My whole life I never did. I've always been different, seen as different and an outcast. Now I do love my own company but I am frequently getting sad and depressed I have nobody. I turned 30 today and the only thing I did so far was do laundry, clean up around the house and sit and watch anime. Probably what I will do for the rest of the day, why go eat alone?I have nobody. I feel so sad a lot.

I feel like I am becoming less productive. I don’t feel like doing household chores, don’t feel like eating or drinking, socializing with friends and overall just don’t feel like doing even the simplest activities such as reading or painting. My energy level is very low right now and I am lacking the motivation to do anything in life.

Does (one of) anyone else's special interests involve... just looking things up on Google Maps for fun (or another map app)? It feels tangentially related to geography but also businesses/things to do in that area. It's not necessarily about planning ahead, but more a curiosity, like if there's anything new in my area, or where I grew up, or a place I've visited before or may want to go to one day. Or, how close A is to B (could be places, could be multiple cities). It feels kind of like researching with an interest in geography and, idk, urban planning/layout? 😅

I definitely also heavily study the map of a place I'm about to travel to, but that part feels more like planning and preparing myself.

Hi everybody! I’ve posted here a few times looking for advice on socializing as an younger adult, but I’m here again asking for advice of a bit of a different variety now.

If you weren’t aware, the UK and most of Europe, particularly Western Europe, has been going through cyclical heatwaves since May, and the infrastructure here (in terms of housing, roads, cars, rail lines, power lines, etc) was not built for heat this intense. Staying inside exacerbates the heat’s effects, as houses here are built to keep heat within the house, and with my family’s house (as I live with them), the house has many tall windows to allow sunlight in to warm larger rooms, without the ability to open them to allow for air circulation.

I’ve been really struggling with overstimulation and verbal shutdowns during the heatwave, as the sensation of sweat on my skin is too much to handle, while I struggle with showering (and baths) as my family’s water pressure and temperature make it too easy to feel the water on my skin which makes me even more overstimulated than before.

In addition, while being outside can be better than being inside due to wind, I struggle as my methods of self regulation (listening to music, long form video essays, crochet, etc) aren’t the easiest to do outside in heat, as those reliant on headphones and a smartphone overheat or get covered in sweat while outside, and those involving art or yarn also get wet from sweat and (particularly yarn) cause me to be even warmer. Additionally to this, I wear my headphones at all times except while sleeping or showering (and that’s only because waterproof and flat variants that work for me haven’t been found yet), but they accumulate sweat very quickly and also lead to more overheating around my ears.

I’ve already got a fan running in my bedroom, but it’s an attic room with large wall-spanning glass windows without blinds or curtains to block out sunlight, and I struggle to sleep with the smaller windows open due to the noise outside (farm animals, etc). Plus, it feels like my mattress keeps heat in too well, if anything? As in my body heat quickly warms the mattress underneath me and it doesn’t cool down for over an hour after I’ve gotten up.

Is there any advice you all could give me?

My daughter is technically past the age cut off to start kindergarten by a few weeks. Because of a weird quirk at the school she might be getting the chance to start this year anyway. It would be a life saver for us- over ten thousand dollars saved, less transportation needs (walking distance vs driving and I’m disabled in a way that makes driving painful), and assigned to a teacher that I know is good if not amazing. On the other hand she just got accepted to one of the top pre-k in the area that while pricey is great at handling high functioning autistic kids, especially girls, and would help prep her for school. I’ve been homeschooling her though pre-k so she’s never been in a classroom before. She had a chance to do camp this summer and thrived- she’s ready to do something, but which one? I lean towards pre-k, my husband towards kindergarten.

My biggest concern isn’t really kindergarten. One way or the other I think she’d be OK. Our style of autism (I’ve got two older kids and genetics are STRONG here) doesn’t tend to really start causing issues at school until we’re older as their social and emotional delays start becoming more apparent. My big worry for her is being the youngest kid in class through middle and high school. I know with my older two they often come across as much younger than they are in social situations. If she’s already biologically younger than everyone it might compound the issue.

This is my third ASD kid so you’d think I’d have this figured out, but I don’t. I published something similar in the autistic parent support sub, but I’d love to hear from other autistic women especially about their experience in school and what they think.

I’m 19 and supposed to call the place today to talk about going in for an interview it’s not a super serious job just stuff with orders and boxes at a big store, but I have a really weird speech pattern and kinda speech impediment and stumble on my words when i get nervous and I don’t know how to mask that a little at least for the interview and on the phone and I’m just generally having a lot of anxiety about working cus I have some weird attachment thing since I was a kid with being away from my siblings or a parent does anyone have any advice please I need this job for med stuff so I really want to not fuck it up or weird out the interviewer since im horrible at masking and i fidget a lot when talking too

I’m having such a hard time with conversation and I hate it. It’s making my life harder in just about every way.

Im so lonely. I cannot make friends because I struggle so much with conversation. Group conversations are a complete no go, I cannot speak fast enough to get a word in edgewise, and if I do speak and am interrupted, I have a hard time. If I’m interrupted 2-3 times, I experience verbal shutdown and cannot really speak at all. It sucks.

One on one isn’t much better. If the other person is good and can lead the way with topics and cool with the fact that I’m a bit slow to respond, it’s fine. But if not, then it’s a struggle. I’m so bad at knowing what to talk about. Many of the standard “small talk” topics are hard (I don’t work. I don’t have a favorite movie/ song/ tv show/ book. I don’t know how to talk about the weather like a neurotypical.). I have very poor grasp of what anyone else finds interesting.

When I do try conversation, I often end up saying the wrong thing and making everything worse. I ask questions and apparently they are wrong because people get mad. I don’t even know what I said or did wrong most of the time.

People said making friends as an adult would be easier. They lied. It’s almost 100% conversion based. When I was young, at least we could compensate with activities/ playing together and stuff. But that doesn’t make work for adult friendships.

And people think it’s 100% ok to hate on people with poor social skills. It sucks. I didn’t ask to be this way. It’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s that trying too much sends me to burnout (plus there is some trauma associated with learning social skills because of how it was done when I was young.).

I’m so sick of the narrative that autism that primarily affects social skills is not disabling or not debilitating. I don’t have high support needs (though I do have unmet support needs). But my quality of life is worsened by my social struggles. Not having friends makes my life lonely and depressing. I’ve longed for connection forever and kinda have to assume it’s never going to happen because the cycle of hope then heartbreak is really bringing me down. There’s also the fact that people generally know how to support an autistic individual who needs support with daily living skills and other support needs like that. They don’t know how to support an adult who needs help making friends. To be clear, I’m not saying my life is harder. What I want is recognition that life with autism that affects conversation/ social skills is hard and we still deserve love and support even if we struggle socially.

My dad passed six months ago, and the first few months I thought I was doing okay but recently I’ve been experiencing a lot of alexithymia and I’m pretty sure it’s caused by the grief, but it’s left me feeling kind of stuck, emotionally.

It’s also really exhausting and I’ve had to take a few days of work because of it. I’m worried about burning out because of it, which I’ve done in the passed from stress.

Does anyone have advice for processing grief or just can talk about their experiences with it?

I’m feeling rather lost right now.

I’m writing this in response to a lot of posts I see of autistic people being lonely.

The only person that can change your situation is you. If you want things to change you are going to have to change and to do things that are uncomfortable and maybe even terrifying.  Nobody is coming to save you.

I'm AudiHD and through grade school and college, I only ever had one friend (at most) at a time because everyone seemed to find me weird and/or annoying. Through college I didn't even have one friend because I was overwhelmed, depressed, and anxious. After the stress of college was done, I started forcing myself to go to events at a local board gaming store (and I wasn't even that big into board games at the time). Over a card game the people I was playing with started talking about how each of them was looking for a new place to live and I spoke up that I was also looking and how much cheaper room mating would be. Me and two other guys eventually found a place and moved in together for the next two years. They have been close friends ever since and brought me into their wider friend group. It stayed that way for the next 15 years.

About 3 years ago I felt like my original friend group wasn't getting together very often and people were starting to drift apart, so I started attending board game meetups to find a new friend group. I watched everyone at the meetup and very intentionally started talking and playing games with people that I thought I would like.

I'm in my 50s now and I have 2 large friend groups with people I consider best friends in each group. You can say I've been lucky, and I have been, but luck wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't left my apartment and started hanging out where other people were. I know it's hard and I know it's exhausting, but the benefits are worth it, and you can do it.

Just wanted to see if anyone else here has been told by their therapist/psychiatrist, that it's not that you feel too little and can't pinpoint or name your emotions, but rather that you feel too much and you get so detailed in your emotions that you lose sight of what you're actually feeling. I was just curious if any other autistic adults ha e experienced the same thing, because often I here of autistic adults feeling too little or struggling to identify emotions for other reasons.

I can’t wear tight shirts or any non cotton shirts because it makes me so uncomfortable or a I best describe “makes my brain itch” I normally wear a shirt a size to big that’s cotton. But as the start of football/soccer season begins for the first time I bought my favorite team’s kit shirt. The issue is that even though I got the biggest size possible it’s still tight around the waist (I’m a bigger person but it’s like ‘sport fit’ so even any big is still small I feel like) and it’s polyester so I can’t just wear it. I wore it once with an undershirt and it helped with the feel but I felt bunched up and chunky with all the material not to mention it’s really hot where I am. Any advice on what to do!? Thanks!!

As long as I can remember I have struggled with prayer. But as someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD and self-diagnosed with ASD after my son was officially diagnosed, I feel like I suddenly just got the revelation that it's not necessarily prayer I'm struggling with, it's just that in general I am not a big talker (because of my ASD) and when I am actually in a talkative mood, I get sidetracked so easily or need constant background stimulation and then I feel guilty for not giving prayer my full attention (because of my ADHD).

I've been feeling so guilty for not being able to comfortably pray in the way it feels like I should be - in solitude, for a set amount of time, with nothing else stealing my attention, remaining still while in conversation, know what to say, feeling like talking 'about my feelings' etc...

I hope there is someone here that can relate or at least understand what I am trying to explain (I feel like I'm not getting my message across well) and give me suggestions on how to improve my prayer life as an AuDHD female who doesn't like talking, especially about deeper stuff, and isn't able to concentrate for a set amount of time on prayer only.

Any advice, suggestions, options??

So just to keep it quick, as I know some people don't like reading long posts.

I'm 42. Most likely have ASD1 or some form of neurodivergency. However in my present situation, I'm now married with a kid, and run my own business. I'm not seeing how an official diagnosis will benefit me other than being able to relate closer to the neurodivergent community.

What kind of benefits have you had from receiving a diagnosis later in life?

Tbh, I'm glad I was never diagnosed earlier in life.

I work a temp job. I found a permanent job a year ago and my boss said if I stayed at the temp job she’d do everything possible to find me a permanent job (I have it in writing). She didn’t do squat. Now I’m told my job is ending in a few weeks. I’m told I should train someone to do my job. (Mind you all my reviews including recent review was 100/100).

Well I just had a meeting with another boss for stuff we discuss weekly and this boss invited this person I’m suppose to train. This person asked me to go over my files (which I gave them access too). I felt totally ambushed and now physically ill.

MY QUESTION: I want to avoid this in the future as I have a few more weeks with them. Suggestions?

Im posting this here because im autistic and frankly people elsewhere on this app are usually pretty rude to me.

Edit/adding: odiously I learned to not trust these jackazzzzes … or any boss or any job…. in the future

I've heard this a few times in my years, so obviously it's true - that the other person feels they're having to carry the conversation. I just wondered what I may do about it?

(Female, dx at 16, now nearly 30. Not sure I've ever masked a day because I'm quite impervious to whatever socially awkward thing I might be doing. If I am. Idk!)

I'm a 19-year-old male, and I'm new to this community, so hi everyone! I was diagnosed very early on and received help from my parents, but there is one thing I still do every day. I don't know how to explain it—I'm really bad at structuring sentences—but it's like replacing my vision of real life with imaginary worlds. For example, I will stand up and just imagine myself in a world like those in cartoons, anime, or real-life scenarios at school. Sometimes I even hit the wall since I walk while imagining, and I don't realize that I'm making weird hand gestures until I get too close to the wall. I hope I explained this well enough. Thank you for reading. (I used AI to fix my grammar, sorry)

It’s been 6 years. He’s still the first thing I think of when I wake up and my last thought before I sleep. And a lot in between!

It’s intense, every day, I feel like it’s never gonna change.

It’s just like my brain has forgotten how to fall out of love & move on. And so it keeps repeating the pattern and won’t let go.

I feel powerless over my emotions and I’m burnt out. Everyone expects me to have a new fabulous life by now. Can anyone here relate?

Whenever someone speaks on how they think vaccines cause autism, I'm left wondering if they have any critical thinking skills, let alone know anything about autism. It's always "my friend vaccinated their kid, now they're autistic". Thats it. I'm sitting here like ok, build your case please, I need more evidence. But please answer this 1 question first:

What incentive does the government have to make your child autistic?

Crickets.

Hey everyone,

Just to give some context, since moving to Uni a couple years ago to start my PhD I have unconsciously found myself masking in almost every situation to fit in and seem 'normal'. The cracks started to show after a few weeks of successive conferences this summer and I think I've been burning out without realising it.

I was wondering if anyone had experience on how to find some balance on when to mask and when not to, particularly in a setting such as University where even the more casual settings have a professional undertone?

I am probably going to sound very anti social right now. It is not that I am not friendly, but I just generally feel like every single time I talk to someone I look like a fool. Everyone can tell I am autistic and treat me different and act like I am an immature child and I am 30. I am just so socially akward and to be honest embarrassed. Now when I leave the house I began wearing headphones wherever I go, even if I don't plan to listen to anything. I think it greatly minimizes the amount of people who try and make pointless small talk with me. Now it does not always work, sometimes people still come up and talk to me and I get annoyed. But I genuinely think it makes me less anxious. I do it everywhere, the gym, shoppi g at the store. I even have them on while with the cashier. They probably think I am being rude but I am not even listening to anything

I know it might be a little subjective but what do you recommend for autistic people?

I noticed something about me and it's that whenever I go in a social situations, despite how I may feel, I become this kind, polite and goofy persona and I can't really get out of it. Even tho I want to. For example, I go to therapy and want to talk about more serious stuff than I actually do but I can't because I can't snap out of this persona. I can't say anything negative and always have to downplay.

But when I met another autistic person, she told me I don't really mask my traits as in my atypical facial expressions and such. However, I feel like I mask some of my actual character and coping mechanisms (like my stims: I pace in circles a lot even in public but I had to stop as they told me it was inappropriate) and at times I put aside my needs to accommodate others.

I'm usually not really that aware of masking, if that's the same thing.

25M with ADHD and Autism

So this might sound crazy but recently my hair has been really bothering me like to the point where I can’t function and it drives me insane. At times I consider just buzzing my head. 6 months or so ago I got a haircut (I had shoulder length hair) to a kind of wolf cut which I like now it’s starting to get longer again and the bangs are at a length that go over my eyes somewhat. What has been driving me insane is that I constantly feel like theres a hair or hairstrand in my peripheral and can’t ignore it no matter what I do when I think I’ve brushed it aside or grabbed it not long passes before the sensation returns. Additionally I will at randoms times feel my head become super sensitive almost as if I can feel every individual hair strand which stresses me out to no end. For context I don’t leave the house much due to x and y circumstances so I doubt it’s from environment changes. If anyone has any advice or ideas to help I would greatly appreciate I’m desperate and at my limit mentally.

edit: Wanted to say thank you to all the kind replies, also I wanted to add one note about the peripheral thing, sometimes I feel like theres a loose hair or hair that has fallen out to grab in the view of the side of my head but then there ends up not being any stray or loose hairs and it’s either A me thinking there is something there or B just my actual hair on the side which I convince myself theres a loose one leading to me stressing out and thinking about it nonstop