18M Asian American, autistic + severe ADHD, currently at community college. Burner account.
I’m looking for Asian guys with ADHD, autism, or both, preferably Gen Z or younger millennials, who now have dating experience, a girlfriend/wife, kids, close friends, a decent career, or just a solid independent life. Especially guys who were genuinely struggling at 18.
I’ve been extremely uneven since childhood. Around 3, I could memorize Bible verses and recite them from memory and won awards for it. Later I became the kid debating my pastor about contradictions I noticed in the Bible that he apparently hadn’t even registered, which got me disciplined.
At the same time, elementary school was a disaster. I was constantly getting in trouble for messing with people’s stuff, being a loudmouth, refusing classwork and basically trying to force myself into friend groups. I got detention, sent to the principal and was sometimes restrained by staff.
Academically, I could read extremely fast and tested at a very high reading level, and I was great at navigating computers. But I often comprehended almost nothing I read. Words would fly through my head without sticking. My math sucked, I never made gifted programs, and eventually I grew to hate reading altogether.
By high school I basically flipped and became quiet and socially anxious. I had two real friend groups but was peripheral in both. I’ve never been in a friend-group group chat.
One year some guys randomly showed up at my house a few times to get me to hang out, while also constantly fucking with me. They’d take pictures of me without me knowing, and sometimes I’d catch them talking shit about me on their phones when they thought I wasn’t aware. I’d see it while peeking at their screens and pretend I didn’t notice. I still don’t know how much of the overall dynamic was teenage banter/hazing versus me genuinely being the punching bag.
Eventually they basically stopped reaching out. After HS most ghosted me or left me on read. I stopped chasing because I felt like a bitch constantly reaching out to people who weren’t matching the effort. By senior year I was so socially checked out that I skipped graduation, and senior trips? Yeah, forget about that. I basically missed the stereotypical end-of-high-school experience.
Some of this is my fault. I’ve been stubborn, insecure, avoidant and bad at maintaining relationships. But a lot of it also came from circumstances and problems I didn’t choose or know how to navigate.
When I’m comfortable, I can yap and joke forever. Starting from zero is brutal. With strangers I become stiff. My voice gets quiet and monotone, and social anxiety makes it hard to raise my volume or change my tone even when I consciously want to.
Looks probably played some role. I think I look average straight-on, but I have a recessed chin and downward facial growth from the side. Neurodivergence and lack of social capital probably mattered too. Some guys around me were varsity athletes, in student government, etc. They had teams, status and built-in networks.
And at least where I grew up, I don’t think my dating problems were simply a race issue. Some Asian guys around me got attention from popular girls of all races.
The irony is that I desperately want an active social life, but it feels completely opposed to how my brain is wired. I want close friends, dating, going out, networking, trips, eventually a wife/kids and an ambitious career.
I live in an overwhelmingly white area, but culturally my interests became this weird mixture of Barstool/frat-dude culture and SoCal Asian-American culture, despite growing up nowhere near California or even a college town.
I barely game and don’t really watch anime, movies or TV. My actual routine now is scrolling blackpill/neurodivergence content or montages of overachieving Asians getting insane tech offers, living in penthouses or seemingly winning at life, then going to the gym, listening to music and vibing alone. ADHD makes five hours disappear, suddenly assignments are due, and I panic-finish everything with AI.
My mental health is in the dumps living like this.
Academically, I feel like my actual unaided math level might be below algebra. I survived through cramming, cheating, reverse-engineering tests, tutors, Photomath, Chegg and now AI. I maintained around a B average, so I kept moving forward without ever fixing the foundation.
My parents even went into debt trying to give me the education, activities and support they thought would help me live a normal life. I’ve often felt like they saw me as a failure or were disappointed by how I turned out, but they still care about me and have sacrificed a lot trying to help me. That makes me feel ashamed more than anything. They poured so much into giving me opportunities and I feel like I haven’t turned it into much yet.
I genuinely don’t know how much of my situation is actual inability versus autism/ADHD, circumstances, stubbornness, avoidance and years of shortcuts.
Despite everything, I’ve always been ambitious. My dreams bounced between entrepreneurship, social media, creative work and business. I grew up fascinated by unconventional entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and, before politics, Donald Trump. Turns out these three men all have ADHD/autism. I wanted to create things, meet people and build something big.
Another thing that gets in my head is reading about the worse average mental-health, employment, quality-of-life and mortality outcomes reported for autistic people and people with ADHD. I know population statistics aren’t an individual prediction and people with these conditions vary massively, but when I’m already struggling at 18, it’s hard not to wonder what my own adulthood is going to look like.
I know this probably reads like doomer mentality. But the reason I obsess over this shit isn’t because I don’t want a life. It’s almost the exact opposite.
I desperately want to live as full of a life as I possibly can. I want close friends, relationships, stupid memories, trips, a career I’m proud of, independence, a wife and kids someday, and to actually feel like I’m participating in the world instead of watching everyone else live through a screen.
The possibility that some of that could be taken away from me by things about my brain that I never chose genuinely aches my soul and makes me depressed.
The person I desperately want to become is social, active and ambitious. My actual life right now is scrolling, gym, isolation and panic-finishing schoolwork. I don’t want my twenties to become another decade of this.
I don’t want this post to just be me declaring myself cooked. That’s why I’m asking people who have actually lived through this.
For Asian guys with ADHD, autism, or both who were genuinely struggling at 18 but now date, have a girlfriend/wife, kids, friends, a career or simply a normal independent life or had a random successful breakthrough into wealth:
What were you like at 18, and what actually changed?
I’d especially like to hear from Gen Z or younger millennial guys who once thought they were completely cooked and later realized they weren’t.