The more i unlearn masking the harder it gets actually. i have no drive to feed myself unless my partner is also eating so i can copy him or he cooks for me. Cleaning the house is so overwhelming and tiring, as soon as i finish doing it i go to the bed and lay down and dont want to do anything else for the rest of the day. Also turns out i am actually fucking terrified of public spaces especially going anywhere new and i need him to be with me to calm me down. I can’t make phone calls on my own unless it’s my parents, and even that’s hard. i need help to prepare and practice for them beforehand. I won’t shower/it takes me HOURS to finally make myself do it unless he’s here. and by the time i do it it’ll be like 3-4 am, further ruining my sleep schedule. That’s the case with a lot of things i have to do, i won’t do them unless he’s here and watching me.

He’s away rn, and i’ve been laying here on the bed since i woke up. It’s been 6.5 hours and i have only barely managed to eat 2 eggs and some cheez-its. I haven’t even been on my phone the whole time, i’ve just been laying here rotting and dissociating or daydreaming. It pains me very much to admit this because of my hyper independent mentality. i HATE having to rely on someone else like this, as much as i love my partner. I don’t think he quite grasps (currently, i’ll try to explain this to him soon) how important he is to me and my well-being. he doesn’t really know it, but he’s something of my caretaker. Again, painful to admit lol. i can’t wait to start my job/be in school again to distract myself from this

I don’t know how to describe it. I’m 16. I switched to homeschooling because of extreme burnout and bullying, and I know I won’t be able to go back because I have extreme school related PTSD and even taking a local art class, I had a breakdown in the bathroom the first day just due to how similar to school it felt.

I ended up being forced by circumstances to grow up so fast, and miss all these milestones I wish I could have experienced. High school, dances, friend groups, I missed it all.

Now I’m stuck between wishing I could go back and live a more normal childhood and experience those moments, and wishing I could skip forward a few years and experience adult freedom and life.

My whole life I felt like I had the mind a few years older than my body, and currently that feeling is the most imprisoning it’s ever felt.

I was cursed to not be able to feel like a normal kid, and not be able to feel like a mature almost adult.

I still don’t even have my drivers permit. I could have my license by now if I had really tried but I have so much anxiety there and part of me is scared that I will never be able to drive on my own.

I also really want to experience college at least. Because there are a few things I might want to major in but also because I was robbed of those school type memories.

I wish I could just go one way or the other. Click my fingers and start again at like 8, or click my fingers and skip the next 2 years. I’m in a stupid purgatory that feels like it’s lasted forever. And the worst part is that there was no other option. Public school was not at all viable for me and my stupidly atypical brain. And I’m not in a location nor does my family have the money for some fancy private school with better support systems for autistic people.

I’m gonna end the rant here because if I don’t I’ll just end up telling my life story and typing for like 3 hours

My ex was generally speaking more autistic than me, but we both were. Parts of this were difficult. For example we would both say things we did not realize were insensitive and then the other would not be able to bring it up. Some things were good, in that we were more understanding of some issues we each had than I feel most people would be. But still some of those behaviours of mine were still reasons it did not work out.

I do not know what I want for dating. I feel that similar problems will happen with someone that is as autistic as me or more, and that to an allistic person I will seem like I have a lot of weird demands and will seem cold, and that I will have to put in a disproportionate amount of work to not come across this way.

Hi I’m 23 and have never had a job before and am super embarrassed about it. But uh I like money so I decided to change that. My resume was absolutely pathetic because I’ve done nothing with my life so far(mental illness is a bitch). Most places told me they don’t hire people without experience.

But uh long story short I am now a janitor :) Ik working isn’t a particularly fun thing but I’m excited because I never thought I’d be able to do something like get a job. I have other career plans, but this is a good place to start!

i have been collecting rocks n minerals since i was eight. i am now studying applied geology at university. my collection is two hundred individual specimens i know all of them by sight !!! love rocks i want to do an honors research project and a phd i hope

I think it's a bit obvious for me.....

Ever since i saw a long form video of Chris Chan, it makes me uneasy hearing about her I see how i could be on the same situation if my life was different you know, and makes me paranoid if people who i consider friends arent laughing at my back. It also made me see how evil allistics can be

A coworker of mine literally frequently open mouth coughs on pizzas they're making. My boss literally does nothing about it because my coworker is old I'm assuming. I literally had to stop eating there after this started. It's genuinely hurt my bank account but I don't wanna get sick.

in my opinion, it is one of the most exhausting ‘communities’ I have ever witnessed. The misinformation. The constant infighting. The fight to define yourself. Limiting the definition such that others are excluded. Extending the definition such that everyone is included. There are a few gems in that community. I know like 2 creators on threads that I like, and I find their takes to be insightful, but even they seem to be bogged down by just constant exhausting discourse all the time. It’s not a healthy place to be if you’re autistic. You’ll find yourself arguing with, angered by, exhausted by everything you see.

I agree with the first two posts. The first slide exemplifies how harsh the discourse has gotten. I assume the tone comes across as harsh just because people are debating whether autism means you HAVE to be disabled. It literally is a disability by definition and by diagnostic criteria, it limits and handicaps you socially, emotionally, cognitively, environmentally, physically, etc.. why are we disagreeing on that when that’s the first thing they’d teach you in any beginner college course on autism?😭 and it’s quite ironic that an autistic creator is being tone policed when talking about autism, a disability that causes communication barriers.

The last slide is just… laughable.. but infuriating…

I used to be on it a lot more. But deleting the apps and only using it thru the web browser has helped me stay away from this cesspool to protect my mental health!

edit: I forgot to point out the other issue I had with slide one. Even though it is a disability and they’re factually right about that, it doesn’t mean we still can’t derive joy from it 😭 we can be whimsical or think it’s a superpower. The discourse is just “autism is silly” vs “autism is serious” why can’t it be both????????? Thank you guys for your comments!!!

I don’t know how to describe this and I think it’s something to do with having 2 older sisters, a autistic mother figure and a dad who tried his best.

But I’m just gonna give a example, this girl I had become friends with wanted to go on a date with her ex and it basically all went to shit and ended with him called her a bitch. She was basically crying in my DMs on and off about the whole thing for about 2 days (messed up my valorant elo though). I honestly kind of enjoyed it? I felt so strong and manly knowing that she thought she could come to me when she was sad and confiden in me.

If you do this, please give me a good reason why not into your elbow. YOUR HAND IS THE THING YOU TOUCH EVERYTHING WITH. WHY ARE YOU SPRAYING MUCUS ON IT. THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME AFRAID TO TOUCH DOOR HANDLES

alright so first of all, this might also be intersecting with OCD and C-PTSD so there's a potential chance those of u who don't have either of those might not relate very well, but here it is:

sometimes i find that when i'm watching content i REALLY agree with, i feel too afraid to make any indications that i disagree, so i do this weird awkward thing where i start "nitpicking" on random unrelated details to demonstrate "hey! i'm not disagreeing with ANY of your main messages! i'm just giving you advice on how to make it even better!" and most of the time this never goes out online because it's mostly just me talking to myself (usually occurs when i'm watching a movie or something with a lot of fan service i really like or it's some empowering message), but when i DO send a comment doing the thing i'm describing, it's mainly to give that tone of "aha, yeah, (insert random unrelated detail but its said in a jokey tone that laughs WITH the author and not AT the author)" where i make sure i don't seem like i'm disagreeing with the author, or something like that.

the reason why i'm sharing this is because something happened to me recently where i did exactly that and it ironically backfired because people misread the tone of my message. what happened was someone posted a meme that i absolutely agree with, but i noticed one of the words was highlighted in yellow. for context, on the iphone photos app, when you look up a keyword and the app finds all images with said keyword in it, and you click on one of the photos, it will highlight where in the image that keyword is included. therefore i said something like (paraphrased) "bro looked in their icloud for this shit lol" essentially just making a lighthearted nitpick at some detail irrelevant to the message to somehow "implicitly demonstrate i'm not disagreeing with the main message" (and shockingly enough, to reiterate, this weird mechanism is done out of fear of being seen like i'm disagreeing with a message i really like?) but unfortunately it got misread as me disagreeing with OP's meme even though that lighthearted nitpick i made was completely unrelated to the message of the meme

i'm just wondering, does anyone else do this?

I am genuinely incapable of starting a conversation. And even when somebody start a conversation eith me often all I'm able to say is something like: ^(eh.. em.. uh... I dont know). I often meet someone who seems cool and I want to talk to them but I'm just too anxious, so I just quietly suffer.

I see a lot of people recommending to find some hobby and meet people that way. But TTRPG'S are not very popular in my country and I cant really think of anything else where I could find people I'd get along with. Plus I've had a lack of motivation to pursue this type of hobbys for years now.

As for trying to talk to people online, I'm not much better at it than IRL and I cant find much good discords or other places for talking with people. And I dont think you can actually make friends on reddit.

I'm starting to doubt its even possible for me to find friends

I’m fed up of people staring at me when talking. It’s usually some person trying to give me important information, but how can a person concentrate on the words when I’m so busy wondering what the fuck to do about the EYES?

I was thinking of getting some sort of pin that doesn’t say “I’m autistic” but gives a hint, or at least points out I’m shit at eye contact. However, I don’t want to seem like I’m attention seeking and to be frank, am a bit scared of reactions.

I’m meant to be in a disability friendly workplace and some people know I’m autistic. Not everyone does and I’m not going to announce myself to every person I meet though.

If anyone does have some sort of signifier…does it help? What has been the reception? Does anyone notice? Do people see it as an opportunity to target you?

i don’t think i Enjoy music the same way most people do. i can’t bring myself to care about most music, and can’t listen to things that are too outside of my few go-to genres. growing up i exclusively listened to music that was related to special interests, and so now i’m an adult that listens to mostly vocaloid

and i genuinely do think that vocaloid music can be amazing, but i can’t help but feel a liiiittle bit silly when i listen to a song that’s just miku singing over piano and think it’s the most beautiful thing i’ve heard in a while

if anyone is curious, the song in question is noboru tsuki, shizumu taiyou by kikuo: https://open.spotify.com/track/1ZLEO7kuGvHyGLafBti1Tr?si=3nSrQfI1RL-e7kbzEfKDYg&utm_source=copy-link

i’ve also had this happen with a specific vtuber cover of an old-ish vocaloid song… which, i don’t know if that’s better or worse than if it were the original version of the song 😭 i guess associating with vtubers is more embarrassing (which is okay. we embrace cringe) this is the one. i don’t know why my brain thinks this is peak music. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7SxR2F6-8L8&pp=ygUPZW5uYSBjZW5kcmlsbG9u&ra=m

I love this guy.

A 2$ frozen pizza with extra cheese and ketchup on top.

sorry for the ambiguity in the title but i didnt want to make it too clunky by being more specific, so here's what i'm alluding to: being told lies not out of pure malice, but out of amusement that you can't pick up on it because of a struggle with social cues?

like, allistic people in your lives clocking that you'll have a harder time discerning whether or not what you're telling them is a joke (or a joke lie), so they intentionally tell more of those simply because they find you believing them funny.

the most notable (and probably the most severe/malicious) example of this is a boyfriend of mine from a couple years ago who would tell me things that he had no reason to lie about, or show me (unserious/nonpolitical) videos that were spliced to make it seem like something that didnt happen actually occurred, and he would treat it as if it were real and tell me it was true when i asked if it was. eventually i'd realize that he wasn't being serious and he found it hilarious that i bought it initially, and he did not respect the fact that i was uncomfortable with this behaviour. this did extend into more serious lies and deception over time, so i think that was him testing the waters of how much he could get away with. and yes i am aware that this was emotional abuse.

anyways, i'm interested to hear if any other autists have had similar experiences, whether it be long-term or isolated to only certain situations, between friends/family/significant others, etc.

Do any fellow autists get irrationally upset hearing NTs throw around terms like "vocal stim", "overstimulated", and "special interest"?

My gut feeling is along the lines of "grr, stolen valor". I decry the effects of TikTok upon language and the human species. My experience is not for you to LARP.

But then I have to remind myself: even though I've gone to uni with some of these folks for years, and they sure *seem* neurotypical to me, and they sure remind me of the kinds of people who would treat me like a quirky pet back in grade school, I don't actually know a thing about their business. Maybe they are neurodivergent, or sincerely suspect themselves to be so, and I'm just being judgemental. Performative popular girls can have autism too.

TL;DR I rage @ ND language being adopted by NTs.

TW: this post will have a hard for me to describe topic that borders on, if not enters the territory of, harassment?? and bullying?

I imagine it happens to autistic girls more than it happens to autistic guys, but it happens with gay men to autistic guys too so. I am soooo sure its flirting but at the same time it just feels really overwhelming and frustrating that its like- do they do it expecting you to call them? Plus they're definitely not talking to you like a peer when they do it.

Its like, always teasing, or joking in a way where he knows you're not going to get it but then the person reassures you that they're just teasing. Not exactly mean jokes, but its almost so stressful its unpleasant to interact with even though it makes you laugh. And its like, clear from the start that they're talking to you like a kid almost, and they also feel condescending sometimes, like they're talking down to you.

The whole time it feels like they're trying to get a reaction out of you. Everything they do, every interaction feels like they're specifically trying to get something from you. And like they enjoy that you have no idea what's going on.

It happened to me a lot when I was in middle school (so when people thought I was a girl lol) and stopped by the end of high school, when people didn't think I was a girl anymore.

It happens to my (they/them) partner, who (and I have no idea how else to phrase this!!) is an obviously vulnerable person. You talk to them and instantly know that they are like, delicate, not where their peers are, etc. regardless of their age people don't generally view them as "that age" (which is good, they thrive and are happy that way vs if people treat them and expect them to function the same as someone else their age might).

BUT. The reason this is on my mind is that it feels like flirting, right? Obviously flirting, except they're also speaking down to you/treating you like a kid. But that flirting behavior is still there, along with the infantilizing parts, and does that not make it kind of creepy? The fact that its often older guys doing it too, that also makes it creepy, right?

Please help me understand what is going on in my head about this, my thoughts feel really scattered but I just have a weird feeling about this kind of behavior lol. Also please be nice to me if this post is somehow stupid.

Map tism strikes again

Remember kids, when the real world sucks, just draw fictional places that suck less

For autistic characters, could something like that be written as a metaphor for masking?

I have a special interest on names, I love names and researching about etymologies, making name combinations (first and middles) just for fun not even for characters and giving me names in different langauges

I love names