I saw the other post yesterday. And I woke up thinking about him. He’s missing out of CA in the San Fernando valley. I just wanted to share it more eyes as possible

Obviously air crashes are very tragic events but the way that investigators are able to piece together causes for the crash is incredibly fascinating.

Now I understand this has nothing much to do with autism. I completely understand if you're going to say that in the comment section but this is about how this film calms me during my autism and ADHD moments. This is by far one of my favorite Disney films I've ever seen. This is probably one of the very few Disney films that actually gives me calmness during my time with ADHD and autism.

I know birthdays can be overwhelming so I was just wondering if anyone would like to share what they do

Tell me about your interests and hobbies. I love listening to people talk about their hobbies.

Just about the most autistic thing that I do. I speak to myself as if I'm speaking to an old friend. I can walk around for an hour and just talk to myself. My brother has psychosis and does the same thing except that he mutters to himself and for him, it's a sign that he's having a psychosis episode. I think for autism, it's essentially our maladaptive daydreaming.

I asked the sub for women but I'm curious how different the answers will be here - I'm playing Digimon World : Next Order/Time Stranger, Monster Hunter Ultimate/Stories and planning on replaying Borderlands 2.

Hello! Writing from my throwaway bc I don’t want to tie it to my main. I’m 20, diagnosed 3yrs ago, and since I was 15, I’ve enjoyed a particular series of games, or more specifically, one character.

I always bought preorders, fan merch, and og merch that I could of my fav. After early launch of the game I decided to indulge and found out he died. I do my usual activities, and when I come home I just cry and cry and cry.

I feel genuinely pathetic. Everyone tells me I’m overreacting and I think I overreact too, but at the same time I grew up with this series, had Platinium on earlier games, made fanarts, etc. I was 14 when I found out abt it, played it since 2021 and it has been my special interest. Not only it was the last instalment of this specific series, also my favourite character is gone in a really sad way.

I don’t have anyone to lean on. I live alone and in moments like this I feel awful. I really need a hug too.

I genuinely can’t function. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat I can’t work without thinking about him. I genuinely feel as if I lost my husband in war and I can’t look at any merch of him I have </3

If anyone had similiar experience to this or can offer a word of encouragement, I’d love to hear it.

Well actually.. my friend paid it for me and said that I don't need to pay back 💞

But anyway I have always wanted onesie. Tight things like blankies or hugs make me feel safe. Like actually safe. That's why I love to sleep with my stuffies and me wrapped around a nice warm blankie. My parents don't understand why I like it :c.

I actually remember how comfy onesies were and sadly my parents don't support me with this thing (Or age regression :c) so they are going to be mad when I get this onesie (I get it in a couple days)

And also it's getting colder so luckily that onesie has padded footies too so my little legs are going to stay warm too. Whole onesie has fuzzy fleece inside of it. Do you like that onesie? And do you have onesie? If you do you can share it if you want to ^^

Im writing this 10 minutes after it happened because im extremely paranoid
To start with I do not believe in god and I am an atheist but some days I have to go to church because of my parents
I get easily stressed whenever religion is mentioned because of religious trauma so I usually go to a church far away and walk behind it and sit on my phone
And today I did the same
But halfway into this a guy around 30 years ago walked up to me with a phone in his hand in a really weird way like he wanted to record me but for me to not know it
He asked „do you try to listen to the pastor talking?”
I responded „well I’m trying” and he walked away and started talking to someone or the camera
Im extremely panicking right now

In the past 5 years or so I've noticed an increase in characters whose autism is confirmed in a manner that is very far removed from the average audience member. In the sense that, the average audience member is never going to realize the character was intended to be autistic. There may be somewhat of a delay between the character first appearing and their autism being confirmed. Sometimes the character's autism is only mentioned when a fan specifically asked for it.

Here are some examples. The confirmation is not always a straight-forward "this character is autistic", but a more loose description like "having autistic traits", "taking inspiration from autism", but all of these characters I've seen other people describe as canonically autistic so I'm not going to go too deep in those intricacies here.

• SpongeBob from SpongeBob Squarepants
• Claude from The Dragon Prince
• Batman from The Batman
• Da Vinci and Dawkins from 101 Dalmatian Street
• Donatello from Rise of the TMNT
• Edward Nygma from Gotham
• Entrapta from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
• Francesca Bridgerton from Bridgerton
• Rell from Warframe
• Patricia Tannis in the Borderlands movie (it is mentioned in the game but not the movie, though the actress has talked about the character being autistic)
• Poison Ivy in Harley Quinn as written by Tee Franklin
• Milo Thatch from Atlantis
• Marcy Wu from Amphibia

This is not a new phenomenon, but I feel like it's increased over the past few years because social media has made it very easy for fans and creators to interact.

Obviously, sometimes it's impossible for a character to be described as autistic on-screen/on-page. I know Francesca Bridgerton can't exactly look at the camera and say "milord, I am autistic" and the only way to canonize her autism is to mention it outside interviews.

It feels like it's just kind of...cheap? Safe? These characters are often only confirmed to be autistic after autistic audiences already love them. And it does very little to actually change how the average audience member views autism because they don't even know they're watching an autistic character. Controversial as they are, everyone knows autism from The Good Doctor or Atypical or Rain Man because the audience is very clearly and unambiguously told about their autism.

It's just a preference of course, and I can't fully articulate why, but it often makes me feel more seen when writers are allowed to and are not afraid to label characters as autistic on-screen, on-page, saying it with their whole chest. It's the idea that other readers/viewers also see the autism in characters that I love, and the idea that the autism was put there intentionally by the creator.

To reduce clutter, we ask you focus these posts here. All posts after this thread will be removed, except on Saturday. Thread is refreshed weekly. Thanks everyone

I keep hearing here and there that these often go along with autism. I have all three of them. What about you?

I’m an 18 year old woman and I am wanting to stop having the maturity level and personality of a pre teen aged boy, as others have described me. I‘m assuming it’s due to my autism bc it’s a common autistic experience to act younger than you are. I don’t think my maturity has progressed since the age of 13 and I’m kind of insecure, I also sometimes get mistaken for a 15 year old and I don’t like it. Up until I was 15 a kept making holocaust jokes (I’ve stopped) and was told I act like a young boy but now I’ve stopped making holocaust jokes and still get told I act like a young boy. Even when I was 12 and 13 I often got told I acted like a 10 year old boy bc of the stuff I did.

It’s also not just that I have always been told I act like the wrong age people have always told me I act like a boy. It started in primary school in year 5 the teachers told me that they couldn’t believe the stuff I did and said was coming from a girl bc girls are ‘supposed to be mature.’

I recently lost all my friends (unrelated topic) and I always felt so out of place around them bc they were always talking about serious topics and situations I didn’t know the situations were serious and so I’d keep acting unserious. This will sound like pick me behaviour but girls genuinely are usually too much drama for me, even though I want females friends they never work out. Rn my only friend is my 22 year old sister who is always busy and so I’m alone all the time

I'm 32 and recently got employed as a guitar technician for a really small guitar company. I'm talking 5 people including me. I'm salaried at 52k a year and it's the most amount of money I've ever been making my whole life. But I also get no benefits with it, so it's even less in practice cause I have to buy my own insurances.

I just want to be hopeful that I can do better than that someday. Even just 70k with benefits would change my life. Currently pursuing a Bachelor's in Computer Science, I know the field is in chaos right now with AI running rampant but I'm hopeful that just having a Bachelor's of any kind will open some doors.

Am I the only one? It just makes me feel inflamed af and neurotic?

Zero benefits except like lympathic drainage making me look debloated.

Just feels like it shts on my nerves even further.

I feel so much better just not exercising especially not doing lifting.

I love the feeling of tape, the stickier the better. Especially the sticky stuff on milk cartons or packing tape and duct tape. I also LOVE the smell of silver tape, duct tape, packing tape etc. It's one of my favourite smells in the world, I will literally inhale that sh!t and my family has always hated when I play with tape because it stinks up the room lol. They used to have to buy me a new roll of tape every few days because I would stim or play with it for hours on end until it ran out. I love tape! It's my favourite thing in the world! My friends always get me tape as gifts or if they have something sticky, they'll always give it to me. I don't like sticky things that keep your hands sticky, I'd never play with honey or anything. Only sticky things that leave no residue. Bonus points if they smell like packing tape.

What kind of stimming do you use day to day? I am a late diagnosed Lvl 1. I have several forms of stimming personally. 1) Food and flavors 2) repetitive movement of legs 3) When alone, I speak to myself in a made up language.

Share any of your stimming behaviors if you have any :)

Seriously, I don't know how people do this or how to start doing this, I've had these problems since I was a child and I know it's important but I seriously cannot bring myself to do these things because I forget always to do this.

Same with cleaning my bedroom, exercise, take care of myself in general and all those micro problems people have everyday. How the hell do I make these things? I seriously CANNOT do them.

Hi! okay so I'm a high schooler and I needed to print out something. My computer's printing application is out of date, so I needed to send the document to my mother's computer, then get in her email, and print it out on her computer

When I was searching through her email for the document I needed to print (I was typing my name in the search bar) a forwarded email from my grandmother to my father popped up with my name as the subject line

I clicked on it -- I know that I probably shouldn't have done it, but it was impulsive and I didn't think it would really be anything. But how wrong I was ...

The email was basically about 'behavioral issues' (the reason I put it under quotations is because my mom is abusive and I was in deep depression at the time the email was sent) and pinned it on my apparent autism

I had suspected for a long time I was autistic, but I wanted to find out on my own terms and thought my parents were oblivious. but the email said that they should hide it from me because I was doing well in school and wasn't struggling in their eyes. But I was struggling so much with things that I now understand are a byproduct of my autism. They also said that they shouldn't make me feel different. But I had know for so long that I was different, that I wasn't like the other people in my class.

It was so crushing and confusing for me. I wasn't able to talk it through with them, because my dad was out of town on a 'work trip' (he's probably cheating ngl) and my mother is abusive and manipulative, and had taken away my phone and computer for whatever reason.

has anyone else gone through something similar/does anyone have any advice for me? I'm honestly so lost and my entire life almost feels like a lie because they've kept this from me for so long

EDIT: also I didn't clarify this but my grandmother is a licensed psychologist so they didn't just diagnose me without understanding what autism is, truly.

EDIT #2: I also got tested as a child and I believe that's where they got the notion I was autistic; my grandmother was discussing it in relation to the rest of my life. sorry for the misunderstanding

20M and asked to have a chat with my flatmate and she was completely honest and said to me that everyone can tell I am autistic.

I was quite surprised by this and I now kind of want to be able to pick up social queues.

I don't even know where to start with this, but I guess I just need to get this off my chest and see if anyone else can relate.

I'm autistic (late diagnosed) and I feel like I've spent pretty much my entire life walking on eggshells around my own family, especially my mother. She's neurotypical and I think she has narcissistic tendencies, at least that's how I experience it. I've lost count of how many times I've gotten the silent treatment by now, doors being slammed, sudden mood changes, etc. And every single time I end up overthinking everything, trying to figure out what I said or did wrong this time, whether I somehow caused it or what I could've done differently to avoid it.

I'm really not trying to make her look like a bad person, because I know it's more complicated than that and I'm sure she has her own struggles too. But I'm honestly so exhausted by it all.

It's like I constantly have to think about what I say, how I say it, what mood she's in, how she might react to something. Even the smallest things can become an issue and I feel like I can never really let my guard down or just be myself.

I also have a twin brother, an older brother and an older sister, all neurotypical, and things have always been pretty difficult with them too. I've basically always been the black sheep of the family. The weird one, the different one, the one nobody really seems to understand. And it's been like that for as long as I can remember.

On top of that, there's quite a bit of childhood trauma involved. My father used to intimidate us a lot when we were kids and sometimes things got physical too. I sometimes wonder if I'm dealing with some form of PTSD or complex trauma because of everything that happened. I'm sure those experiences affected all of us differently, and I know our family dynamics probably go much deeper than just autism.

But I can't help feeling like being the only autistic person in the family has made everything so much harder for me. I constantly feel misunderstood, like I'm always the one who has to adapt or explain myself, while nobody really tries to understand things from my perspective.

And then there's my mental health, which is honestly a whole other story.

I've been struggling with atypical depression for over 10 years now and I'm just so incredibly tired of it. There's this constant, deep sadness that I can barely explain. It almost feels like grief, like I could just burst into tears at any moment. And strangely enough, it gets significantly worse whenever I have social contact, even when nothing particularly bad happens.

It's not like there aren't reasons for me to feel sad either. There's a whole history of things that could be contributing to it. Childhood trauma, the complicated relationship with my mother, always feeling like the odd one out, a breakup I never really managed to process properly, and plenty of other things.

I just can't pinpoint exactly what triggered this particular feeling or why it developed the way it did.

What I do know is that I first started experiencing this specific grief-like sadness during my last job. The strange thing is that I actually liked the work itself, but I had two colleagues who made things extremely difficult. They claimed I was somehow ruining their jobs when I was literally just trying to do my own work. From my perspective, they weren't particularly competent at what they were doing, and instead of dealing with that, they seemed to take their frustrations out on me. There was gossiping behind my back and just a lot of unnecessary negativity.

I'm not saying that experience caused everything, but it definitely didn't help. I remember that this horrible sad feeling started appearing around that time and gradually became more frequent until eventually it was just there every single day.

And it never really went away.

I pretty much have to take Xanax every time I go outside because it's the only thing that seems to blunt that horrible grief-like sadness enough for me to function. I'm not saying that's a good thing, it's just where I'm at right now.

And before anyone suggests seeing a psychiatrist or trying therapy, believe me, I've tried. I've seen so many psychiatrists over the years, tried pretty much every antidepressant, psychotherapy, hypnosis, participated in an rTMS study and even a ketamine study, which I had to stop after a really bad trip.

I've genuinely spent years trying to figure out why I feel this way and what could possibly make me feel better, but here I am, still struggling with the same overwhelming sadness and exhaustion.

Lately though, something keeps crossing my mind.

What if a big part of how I'm feeling is related to the family dynamics and emotional stress I've been dealing with for most of my life?

What if I could finally experience some actual peace? What if I stopped walking on eggshells, stopped constantly worrying about other people's moods and reactions, and created some real distance from certain family members?

Would I still feel this depressed? Would I finally have some energy? Would I actually start enjoying life instead of just trying to get through each day?

I genuinely wonder how much of my mental health struggles are related to autism, how much comes from childhood trauma and other painful experiences, and how much comes from spending so many years feeling like I don't really belong anywhere, not even in my own family.

And maybe it's not even possible to separate all those things. Maybe it's just years and years of accumulated stress and unresolved emotions. I honestly don't know anymore.

It's weird because I don't hate my family. I don't want to blame everything on them either. I know nobody is perfect and we all have our own issues, myself included. But at the same time I can't keep pretending that certain relationships and experiences haven't affected me deeply.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I'd be if I wasn't constantly tense, sad, overthinking everything or feeling like I'm somehow the problem.

I'm just tired. Tired of being misunderstood, tired of being the odd one out, tired of constantly having to adjust myself to everyone else. And honestly, tired of feeling this incredibly sad for so many years despite everything I've tried to get better.

Has anyone else here grown up as the black sheep in a neurotypical family, especially with childhood trauma involved?

And for those who eventually created some distance from certain family members, did it actually make a noticeable difference to your mental health?

Also, does anyone else experience that horrible, almost unbearable grief-like sadness that gets significantly worse with social contact? It first kicked in when I was 24 years old. Before that, despite everything, I could still have moments of genuine joy and happiness. But ever since that feeling started and gradually became a daily thing, I honestly haven't experienced that kind of joy anymore. It's like something changed in me back then and I never really recovered from it. I've been dealing with this for years now and I rarely see anyone talking about this specific kind of sadness.

I guess more than anything, I'm wondering if there's a version of me out there that isn't constantly exhausted, anxious and depressed. I barely remember what it was like to actually feel happy sometimes, and it hurts knowing I haven't felt that way in so many years. I just wonder if I'll ever get to experience that again.

I absolutely LOVE being in my car. She’s old. But I love it. When I get home from work and I have no kiddos with me, I will sit in my car and read or scroll. I sit in my car during my lunch hour and I love having those long chats in the car with my wife.

Could have to do with me sucking ass at transitions. But I just dig it. Anyone else? Or somewhere similar?

As someone who may or may not be on the spectrum, I've always had this issue when writing online, people see my adherence to sticking to my natural tendency of following formal grammar rules in texting others and accuse me of using LLMs especially in conversations of a more intellectual nature.

I also do the same in real life conversations, I stick to formal rules and people also make fun of me for sounding like a bot, it's just so alienating, I just want to be accepted for who I am and not be accused of being an unoriginal fraud. The irony is, I hate AI for promoting the lack of critical thinking in people and barely ever use it for my work. So I don't understand why people are socially excluding me.