This is mainly to the undiagnosed autistics out there but you know when you see the symptoms of autism you're like 'oh, this is relatable' so when you try to gather more information people gaslight you into saying that you're just different minded so you think 'so I'm probably not autistic, ok' but you start thinking about if you're autistic more and more often so you look back on your childhood and see the signs of autism but you're like 'but I don't have every sign of autism, so I'm not autistic' so you continue on with life until you decide to research even more about other autistics by going through Reddit and repeating the whole cycle again. No? Just me?

Does anyone roll their head back and forth while laying down, while listening to music or is that just me

So just prefacing this with, I don't think there's anything wrong with autistic people, and I'm friends with multiple people with autism.

So I have a STEM class where there's an autistic boy also in it. We don't talk much, but he's pretty nice. So me and him and some others are doing a fusion course (3d modeling software) and he's farther along than me. Sometimes he'll have meltdowns because the things the person is doing in the video don't match up with what the software's letting him do/he messes up. I am fully aware that he can't control the meltdowns and that it's not his fault. He usually yells and hits the table. Im a very calm person and I don't like it when people yell or make loud noises at all, so I often get overwhelmed or overstimulated when this happens. I try to focus on my work but it becomes really hard because my brain is convinced he's yelling at something I did or something. Im not angry at him or anything like that, and I haven't talked to my teacher about it because I don't really think I need to. Am I a bad person for this?

Hello, im highly suspecting of autism and i have always struggled with it my entire life. Teachers always brought it up to my parents, wanting me to get diagnosed. I went to get a small evaluation and they said i was fine. This was probably around 2000s, and if it says anything im a female. If you know, you know its quite hard for us to get an autism diagnosis without going through hell. The older i got, the more i struggled and life got harder. I kept speaking to my parents about getting evaluated again, never happened because they said i was crazy for thinking so, and that the doctors were crazy for thinking so. So now im out their grasps that im older, I’ve taken personal evaluations ( tests ), what teachers have said, how people view me, and how ive been studying myself. There are MANY signs of autism i show, ive been looking into it myself for years now and im pretty 99.99% sure i have it, but what do i do?

Not sure where to ask this question but I decided to put it here.

As a brief background, I've had this issue since I was at least a teenager. What happens is that if my feet/legs are cold, I feel pain in what can only be described to be in my ligaments/joints. I feel it in my feet/ankles, it goes up through my leg and finalizes on the side of my hip. Left side is more susceptible to this than my right side.

My parents took me to a doctor as a teenager for potential rheumatism but they didn't find any evidence for it so I was dismissed. Warming myself up doesn't always help either, as this happens the most often when I'm in my bed either after waking up or when going to sleep. I've also taken hot showers and while it helps some it doesn't make it go away. Physical movement doesn't work either because I've had this happen to me when I'm outside and was walking our family dog.

If it helps, I'm AFAB.

Does anyone know what causes this and what I can do about it? The closest thing I've found to an answer is related to the weather such as low barometric pressure.

I post it here since I know that hypermobility and related issues are common and we are more likely to be overly sensitive to some stimuli.

I was watching a video and learned about the whole "are you acoustic/restarted" insult/shitty joke. It got me wondering about some other ways people discreetly try to be ableist cause I got called a bunch of things I didn't understand.

is like is that everyone thinks where happy all the time and we see the world In bright colors but most of us deal with depression in different ways

Hello,

My partner is diagnosed with autism (as of a couple years ago), OCD, dyslexia, and we suspect might have ADHD. She also has CPTSD. We've been together for 13 years. She started using ChatGPT when it came out, every so often. Then she tried a free trial of speechify and it seemed to help her realize she could use assistive technology to her advantage.

She set up speech to text on her mac and now we are in a situation where she is talking to "the robot" as we call it for hours into days at a time. She gets very locked on speaking into it and reading the reply and on it goes... She has been talking to it mostly about business ideas. She is very much a futurist and inventor. But we are both on disability and we don't have enough money to get resources etc. so she has been trying to start her own at home business via brainstorming with the robot.

The main issue is she will for example, wake up in the morning, talk to me for a while about what she talked to the robot about, and then proceed to talk to it for hours and wont eat. I try to make her food and she will sometimes eat it, and then she goes back to the robot. Then later I get ready for bed and check in with her and she says she will go to bed soon. But then I wake up hours later and shes still up talking to it. Then I try to get some things done with her and shes reluctant unless I want to talk about what shes working on. Then she will spend hours in to the next night talking to it. Sometimes it's gone on like this for 2 days straight before she says I'm going to lay down for a minute and then she sleeps for almost 15 hours. Then the process repeats again.

Ive talked with her about what is causing this to happen and she has an assortment of answers. About solving our money problems, about feeling supported by the robot (because it uses validating language to her ideas), about how it feels a void and she wants to build an android with it's help. Part of it also is that she really needs hip surgery in both hips because she has abnormal bone growth growing into the tissue and she put off dealing with it because of some fears she has. So she is in severe pain while she is waiting for the next appointment in June for tending to that.

I was raised by an abusive mother that was in short, a very psychotic person. Her modeling was based on aggression, aggrevation, zero patience, mind games, and so forth. I have a ton of patience compared to her, but my partner seems to be seeking extreme support. I have trouble knowing what language to use to support her. My mother cursed at me and abused me daily. So I'm doing my best to help my partner, but I don't know fully how.

I talked with my partner about screen time limits ChatGPT has. She just gets really freaked when I talk about it.

Any advice?

I hate talking on the phone. I know that’s common for autistic people and there have been other discussions on this in the past. But for some reason I have a huge problem understanding what people are saying on the phone. It’s not that I can’t hear them it’s that what they are saying sounds like mumbling all the time. Same problem with going through a drive thru.

Is this autism

Does anyone else get this weird sensory overload when someone else is hoovering, where your teeth go funny. In my experience it feels like my teeth have gone ‘soft’.

I was just thinking, so it seems like most people on this sub don't want a cure for autism for a variety of reasons, but what if there was a highly effective treatment? I have adhd, and in my experience adderall is basically a temporary cure, I take it and for 4 hours or so I can focus, feel happier, less impulsive, etc. lets say there was a pill like this but for autism. when taken, for 4-6 hours you can socialize like a neurotypical, aren't overstimulated by things, don't hyperfixate on a special interest, etc. would you take it? if so, would you take it everyday, or just on days when you needed to do things that your autism interferes with? If you wouldn't take it, why not?

I have no idea what flair to use, sorry if it's the wrong one

So I got into my first relationship at 29 it was extremely verbally and physically abusive. Ok so it ended in May of 2023 but the remnant lived of how I fell into something like this and the person she pretended to be. I developed a deep fear of this happening again I don’t really have the energy to go on dating sites or to interact with women out of fear. So how do I overcome this fear without reliving my past.

Just saw this on Facebook and it just hit so hard that I had to post it here. My friend just texted me that he would appreciate that I reached out to chat sometimes.... I have told him many times I'm basically paralyzed these days and can't talk.

Somehow that just goes over his head?

Hiya. Half rant here, though I want to hear about others experiences, too... I'll just jump into it.

Please don't read this if reading about sensory sensitivities make you think about them more, leading to development of discomfort (that's happened to me. I don't know if that's necessary but I thought I'd preface with this).

By far my biggest sensory sensitivities come from tactile sensations, textures, etc. I think most of us know the absolute nightmare of an ill-fitting article of clothing (or sock seam) or gross texture (my mother personally hates cotton balls, I hate fluff) but I've never really heard anyone else bring up textures and tactile sensations that are just... intrinsically connected to your body, besides maybe hunger pains.

For me, having nails is an absolute horror nightmare. Almost 24/7 since I was a very little kid I've been stretching the skin out from under my finger and toenails (not doing damage, though I do also have skin-picking issues). Like, digging one nail under the other to seperate the surface of my finger skin away from the nail (I don't know how to describe it without it sounding like I'm doing damage... I promise this is not what I'm doing in this case, lol). The feeling/thought of the skin under my nails touching my nails for too long is completely unbearable to me. I've never told anyone about it before. It's caused sleep issues, focus issues, anxiety issues and has caused meltdowns. It affects my ability to type on my phone (putting pressure on my fingers pushes the skin up against my nails, causing that nightmare feeling...) and does the same when I hold a pencil, or try to play guitar. Every second I have to fiddle with my fingers and toes to relieve this, and it never brings relief for more than a second. I don't know what to do about it. Another one I have is related to my belly button. I even hate the word. I have to push up against my stomach CONSTANTLY because it just always feels... WEIRD. Horrible. I can't look and people's stomachs, I can't look at my own stomach, I can't think about those things without getting panicky and feeling complete discomfort (I think this is also related to a minor(?) phobia). Pushing up against it relieves this a bit, but again, only for a moment. I am currently pushing up against it and fiddling with my fingers now to relieve both because I'm thinking about it very intensely, and when I'm not thinking about it it's better but it doesn't go away. Also the feeling of my brain being in my head, cradled by fluid surrounded by bone???? I can feel it. Any my heart in my chest. I feel my body so horribly and I don't know what to do about it, and I've never seen anyone talk about it. So I really want to know-- is this something other people have troubles with? Am I not alone? Does anyone have any coping strategies? Because this literally renders me unable to function at times. Please tell me I'm not alone !!!

I stim on this pair of jeans—that I don't actually wear anymore—but I keep them close when at home. I can't say when it started, but I rubbed this part where the inseam meets the bottom hem (I call it the "tab") until it became slick from the oils our fingers produce.

I've had these since I was in a senior in high school, so about 15 years now, and I take them on trips, on long car rides, when there's a chance to do it while I'm gaming, and I'll just rub my fingers across this "tab" or against my lips to stim.

I also kinda do the same with long books while I read. I'll just rub my finger across the top-outer corners and make them slick and frictionless the same way and stim my fingers on that as I read. You can see where I've managed to do it most on the book in the second image where the page edges are darker.

Does anyone else have something unusual or you feel is unique to you that you use as a stim?

i’ve been addicted to soda for about three years now and i really want to stop not only for my dental health but for my regular health in general but i’ve never been able to withstand water, even when i was a toddler i had to have juice or something similar.

has anyone else struggled with the same thing? if so, how did you get over it? :)

Im just curious what other people's comfort or safe foods are. For me its SpaghettiOs with meatballs or chicken nuggets. Also Chips Ahoy or Oreos for snack foods. Ive eaten so much of these foods over the span of my life and they are always perfect, even if they probably arent very healthy lol

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdjM-KX9TD1aaRnxjP7Gl2IQE3iyfMWgtO-4K3h-Zyk4hM08A/viewform?usp=dialog

i tend to go on long rants abt my special interests bc i just get so passionate abt them. but afterward, i feel really embarrassed, esp when ppl react negatively. it’s frustrating bc i can’t stop talking abt the things i love, even though i know it makes others uncomfortable or bored. i hate how overwhelmingly passionate i am abt my interests, but i can’t help it?? i feel rlly embarrassed n feel like my special interest is 'too much' or that others won't understand it, especially when they dismiss it or make fun of it...

The Western world seems built on the belief that success must come through suffering.

No pain, no gain. Hustle hard. Burn out, then brag about it.

But what if we rejected that premise?

What if life was supposed to feel easy—flowing, joyful, aligned? What if ease wasn’t laziness, but a sign we were finally living in harmony with who we really are?

What if we worked on making things easy for each other? What if we focused on reducing friction—on removing the struggle instead of glorifying it?

Then what might be possible?

A world where creativity thrives. Where rest is respected. Where compassion fuels innovation. Where we measure success not by how much we endured, but by how much we elevated one another.

It starts with a question. Then a choice. Then a new kind of world.

What would your version of that world look like? Drop a word or two below—I’d love to hear it.

i was diagnosed by two different psychiatrists with ASD but never really felt like it actually applies to me. i think they only said it because i didnt look them in the eye but looking someone in the eye while you tell them about your problems just seems really stupid when its easier to just imagine them as a brick wall. i dont really have any eccentric behaviours or struggle with expressing myself or understanding others.