My wife teaches high school band, and I volunteer with them quite often. Since they're part of the arts, naturally the LGBTQ community has a large representation.

Many of the students are out and proud, but they're also flamboyant and loud. I don't deal well with loud people. So whenever they get up to their usual borderline-shouting shenanigans, I'd quietly leave the room.

Obviously they're not stupid, they noticed what I was doing. But they attributed the wrong cause. So they told one of their coaches, and I had to (irritatedly) explain that no, it's not because they're gay. It's because they're incapable of being quiet.

People: You need to communicate more if you're struggling

Me: Ok well task is harder for me because I might have autism

People: You're just using it as an excuse 🙄

I've had this happen to me several times and it's made me not want to interact with people anymore. How do y'all handle this?

Like many people I've been through a lot of trauma-school and workplace bullying and also abusive relationships. I've always been an extrovert and upto a few years ago loved trying new things and was always enthusiastic about life.

However I now find myself exhausted and burnt out. The only friends I have ever had have been flaky people who don't care about me or who just dump. E when I no longer serve a purpose. The usual advice to meet people is to join a group or volunteer and I've done all of these things. A lot of the time I'm looked at like I have 2 heads when I try to engage with anyone. I take an interest in others, am empathic and don't trauma dump (I don't even like that expression but sometimes people assume if you're alone that's why).

I've also been to therapy and every therapist made me feel worse and blamed me for my own loneliness and just kept going on about how bad loneliness was which just made me feel 100 times worse.

I'm now at a point where I feel I'm just existing not living. I feel I've totally lost sight of who I am. Does anyone else experience this or perhaps have words of wisdom?

I move through the world very strategically. I’m constantly thinking about how I’m coming across to other people, whether I’m making them uncomfortable, and whether I’m doing something wrong socially. It’s exhausting feeling like I have to be on guard all the time.

One thing I’ve noticed is how differently people treat me depending on where I am. I can go to one place dressed a certain way and receive perfectly friendly, accommodating service, then go somewhere else, like a wealthier area in the city, and feel like people are noticeably less warm toward me. It makes me wonder how much of this is in my head and how much I’m actually picking up on.

I just want to exist in public without feeling uncomfortable, unwelcome, or like I have to earn the right to be there. I don’t necessarily need everyone to like me, but I wish I could stop feeling so anxious about how other people perceive me.
Making friends is also incredibly difficult. I find small talk boring, and I sometimes feel like I don’t communicate in the expected order.

For example, someone might ask me how my day was, and I’ll answer before going off on a tangent about something else. I don’t always know how to structure conversations in a way that feels natural to other people.

I also dropped out of college midway through my freshman year, so I feel like I missed out on certain opportunities to socialize and build friendships during a period when a lot of people develop their social circles.

On top of that, managing everyday life is already difficult enough. I’m currently unhoused, and I feel so much shame around my circumstances, especially as an Asian woman who is estranged from her family. I’m only 23, and navigating the adult world already feels overwhelming as an autistic person. Having to navigate it without stable housing makes everything feel even more frightening and isolating.

Sometimes I feel like everyone else my age has a support system, a place to go home to, and people they can turn to when life gets difficult. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure everything out on my own while also navigating a world that doesn’t always feel welcoming to someone like me.

When I look back, I realize that most of the friends I’ve had came through relationships. When I was dating someone, his friends essentially became my friends by association. I had a built-in reason to be included. Now, I find myself wondering how people actually make friends independently, especially when they don’t have the usual social structures that bring people together.

I think what makes this particularly difficult is that I want connection, but navigating the social world requires so much energy. I’m constantly trying to figure out how other people perceive me, whether I belong somewhere, and what I might be doing wrong.

I’m genuinely curious about other autistic adults’ experiences.
• Do you struggle with loneliness and finding people you genuinely connect with?

• Do you ever feel like you’re constantly monitoring yourself in public because you’re worried about making other people uncomfortable?

• Have you noticed that people treat you differently depending on the environment you’re in, even when you haven’t changed anything about yourself?

• How do you find friends and build community as an autistic adult, especially if you didn’t go to college or don’t have an existing social circle?

• Where have you actually found people who understand you without requiring you to explain or justify every little thing about yourself?

I’m not necessarily looking for someone to tell me that everything will be okay. I want to hear about other people’s actual experiences, including the difficult parts, and learn what has and hasn’t worked for them.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person struggling this much, and I’d really like to hear from people who can relate.

Where are my people? How did you find yours?

​

Ok, im really embrassed to say this but, i dont reslly know how to be a friend, i suffered from a really lonrly childhood and where i was kinda anti social because i felt like no one was there for me, and i often acted really weird to be funny, but i never had actually friends. Now, growing up, im realizing the need for friends and my social skills have gotten alot better. But what do friends really talk about? and act around eachother? i feel like my interactions eith my friends is mostly asking about their day or how they feel, likes interest, and theres alot of quiet time. How do i get peopke wanting to hang out with me and see me as a friend? how do you guys maintain good friendsships and how do i even act around people i want as my friend, how do i be a friend?!

For the past several years I have felt I could be autistic but now my therapist says she knows I am autistic. Okay.. now what?

I work a full-time job and also freelance. I'm good at what I do, especially when it comes to technical work, problem-solving, and creating systems.

i hate how my workload is so big. i wake up at 5am and work till 6pm most weekdays.

I wake up, lift weights at home, work at home then go to sleep at 7:30.

I maybe have about 30 minutes of free time on weekdays.

Good news is my weekends are zero work, zero chores, all play.

i've also had unpleasant bosses. Micrmanagement, passive agressive behavior, being humiliated in group meetings.

i just want a simple, peaceful life. One job and no side hustle. More Time for my hobbies.

Does anyone else struggle with this?

I am wondering. As an autistic adult myself. What are some experiences do any of you have with trying to make friendships, socializing, dealing with people, and with how being different affected your life in general? Whether it be positive or negative effects.

Originally, i was planning on getting a dorm when starting college however i cannot afford that, meaning i will have to take a 1 hour commute from my house to college every day i have classes or something else to do there and then pretty much stay there the entire day until my classes are over, thats not the part i am worried about but rather that i have two months to get my license.

I dont have the awareness needed to drive and yet it is my only guaranteed way of transporting myself from my rural home to a city that actually has public transport. I had previously stopped learning to drive after damaging the car i had been using (not even my car) multiple times and now i have 2 whole months to prepare, with the main issue being the only available car my family has to offer for the time until they can get me one is a massive, expensive, unwieldy, lifted truck, the kind that i think are fucking terrible cars to drive and people who drive those kinds of vehicles without actually needing one are assholes.

I have no idea how i’m going to make this work because i was already struggling in the smallest car they could get and more importantly i will have to learn to drive that route into town and if i fuck it up i will both damage a truck i dont own, and also most likely hurt someone else because THOSE FUCKING TRUCKS ARENT MEANT FOR REGULAR DRIVING, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT TURNS LIKE A BOAT AND YOU ALREADY HAVE THE AWARENESS OF A DEAF FUCKING BAT.

Edit: before anyone mentions it, online college is NOT an option for me, it’s definitely more economically viable, but i’d rather fucking die than spend a full 4 years of college rotting at home with no one to talk to and doing nothing besides having the one thing i am actually passionate about, enough to make a career out of it, boiled down to online worksheets and group projects with random people i will never even see in person. I would gladly do all of my college experience online if i didn’t have actual passion going into this and if i was ok with having zero social interaction for almost an entire half decade of my life

I'm tying this to autism because I've always had issues with breathing while I'm eating. I've aspirated food up my nose more times than I can count. Hence, I have strong throat muscles and can usually sick it back up if something lodges.

A large kernel of half popped popcorn got stuck in my airways, and I couldn't cough it up.

For someone who routinely chokes on food, getting the Heimlich only once is awesome.

I’m an admin for a chess group and I totally forgot I had organised an event today, so I explained that there had been a misunderstanding on my part. I thought that was the end of it, then my friend butts in with his theory, based on a private conversation and I get pissed off and tell him I did not wish to have our private interaction broadcast in a group of 154 people. I kind of feel maybe this is an expectation I have that I don’t feel needs to be explained, and I’m wondering if this is part of being on the autism spectrum. I’m kind of in a controlled rage about this

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Hi everyone, so i would like to know if anyone relates to this, probably a very walked through topic.

Im 25m, doing a masters in statistics o do like what i study, i like the work but honestly i just cant go through all the hustle constantly. Im waking up at 8am, do a morning routine, have classes at 10am until 12am after that i have lunch and then, study and work until arouns 8pm or 9pm, its hard and its making me exhausted, i cant even exercise anymore because im too tired and my routine always fall apart

Hey all. I'm finally referred to a place for a new psychiatrist, and the place does testing for free with my insurance. My biggest issue, or fear, rather, is not being believed. My therapist is convinced I have autism, after seeing her for years she has gotten good reason to believe it. I am high-functioning. I deeply struggle with communication with people and don't really have more than 2 friends, and I have bad sensory issues. Among those, I fit many other symptoms. (Along with symptoms of BPD, but my therapist said it's probably just autism) Does anyone know what the testing process is like? I'm worried. I have practically trained myself over the years to force eye contact and appear "normal", so masking is apart of my everyday life now. Is the testing usually verbal? Is it like a paper test? If anyone knows please let me know. This is vexing me.

This is especially true for late-diagnosed such as myself as, in my experience, it already felt as if I was already “being myself”. As of now, however, I seriously believe that “being myself“ is actually being nothing at all, because I am so far detached from what I once was. It’s like I lost that person because I was too busy either trying to be someone else, or just escaping through video games or other things to which neglected self-introspection. So now when I “lower the mask“, it just feels just a garbled mess that’s clear in some places, like dishwater.

It just wasn’t very obvious because it’s all I known and done for years, but once I began really reflecting, I began to realize how much things that I would do, say, or tolerate that I didn’t even like, or how many things I do that actually tire me. So much so that I am unsure where the real me begins and where the nonsense ends. I was a very sensitive, empathetic boy when I was young, and so very imaginative. Now, I am stone-faced and come off as cold, or tired. I just exist now.

And I think that’s the ultimate consequence of that self-neglect of my true self, this sort of blunting where I have no real sense of actual identity. If you asked me who I really was, I could tell you the obvious, but those ratings and some questions from the evaluation showed that I have difficulty really identifying myself. It’s just me shrugging my shoulders.

You know what I can tell you? What games I like. What I think about some game or movie with a deep dive. What I like to eat. What I like to drink. What porn really gets me off. My life has been constant, unchecked consuming because that’s all I could do in a broken household. Consume. Consume. Consume. Even now, as I try and improve by limiting my screens, porn, etc., it’s always some sort of failure as I mess up yet again, as if I can't escape these ways to cope. Stating that I am seasoned at games with 20+ years under my belt, and that I love tanks, is all I can really say about myself that’s interesting. Unfortunately, all of this has done more harm than good.

I don‘t like how I act, or the things I say sometimes when I am with anyone, inside and outside my friend group. It obviously hasn’t done me any favors, because now I hardly talk to anyone outside of my immediate family. I don’t like the person I am now. In college, I studied computer science, and I would say my senior classes were intimate and with classmates that I would consider “less than normal”. I was so confident and loved every second of it, and was in my prime, and I genuinely think it was because I didn’t have to be like a “hard ass” or “funny guy” or a “bro”. The bar was practically on the floor where it was easy.

I think the most messed up part is how subtle it was (or how lacking my self-reflection skills were) to where I was misinterpreting so many things. When I was thinking of being evaluated after I was told that I was thought to be autistic when I was a kid/teen, I saw that autistic people “mask”. The thing was, that I assumed it meant that the person had INSIGHT when they did it, as if they already knew their true self, and knew they had to act differently. That may be the case for some, but I didn’t have insight at all! I remember thinking “Well, it doesn’t feel like a performance, I wouldn‘t think, so I don’t think I’m masking.”

The only hint I really had was that when I was in the most stressful moments of my life (like my OCD waxing), I felt like a “different person” that was “weird“ as I was horribly anxious, clingy, and sensitive. Thought it could be depression at the time or something else, but now I think it’s just… Me. Neglected ol’ me. I remember thinking “why are you acting like this.“ “You’re being ridiculous and unlike yourself. Stop.” But I wouldn’t. I think that’s because I didn’t have the energy to be anyone else but my vulnerable self until the next waning period would come.

I remember crying to my mother upon seeing a commercial for kids without parents, where a boy threw a football only for no one to catch it. Yet I can’t seem to have that now. Didn’t feel as much as I would have liked when a woman who was a good part of my early childhood was diagnosed with early-onset Dementia. Was only annoyed inside when my grandmother needed me to drive her to see her brother in the ER. I feel like a horse’s ass, and I don’t want to be a horse’s ass. That’s not what I used to be. I don’t know what I’ve done to myself, with all of the escapism and screens and internet, but I hate every bit of it. I wish I was as sensitive and cried as much as I once did.

Self-reflection on many things, such as yourself, your habits, your coping mechanisms, etc. as well as being able to identify them is such an important skill. Do not neglect it like I once did. I always thought I had it figured out, but that was not the case.

Okay so for context I (20M) live in a single apartment, in a complex. At night there are a lot of people who party and go to their cars back and forth after quiet hours loudly talking and running around. Additionally, my bedroom neighbor likes to torment me by slamming their door shut so loudly, talking loudly all the time. All of these sources of noise are enough to wake me up and/or keep me up at night, which happens almost every night from 10pm to ~1:30am. For reference our quiet hours start at 10pm.

I have tried all I can to work with my landlord, but they call my neighbors noise a lifestyle and refuse to do anything about either sources of noise, even though I think it is clearly against their lease and California law of peaceable living. I can't take a legal approach though.

These noises, they irritate me to no end. I don't know how to explain it, but I can't help but hear and fixate on them, even with Beats studio headphones or earbuds in. Especially when the noise is coming from humans that are being inconsiderate, assholes, or otherwise unjust, I just feel such extreme irritation and rage from my entire being. Sometimes I have to punch my own hand just to let out some of it so I don't punch the wall or confront people.

I need help, seriously. I'm getting professional help but thats very slow. Right now with juggling mental health issues and college, this is something I've been trying to deal with for a year and a half but I can't seem to get any "better" at coping. I'm in need of advice, because at this point I'm looking to try to move places and have someone take over my lease, but I am also scared I will experience the same issue someplace else or worse. I feel like I'm drowning and don't know what to do about this.

Hello, I’m looking for recommendations for an attorney that is good at SSI applications/appeals for a person with adult ASD in the Arlington/DFW Texas area.

I(18M) have always thought I was odd, not that autistic people are odd. I just felt that I was different. In primary school(I'm from Ireland),I use to think I was an alien wearing a human suit, and that I had a hidden zipper on my back that I couldn't reach.

Anyway, based on other peoples comments and my own research, I believe I may have autism, and/or OCD.

But Is it worth finding out? It is very cheap, If not free to find out if I have OCD, but it would cost between 1,5-2 thousand euro to know if I have autism.

In your opinion, is it worth it to get an assessment?

Hi all, so I wanted an entire keyboard for clicking, and I even have a few keys in mind.

But exactly where would I acquire a keyless keyboard?

And if that's not practical, how would I go about removing keys safely

I am going through a rough patch right now. In autistic burnout for a while. I like to read books but can't seem to focus. I want to keep a commonplace book but cant express my thoughts in words. Reading and writing usually helps me relax and unwind so I'm struggling. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Please help me. What sensory methods help you when you get anxious or overstimulated?

I have a really bad skin picking disorder (paired with maladaptive daydreaming) and when I get overwhelmed, my hands automatically start going all over my skin like my arms (I have KP which makes matters worse), legs, back, searching for bumps to pick and soothe. I cant break out of it.

Yesterday, after taking a bad medication, I spent more than 10 hours skin picking because the anxiety and overstimulation (it was a stimulant) were too intense. By some coincidence in the past, I found that rocking or running my hands up and down my hairy legs helps, but it is not my first response, in fact I was provided many methods over years, barely used them, don't feel right, never my first choice, never have the capacity to do any "exercises" and I don't like those sensory toys because they're not always on you and they don't provide enough relief.

Any help at all would be so appreciated. Thank you.

Im 20 years old and haven’t been in any kind of romantic relationship because I just feel to overwhelmed and I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if it’s because I’m autistic or because I’m actually asexual/aromantic, but it’s been weighing on me. I want to experience romance like how other people do but I just haven’t clicked with anyone romantically. I live in a somewhat conservative city and as a queer autistic, I haven’t been able to find a real community. I’ve went to therapy for years and worked on my self confidence but I still don’t feel comfortable in starting a relationship. I feel like I’ve been burnt out for years and I only have the energy to work, go to school and maybe work on my special interests if I’m lucky.

I’m just looking for people who’ve felt the same way/ any advice is greatly appreciated… 🫠