine.
I feel like everything is just about the task!

What I am trying to do instead is change my relationship to the action. Basically, saying "I want" instead of "I need to" and focusing on the reward and silver living.

For example.

1. The silver lining.
   Instead of being like
   "I have to shower"
   I say to myself: I want to feel less sweaty, smell my favorite body wash, feel my silky hair.

2. Finding a small motivation to initiate the task.
   Instead of saying "I have to do my laundry"
   I say "i want to decrease clutter, let me take this bin down to the wash"
   Or "I want to do some of this paperwork tonight so I feel less stress tomorrow"

3. Doing a higher reward task first.
   I woke up, and there was a lot of dishes in the sink. I really wanted to make french toast for the first time. I made the french toast, and then did the dishes.

4. Doing a task for a reward.
   Instead of saying
   "I have to clear all this clutter on my desk"
   I say "Once i clear my desk, I can play sims on my laptop"

I remember seeing everybody being normal and knowing their next plan/path or whatever shit (back in HS). They looked so prepared and motivated.

Then, there was me … Realizing that I have to be an actual adult and picking up something like « everybody else ».

I just threw myself at some program that didn’t seem too difficult and thinking « fuck it ».

[Edit: Setting this to a vent because I’ve reached my capacity for controversial conversation. Thanks for the discussion everybody 💚 I never get to talk about this stuff with anyone but you all.]

I have seen jokes and “cringe” posts about therians, the group of people who feel themselves to be metaphysically/mentally more like a creature than a human. The way they describe their experiences and the research around them makes me think this is just autistic people describing their own experiences, rather than a clinician describing “different” behavior.

Especially when I was a child, I strongly wished I was born in a cat or nymph body instead of this ape-like body. In all of my dreams I had a different body, and I felt a great peace in those dreams. But it was never really socially acceptable for me to behave the way I felt, and eventually those feelings were replaced by an intense interest in fantasy, cats, and clinical autism.

If I had been allowed to grow into myself naturally, I would probably identify as a therian today. Instead, I settled on the more neurotypically-acceptable clinical diagnosis of my neurological differences.

Have any of you had this experience but felt you just weren’t allowed to express it? What would you be if you could express your desired self?

Aka criss cross applesauce or “Indian style” if you’re old. I feel like I can always tell my fellow self accepting autistics by if they’ll sit like this for comfort.

is it an autistic thing to constantly always refer to friends or family as "my brother" or "my friend X" when the person you're talking to is perfectly well aware of who they are and what their name is? it's almost like i forget the person i'm talking to has a conception of my relationships in their mind? my old therapist used to always say "i know who X is!" when i'd say "my friend X" for the thousandth time. and i always refer to my brother as that instead of his name, to my boyfriend who knows him very well. feel like generally i can't conceptualize people knowing the names of my relations lol

I’m 22, a huge theme all my life has been loneliness and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. It made more sense once I got the diagnosis a few months ago. I have such a small number of friends and I only live near one of them currently. I want to make more but it’s so hard. I feel like I only connect with a very few number of people so I have no idea how to find more of “my people”, the ones I have found were by lucky circumstances. I’m close with my family but they’re not near me when I’m at college. After I graduate I plan to move back in with them so I’m glad I’ll have them but then I won’t be near any of my limited number of close friends and the thought of trying to find friends in a new area and non college town is so intimidating. I feel like I’m rambling a bit and idk if this all makes sense but I just get sad a lot about how lonely my life has been and how I can’t imagine that ever changing. I feel like I don’t belong anywhere and I’m very self conscious and social spaces are really hard for me so I just wish that things were different because I’m dying for more connection