Lots of similarities between vampires and autistic people

• The nerdy coder

• The idealist advocate

• The plushie lover

• The crazy outcast

• The hypoverbal musician

• The quiet sober OCD prone

• The psychology lover

• The animal lover

• The gamer

• The hyperverbal freelancer

This is a JOKE so please don't come at me!! It's just interesting to see some patterns in the community, obviously we are all different etc etc I don't truly mean ti stereotype anyone.

But who am I missing?😅

Edit: I will disclose that I am a crazy outcast - idealist advocate combined type. If you see me in 10 years proselitizing in the street about the system, listen to my wisdom

Am I the only one who thinks the increased use in calling things/people "cringe" has become ridiculously oversaturated if not also misleading?

While it might be hard right now to think of specific examples...let's just say it's very very common for me to hear people refer to things and other people as "cringe", with the thing/behavior/trait/action/word choice/clothing choice/whatever in question simply just being...misogynistic, creepy, elitist, flat out mean, racist, or more broadly speaking, HARMFUL. Which does bring up the question of why, for example, one might call a budding incel "cringe" when they could just call them a budding incel; why one might call people like Fonald Dump, Shitlon Musk, Cand-not Owens, etc. "cringe" when they could just call them 'despicable,' 'asshats,' 'abhorrent,' 'bigot'; why one might call cultural appropriators "cringe" instead of just calling them racist.

BUUUUUUT then it's also very very common for me to hear people refer to things and other people as "cringe", with the thing/behavior/trait/action/word choice/clothing choice/whatever in question simply just being......making an awkward insertion into a conversation that temporarily pauses the convo, one's natural speaking voice, one's unique but ultimately harmless sense of humor, one's unique area of interests (or special interests, re: the subreddit), the way one decides to pose in a picture, the way one chooses to carry themselves, one's clothing that you personally may not see everyday or particularly be that fond of, or more broadly speaking...HARMLESS.

Cause why is it that people use "cringe" to refer to harmful behavior (if not also, for example, with the goal to start a conversation about accountability and justice) but also use "cringe" to refer to harmLESS behavior (if not also, for example, with the goal to poke fun of someone for being an adult who likes barbies or is 'being weird')? The disconnect is just a bit...weird to me. On one hand you have people calling something/someone cringe because it's indicative of a larger issue in our society, but on the other hand you have people calling something/someone cringe because they're...doing something different or acting different [from you]?

And let's ignore semantics for a second. I have a working theory that if you find something or someone cringe, it's either because 1) you're uncomfortable with the actual, tangible, systemic, safety-compromising harm that it could be spewing or leading to, or 2) because it triggers deep-rooted, subconscious insecurities and internalized stigmas that you have not personally resolved.

Curious to hear thoughts - whether they're in agreement, disagreement, or both.

25m, I have been on a weightlifting journey for a little over a month now. I am pretty overweight and looking to make a lifestyle change. I have a habit of posting on reddit about my journey, asking for advice and having a bit of debate etc. But this comment genuinely made me the angriest I have ever been online and I've been through some shit lmao.

Like it's embarrassing to post this here even because it's so meaningless but it's the first time I've felt properly offended. So this tosspot as we'll call him (I'll tell you the real name I called him later), commented on a post I made about dieting as my diet is terrible. He went on this long-winded nonsensical boomer rant about how "YOUR PARENTS HAVE MADE YOU INTO A MANCHILD! GO TO A DIETICIAN HE CAN HELP YOU" then went on about how "Notice OP didn't mention a father? That must mean he was absent! Therefor unless he's dead there's no excuse! Your parents failed you!". Just because I said my mum buys junk food a lot and that certain textures make me throw up. Like beans, broccoli, carrots etc. Literally activate my gag reflex and I cant swallow them.

I know this guy could probably fold me in half, but I wanted to rip his throat out after reading that. Normally things like this bounce off since you know, autism and all. But the fact this guy was so ignorant when I'd mentioned I was autistic several times just infuriated me. Like WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? The ironic thing is, he's completely wrong in everything he spouted. My folks did the best they could for me as who knows how to deal with an autistic kid when it wasn't really well known about at the time. Plus the things we've had to go through the past five years really struck a nerve with me. I am a loner and have no social life so family is all I have. They're great and I love them, we stick together through everything.

So I wrote back a big message calling him every single slur and name under the sun. I put some real effort into it. Every single gymbro stereotype was thrown out and then some. The best one being "Knuckle-dragging c*ntbag" I don't care if I get banned, hell I've deleted everything now because I quickly calmed down after sending it and knew it was too far. But idk if anyone has ever had this before here? It truly struck a chord with me that nothing has in a long time.

People like him are why I wont join a gym and workout at home with my own equipment. Because he is the stereotypical manosphere moron. The type that's so stuck in the notion that being a mouthbreathing bore who's only thought pattern is that of a png of chicken and rice bouncing around like a DVD logo in that cavernous void that is his skull. That he cant even FOR ONE SECOND IMAGINE HOW LIVES ARE DIFFERENT THAN HIS OWN.

Anyway the guy is a buffoon. But yeah it really got a rise out of me. Still I'll go back to lifting on monday in my garage, happy to be making progress. Gymbros are di*ks. Thanks a bunch bye

Being an autistic person and referring to yourself as hot-tistic (or is it spelled hotistic) doesn't seem like it should be an issue right? Cause who said that we can't be/feel hot!!! Not to mention, the infantilization and desexualization of autistic people, while certainly not the exact same subject, are pretty long discussions with plenty of overlap

The reason I'm asking this mainly has to do with my tendency to overthink about how I come across to others (which yes is very much a response to social trauma from being autistic) 😭

P.S. I guess maybe referring to it as Hot-ism Acceptance Month could be a thing then? 😅

This is a rant, although if anyone has anything useful to respond with good look. This is probably more relevant to r/AutisminWomen.

I'm tired that everywhere I turn to for insight on myself I'm considered wrong, broken, or don't fit. Because I think I might be autistic I have the applicable traits, disposition, thought processes. That's why I wonder if I'm autistic, or possibly adhd but that's significantly less likely. I've also tried to express this in real life but people in my life don't understand the depth of it since they think I'm without a doubt NT.

I think I'm not NT because of the socializing, monotropic thought, reliance on logic sometimes to my detriment, but it's positive sometimes. Other reasons but these are the relevant ones for this post. Because I don't have outside help I have to be my own therapist/coach/counsler. I've been employing psychology, habit building, self improvement, religion, philosophy, others' personal experience on reddit, family, research papers, art, hobbies.

None of these areas are perfect but they all have their benefit. But the one thing that keeps coming up is I'm a defect. I have a strong idea of who I am. My attributes that are reminiscent of autism are a deficit but at times they can be beneficial or enjoyable. But when I delve into the things in the prior paragraph it always comes back to me being judged as wrong for being me. What kind of woman can't socialize? Women are created, evolved, or energitically aligned to thrive on relationship and being socially inclined. What kind of woman can't nuture children? Logic is for men. A woman given to logos is a regretable travesty. Not adhering to group think is an affront. As I said, somethings are positive. But by every area of contemplation, no it doesn't matter, I'm supposed to be a certain kind of person. And every mode of thought consistently pushes that I'm not and it's an ultimate affront to all reality.

I'm supposed to be helping myself but instead it's just getting put down from multiple angles. It's not helpful to judge myself. I'm trying to not be self deprecating but if every single area of life is in agreement that I'm bad I should just learn to accept that I'm fundamentally, irreperably deficient. I'm probably not autistic either, it's a label I latched on to in order to cope with my degenerate nature. It's preferable to have the excuse of a medical condition than to accept myself for what I am. All of this supposed working on myself is no use. It's delusion because I'm trying to contradict reality. It shouldn't even cause an emotional reaction. Truth only causes emotional outcry for deluded people. I'm developed or made or created wrong just because I am. Just like 2 plus 2 is four and the sun rises from the east.

The other day I (21F) was at my friends house after a night out and realised I had lost my jacket. I immediately started panicking and started scouring everywhere. Normally, when I feel myself getting too dysregulated I isolate myself somewhere so I can just ride out the meltdown without consequence. However, this time I got too caught up in frantically trying to find my jacket that the panic caught up to me on the stairs. Two of my friends (21F; 21M) tried to help but I was so out of it that I was struggling to tell them they were unintentionally making it worse. I ended up shouting at one of them that they weren't helping and that they didn't understand. I didn't realised that had upset her until after I had gone home a couple hours later and messaged both of them apologising for it. My other friend is fine and understands it, but the first was really hurt by it. I'm giving her some time to process it (we have 2 weeks until our next DND session) but I feel so awful. It's been around 7 years since I last had a full on meltdown in front of anyone and hurt someone like that. I don't feel like I can see my friends again without feeling terrible about everything. I know what I need to do - I need to actually tell people how to help me when I'm dysregulated so that if and when it does happen I'm not just leaving them in the dark. I don't know if this is enough? I haven't felt happy since it happened; I want to fix the feelings but I don't know how. I'm scared that she'll never look at me the same for shouting at her like that. I didn't mean to do it and I wasn't really in control of myself, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen so I'm at such a loss. My other friend has tried to reassure me that I'm fine and that no one views me in a bad light, but I can't stop feeling like they do. I feel like everyone is walking on eggshells around me. Does anyone have any advice? How can I express how devastated I am that I upset her? How do I not feel like a monster?

So one of my sister's kids had a field trip today to some small aquarium. There was kids from several schools. It was extremely loud, the kids were a pain to deal with, I couldn't use my noise canceling headsets due to having to to deal with the kids.

The teachers were ... lets say a bitch. At least the ones I interacted with. For example, when it came time to feed the kids we fed them, and when I went to grab my food. A teacher went fucking nuts saying not all the kids got their stuff and we don't have enough because someone miscounted. SHE HAD FOOD IN HER HAND, AND ANOTHER TEACHER WAS EATTING BEHIND ME. Sure as shit she wasn't giving up her stuff. She went around asked, and everyone was fed. Then she stopped her Karen moment.

During the trip other than this is the time to go, this is the time for lunch, and something else. There was no info, no guide, no help.

It was so bad my sister's youngest kid went with us and she strongly dislikes aquariums now. If this was my main experience, I would hate them too.

Most of the time I can handle it, I laugh along with them and it’s fine, but right now I’m so drained mentally that I can’t deal with it. I was talking to coworkers (people I would consider friends) yesterday about how I don't like a café in town because their space is covered in tile so all the sound bounces of the walls, and it’s open into the bakery section so there’s a lot of noise from there too, and it’s generally just a very uncozy location (not an unreasonable thing to say about a café!) and they all just laughed at me. I think it was because I mentioned that the crinkling of paper bags is also very loud (people mostly stop in to get baked goods to take home like a proper bakery) that did it, but still. It’s not a weird comment for anyone else to make but when I say it everyone laughs.

My mom’s advice was to stop talking about personal stuff with people, but I want to still have friends and not just talk about work with them. Why do I always make friends with people who laugh at me or ignore me.

Hi! I’ll be graduating university soon but I have to pass a big exam. Technically, you can start working in my field of study without passing the exam, as long as you anticipate passing in the near future (usually it’s like 3-6 months depending on the company)

I know that I can’t personally balance a new full-time job (which is stressful and overstimulating) while also studying for this big exam. I know that I will be extremely disregulated and I probably won’t even pass on my first attempt since working will be more of a priority over studying (it costs a lot of money if you have to retake the exam over and over). It’s possible that I could work part-time rather than full-time in my field of study but I haven’t come across any of those jobs yet

My plan is to study for several months while working my old retail job. It pays half of what I would make if I worked at a job in my field but I like that it’s fun and low-stress. My hope is that focusing more on studying rather than working will increase my chances of passing sooner and then I can finally jump into a job after that’s out of the way

I’ve noticed that several students in my program have already accepted jobs in our field and I can’t help but feel like I’m lazy and lacking, like I’m not ambitious enough. I guess my question is, did you ever feel slow to get a job and start your career after school? Or did you struggle in any way due to the big transition? Jumping into the adult world all of a sudden and having “a big girl job” is honestly terrifying 😅 I tell myself that it’s okay because I’m not built like other people and I can’t handle the same workload as them without it coming at the expense of my mental health, which is why I’m taking it slow. If I work full-time while studying, I wouldn’t feel like I have enough time to engage in special interests and regulate myself 🙃

I have a friend, I'll call him T for this. T owes my friend, I'll call L, money. T knows about the money he owes both of us. I have contacted them multiple time reminding them of the amount and why. I have found I would most likely be unsuccessful confronting them in person as they refuse to speak to me or L. Just today, T removed us from our friend group's Life 360 circle which we used for safety reasons especially with the current season with our area getting plenty of bad weather. I have also tried calling T but it immediately goes to voicemail, which either T is on do not disturb or blocked me. L tried doing the same but was met with voicemail as well. If anyone has any advice that would be greatly appreciated as I am unsure of what to do in this situation.

After a lot of thinking I'm starting to not understand how autism is considered a spectrum.

Because when people talk about autism it talks about opposite symptoms. Like:

•hypoempathy or hyperempathy

•lack or too intense eye contact

•being dyslexic or hyperverbal

•being too quiet or too talkative

•monotone or overexpressive voice

•hyper sensitive or hyposensitive

So on and so forth.

Also, when talking about autism you'll never hear autistic people having inbetween traits (as in, normal traits), since autism impacts everything of someone's life.

What's the point of autism being a spectrum if there are not shades inbetween the traits?

The only thing I can think of a spectrum is the intensity of the symptoms, like someone having less severe sensory issues than someone else or someone who has a harder time understanding social cues than another.

But still, autism to me seems less of a spectrum and more of a collection of power buttons with which button having different intensities that might change depending on severa factors like stress, the type of stimuli or situation etc.

I seriously wanna know how is autism technically a spectrum because I can't see it.

Hello,

I (32f) was never diagnosed neurodivergent. I apologize in advance for any mistakes in this post and hope you'll politely correct me if I speak out of turn.

Sometimes I wonder about ASD. Years ago, a friend self-diagnosed because her husband (diagnosed) thought she was autistic like him. The conversation made her think of me and we both did several online quizzes by autistic bloggers together. The quizzes didn't have any medical credibility, but I remember choosing "strongly agree" for almost every single question. I also watched a lot of female youtubers with late-diagnosed autism, because I find their perspectives and life advice easy to relate to.

That was just light-hearted fun, but I'm starting to wonder if it's something I should look into? I don't really know how to phrase this part, but life feels harder than it's supposed to. I know that my family think I underachieve. I was a good student and went to grad school, but cracked from stress and was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I thought "okay, that's just the environment," and I was partly right, so I now work an easy job. I would like to do something more interesting with my life, but I'm painfully aware that anything more challenging would burn me out. I feel like no one understands this. My job is NOT hard, but even when it gets busy for a few days, I become light-headed from stress. Starting fun projects wears me out really fast. I've felt bone-weary since puberty. (Except when I'm obsessing about a favourite interest.)

It could be that I still have mild depression, but my conspiracy theory is that I've never actually had a depressive disorder and only present that way because I am burnt out most of the time.

Then there's the social piece. People always seem to think I'm nice, but I rarely make friends. I don't really know how. When acquaintances talk to me, we'll have great conversations, but then I'll notice that everyone else seems more bonded with each other and I don't reach the same level of familiarity. I stress about imposing myself and act overly formal or anxious in a way that maybe seems like I don't want to hang, even though I badly do? This is lifelong, but it didn't effect my happiness until recently.

None of any of this means that I have autism. However, I know diagnoses can make a difference. A close family member was diagnosed ADHD in her mid-20s. (She is offensively smart, but had been failing courses without accommodation.) So I could have that. It could be something else entirely. It could be nothing.

If you have read this entire ramble, thank you! My question is: If you were diagnosed in adulthood, how did that happen and was it worth the effort? What sort of thing has improved your quality of life?

I'm (31M tomorrow) who is typing this in a bathroom as of now. I was invited to a gala as part of a fellowship I have for my PhD and I panicked after it all started with me not tying my tie properly. I sent pictures to my parents since they wanted to see how it looked and it was wrong apparently. I dipped to try and fix it, failed, then didn't find a seat until 25 minutes after the opening of the program schedule.

Still coming down from the sheer embarrassment of retreating to my car, having my folks on the line as I tried to adjust my tie (it's off now), and every other attendee seated other than me. Nearly panicked and I'm sitting at a table with randos I don't know at all.

I want to punch something so bad. Times like this I wish I wasn't born with the ability to get dysregulated and fly off the handle this hard and fast, ruining events before they started in this case.

I’ll make this as short as I can (everything ties  specifically  into my official diagnosis)….  In 1996, I was diagnosed ADHD, dyslexic, and borderline a few other things. All those things were true, but autism research wasn’t far along/available enough I guess since that wasn’t considered.   I was prescribed stimulants for the ADHD, and went through the first 10 grades of school without a school friend (the few times I’d try it always came on confusingly strong/offputting)…. This is when I realized my stimulants got me out of my normal headspace & made socializing slightly easier, and like a dumb kid, I quadrupled down on them (starting an addiction in just recently  (age 35) addressing… but I’m far too awkward to even attempt buying drugs illegally, so I’d take a month of stimulants in a week (eventually tripling up on pharmacies, other addict behavior), and I started drinking the other weeks. (While alcohol and adderall give opposite effects, I genuinely didn’t care how I felt, I just wanted to not feel and be anyone other than me).  Despite that, came within 9 credits of graduating college, but ultimately dropped out and spent  six years manically consumed by aimless projects, that aren’t even anything, it’s super annoying how it only fixate on useless activities, until I lucked (long story, but LITERALLY lucked into an intern film job (I was 28). That year I worked smaller productions, but ultimately, I was blamed for a slip up that wasn’t my fault, and I’m back to unemployed.

A few months later (2019) I got correctly diagnosed ASD with comorbid ADHD, Anxiety disorder, and borderline bipolar disorder. Mentally, you can’t really understand how meaningful that clarification is, but it wasn’t the knowledge, but the statistical analysis and breakdown of the dozen-odd different tests you take while getting diagnosed. I studied everything about what every number/section meant and was then able to look up similar examples specific to some of my own behavior (which is often hard to do with such a big spectrum), and learn practical mannerisms in interactions through my lens. all of a sudden, I could make sense of myself, and actually start maturing and growing in a direction I now know is the right way to go (I was just guessing aimlessly at)…. As I’m sure most of you have done, a year before I was diagnosed, I self-assessed myself, and honestly I was pretty accurate, which makes it all the more surprising this had such an impact on me.

If diagnosed correctly in 1996, I’d have been prescribed a more passive anxiety medicine initially as well, if not instead, with significantly different dosages/frequency. I got on an anti-anxiety med three years ago, and it’s helped enough for me to have gradually stopped taking Adderall (better late than never I suppose). I can’t say how much better I’d have faired socially, but I do know my specific diagnosis actually provided a foreign language credit loophole I could have gone through (the 9 units I was missing were all language, my brain just can’t read another language for some reason (I can speak somewhat, just can’t read it), so I’d have graduated. 

Living alone was something I’ve always felt especially like a failure for struggling with so much…. Finding out I’m in less than half of the bottom one percentile in adaptive living abilities (ABAS-III), and I came to terms with that being something not worth the struggle it’d take to achieve, so I’m happily living with my mother, but the relief of accepting that as something that’s okay… game changer… Additionally, I’ve isolated specific aspects of my conversational/executive processing speed (WAIS-IV) I struggle with specifically enough for me to have figured out work arounds (never ideal, but it works for me).  The most helpful thing for me was my abysmal social responsiveness (SRS-2, etc) scores. I knew all of this beforehand, but the definitive process and acknowledgment of me as me (I didn’t mask at all for the interviews, hence my terrible scores :P).  I took a lot of time rewiring what “work ethic” meant to me, and reframed work primarily as the social interactions, the customer service, and mostly networking. I’ve never minded doing repetitive tasks for 12 hours a day (something everyone else hated, so I thought I should to, masking to fit in while using more energy and working less hard…. I flipped what I use my mental energy on, and It resulted in me not only getting back into film, but becoming a regular crew member for Kinetic Content within a few years…

There are other, just has significant issues I’m dealing with now, but that’s neither here nor there…  My diagnosis made me feel relatable for the first time, it gave me a roadmap to being a productive member of society (honestly all I want out of life)…  I know everyone is different, and someone else could take the exact same information the exact opposite way I did, so I’m not saying you should get diagnosed… just maybe consider this…

i have nobody besides family and i want someone near my age and in my region but not irl cause i dont go out. i dont work either, ive tried reddit but it hasn't worked so far. I know discord exists but not a fan of the "anyone can type anything" long chats that most discord servers have. i dont know what to say/the social cues. anyone got any advice on where/how to make a genuine friend on the internet for gaming?

and is having the criteria of same country and age range too much?

Moderation seems to be something I have always struggled with as a neurodivergent. I just got a call from my doctor's office after my yearly labs. Apparently I'm eating too healthy - my potassium levels are too high and my doctor told me to lay off all the fresh fruit. I didn't think I was eating that much! 😅

It started with my last episode of autistic burnout that I have been mostly recovered from.

I had no appetite. I was going to force myself to eat if I was going to eat at all. So, I decided I should eat healthy. I was just going to mechanically chew and swallow, not tasting anything, forcing myself to ignore texture or whatever, so I started buying a bunch of fruits and veggies, and eating them raw.

Apparently I'm doing too much of that, and need to eat a little less healthy now.

Tw: self-harm mentioned

I'm going through the motions of dealing with the reality of autism, and how it explains so much regarding social issues. Honestly I felt I had a good grasp of socializing as a child, but after high school and beyond I felt more and more out of place. I'm 24 now and have felt disconnected from the few friends I still have left over the last year or so.

It's a mental paradox because a part of me still wants close friendships, but at the same time I lack the energy and desire to actually work towards solving that. Doesn't help I've been heavily depressed for a few years now, it's gotten a lot better but if it wasn't for my partner I'd feel truly alone. They're the only one who always enjoys my company and doesn't get tired of me, even on my shittiest days. So I don't wanna sound ungrateful, I could have literally no one, but a part of me believes if we were to ever break up that I'd never be able to find someone like that again.

Not even on a platonic level... I technically have a best friend but looking back, my partner's the one who has never made me feel like I had to prove myself. There were times I had to prove my loyalty to my best friend, such as in middle school she said she'd hate me forever if I told any adults about her depression/self-harming. And for almost everyone else it's nearly been the same story.

I just feel stuck socially since the friends I have never want to see me, and making new friends where I live is more of a safety issue since I'm in a deep red state (minority and queer). Ik some of it is by my own choice too, I refuse to befriend NTs due to the Machiavellianism and mind games required to keep them around. The only option I'm considering atm is discord, but my attention-span for social media is so short I always end up too bored to keep up with folks. I wonder atp if being asocial was always a part of me or this is the natural progression for most autistic folks

I'm not a usual Redditor- so sorry if I don't use the correct Lingo. But I was trying to create an overly-complicated Venn Diagram to see where I actually fit into the Autistic community. I am new here, so not meaning to offend anyone with anything I say or have already said.

I found the Autistic community to be much more grey than say the Deaf community. The Deaf community is black-and-white, they are all supportive of each other and are so proud of their community that they capitalize the D. Autism - as much as I like thinking in Black-and-White - is a lot more confusing in terms of community. I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to capitalize the A, but I know AI does not, so I'm guessing No.
So my Venn Diagram became too complicated very quickly.

I am basically just asking if there are existing sub-groups within the Autism Spectrum? If so, then how would I be able to find the people who I most identify with? I promise I have no problems or judgements for people in the other categories, but how do I find other people who are only in this sub-group (listed below)? I just don't really know the name for it, or if there even is a name for it:

high-functioning, not-genius, no obsessive special interests, not social, no disruptive sensory discomforts, High preference Need for Routine (not sure if this one should be a separate category though).

I don't know what else to do, I'm trying everything! I don't have people I can talk to and need advice. Long read, to much to say.

Condensed Version

I (M42) Moved to Minneapolis a year ago with my partner. We both had/have stable jobs. My company changed in June 2024, requiring me to lie to customers, so I quit. Since then, I've applied to many jobs (15-20 daily, including past fast food), but no offers. Living on partner's income and maxed-out credit cards. Unemployment ($249/month) ran out last month. Doing DoorDash for minimal income. Had an interview on March 24th but was rejected in favor of a previous applicant. Rent was just covered, but utilities will be shut off soon. Both me and my husband's anxiety is high, and we can't get a personal loan due to our credit scores. I'm asking for advice on what to do next.

Long Version ( more details)

I 42M and my partner moved to the Minneapolis area about a year ago. We both had secure jobs, each of us having been with our respective companies for several years. My husband has been with his company for 10yrs and I with mine for 3 years.

Everything was great for the first 6 months. Then my company started making internal changes to our remote CSR positions that started making it harder and harder to assist our customers. When they started to insist on lying to our customers regarding their purchases and when they would receive them. I no longer felt comfortable continuing with a company that put profit over people.

That was June of 2024 and I have been applying to anything and everything that is available to me. Even going so far as re-applying at fast food restaurants that I have worked with in the past. No call backs, no follow up. I keep applying to over 15 - 20 jobs a day, even setting up job alerts through email and applying through various job posting websites.

In the meantime we are living on just my husband's income and using credit cards to pay our bills but we are barely making it. I applied for unemployment and was receiving a monthly stipend of $249 but that ran out last month around that time I also started running Door Dash around lunch and in the evenings. Which bring in a little each day and kinda helps with some groceries and or gas but it's really not much but it's something. Given the economy most people are not getting a lot of take out.

I FINALLY landed a in person interview on Wednesday, March 24th, and was told that I would hear something by Friday but nothing happened. I gave it till Monday as they are closed on the weekends and I emailed them this morning and received an email back they went with another candidate who had applied last year but had to turn down the job but tried re-applying again. I'm panicking because we are now at the point financially that we have maxed out on what is available on our credit cards and just had enough to cover this months rent but utilities are and will start being shut off soon.

My anxiety and my husbands anxiety are through the roof and with our credit score can't even apply for a personal loan. What do I do now!? I'm at a loss

I don’t know if this is the right area to post this but I’m 23M and am very high functioning in that social skills are where my autism shows the most. I’ve had this all my life but recently it became worse. I had my TV that I’ve used for over a decade break and my mother, who I’m currently living with, offered to get a new one. However, when she said that, I get a feeling of guilt/impending doom/undeservedness that just takes me over completely and puts me into a real depressive state. It happens no matter how small or big the item, and now I’m in a place where I’m sayin I am ok and I don’t want one and saying no, because that feeling is so overwhelming that I don’t know what to do so I’ve just been sitting here for hours at a loss. Has anyone experienced something similar? I know there’s autistic have an issue w receiving gifts and buyers remorse but this feels distinctly different. It happens every time and I’d really like to get someone’s advice on how to deal with those as it arises because it’s getting quite tiresome

I'm learning I can't fully mask. Some people ask what is wrong with me, some have asked if I'm Autistic, and others have said they can tell I'm different. I kind of get insecure. I just don't like telling people my stuff. I am Autistic but I'm not sure if it's safe to just tell people. I think it's the stimming, minimal or too much eye contact, and sometimes just saying the absolute wrong thing. I overshare when I get anxious or too comfortable.

I have struggled to accept being autistic for a long time and I just feel weird when people get what I believe is invasive. However i.used to just answer. I don't know how to react when people want to know. I've been made fun of before and I don't want that being used against me..

Hey guys! Newly diagnosed ASD Level 1 here, and now that I'm learning more about stimming, and that I do it lol, I was wondering about one thing I do. I often get bouncy, especially if I'm happy or eating really good food, I just start bopping my head and bouncing in my seat, sometimes I do things with my hands like gentle swirling in the air, and I generally do a little happy dance. Is this stimming??? Anyone else do this?? Let me know your thoughts!