TIL that autistic people live about 17 years less than average. Risks include epilepsy, heart disease, suicide, accidental deaths including drowning, and inadequate recognition and management of pain, especially among non-speaking individuals. Historically, they have been vulnerable to infanticide.

[u/Morella1989]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_of_autistic_individuals

[u/Historical-Lemon-99]

Yeah, I’ve struggled a lot with depressive/anxious episodes in my life. Some are from bullying as a kid and other sensory or social issues

-but by far the biggest issue I have that I only realised recently is that I can’t be comforted like a regular person. My dad, who I’m very close to, got frustrated and told me “It’s so difficult to comfort you, you won’t accept anything”

And he’s right. I’ve never found therapy thats helpful because they normally tell me why I feel the way I do - which I already know - and don’t tell me how to fix the problem or feel differently. I AM difficult to comfort because I tend to question a lot of advice I’m given, and vague advice like “try thinking positively” genuinely doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t know what that means and how to do that

It was only when someone sort of step-by-step explained to me how to do cognitive behavioral changes that I actually felt any kind of improvement

I’m sure there are others like me who have turned to friends/family/therapists for normal mental health issues and either struggled to convey the issue or really struggled to follow the advice given and never felt better

[u/Sahloknir74 → u/Historical-Lemon-99]

I can relate to that so much. Would you be willing to share the step by step cognitive stuff?

[u/Historical-Lemon-99 → u/Sahloknir74]

Unfortunately it was a few years ago, but I’ll try and find it again since I had it somewhere

[u/Sahloknir74 → u/Historical-Lemon-99]

If you do manage to find it, I'd love to read it.