I've got the formal diagnosis. I've got a therapist who is affirming and encouraged me to pursue the diagnosis. I've done the research and read the stories and had the thoughts of "wow that sounds a lot like me." I have two close friends who are autistic and mentioned that I might be too. Despite all this I still have moments where I think "I can't possibly be autistic." I was diagnosed earlier this year at 37 and the notion that I'm wired differently feels both helpful and simultaneously too convenient and like I must have just fooled that nice assessor lady because clearly I'm a terrible person and a liar who is doing it all for attention.

How did you get past that thought? Past the idea that invalidating your whole life is easier than accepting a new reality. I just don't want to be wrong.

I rewind a lot in movies for other 20 different reasons. Most people just keep going on each medium.

Honestly at that point, 43 years old, diagnosed last year, it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle. There was a brief period where I fell everything was getting easier and I had finally found my tribe. Now, I'm back in the chaotic mess my life has always been, I don't see any way out. Everytime, I try to enlarge my social circle, it end up in a misunderstanding and then, the relation wither away. Or worse, we end up in a arguments about something pointless while I had no intention to hurt the other person at all. This happened, once again, when I was dating / discussing with someone I met online last week. We were at the stage where we were getting to know each other, we were exchanging via a messaging app and we were planning to have a meeting in person next week.

Then, I was really busy at my job and I failed to open the app for a day and a half. She said I should've told her I was planning to delay my answer. Somehow, I'm now responsible for triggering her traumas because I disappeared for more than a day. I tried to explain my point but, it only made it worse and now, I don't feel safe in this relationship anyway... Why does this keep happening ? Solitude hurt really bad, but even at the ripe age of 43, I have no idea how to love someone and be loved

I'm already in a local autism support group but, even there, I don't feel like it's a safe space. I became friend with an older person, in this group and she slowly started to blame me for my autistic traits. Yes, there's a huge irony when an autistic person blame you for your autistic traits. She even yelled at me on the phone a few times. Now, that was a massive trigger for my childhood traumas. No need to tell you, I distanced myself from her but, then she had the audacity to blame me for "rejecting her". I don't feel safe with her, I even tried to explain myself but, again I'm the one to blame (according to her).

As time goes by, it feels more and more like life is pointless, no matter how hard I try, I keep failing and I end up in the same pattern. I asked for help and I have a caseworker from social service but, I don't even feel like it's worth trying anything at that point. Nothing bring me joy, I have my stupid small apartment where I hear my neighbor all day long and I have my job. There's nothing else in my life, my family doesn't understand me and they have their own life to live, they don't care about me.

Trying to find friends, or a girlfriend or just a place where I could sleep without needing to put my earplugs seems impossible. To make it worse, I have legs pain which keep getting worse. I failed at life and I'm at a point where there's no point in trying, I'm not young, I'm just a middle age guy with a lonely life, who doesn't know how to stay in a relationship.

sorry if this is long lol I had a lot to rant about

Although I’m still not formally diagnosed yet, almost all of the symptoms fit me, and I have heard from multiple friends that they think I am autistic. I’ve always felt different/disconnected from the people around me in school and even my family. This has caused numerous issues with my self confidence, spiked my anxiety, and put me through depression constantly throughout my life. I remember being in middle school wondering why I couldn’t get people to like me, or why everyone else had a certain level of connection with each other that I could never get. High school was where I had the longest time without those feeling because I was able to make lots of friends and feel “normal.” But there was always that feeling of loneliness and rejection.

When I made it to college I tried to live the normal college lifestyle of partying; going out in big groups etc. This is when I started to realize that I am autistic, I always feel like others saw me as the odd one out just based on how they spoke to me. College is what started a lot of my problems because I was constantly in situations where alcohol would be involved. I’ve always been awkward in group situations and confused on how to act and what to talk about, and I found that alcohol helped me with this. I was able to feel less anxious, talk a lot more and fit in with the group. It became my thing to just always have a drink in my hand to not seem awkward. constantly drinking like this during nights I would be out led to me blacking out weekend after weekend. and when I was blacked out I made so many mistakes and embarrassed my self over and over. I have hurt my self on multiple occasions in front of people. I’ve gotten mad and tried to fight people. And it’s all just because I wanted to fit in. I just feel like this world isn’t meant for me and every attempt I make to grasp onto it just pushes me further into isolation

I can’t help but blame my parents for not evaluating me earlier in my life. Especially because they used to think I was autistic, but decided not to do anything about it for god knows what reason. I feel like the least they could’ve done is tell me. If i had gotten the proper diagnosis and treatment then maybe I would have learned how to socialize and fit in properly, maybe I’d be capable of being in a relationship, maybe the 12 year old me wouldn’t have felt so confused on why he couldn’t make friends, maybe I wouldn’t have used alcohol to “treat” it.

I just struggle to see anything positive in my future. I hate my major, I don’t have anything going for me in that career, I barely have friends and I feel like I’ll never experience real connection.

I’m currently a junior at college majoring in finance, and i recently (past 2 years) found out I’m most likely autistic. Since getting to college i feel like i’ve lost some of my social skills, skills that are vital to success in finance. I have started to hate the major because I have nothing going for me in the major. I tried countless clubs and I was rejected from all. I don’t even have an internship yet. All that aside, I feel like finance is too much of a neurotypical job of that makes sense and that I just won’t fit in there. i’ve experienced lots of social burnout just from socializing with people in the major for an hour or 2. So if i can’t even connect with the people in my major, it makes me think I can’t be successful.

Because of this I have started questioning changing my major to engineering which is something that interests me and i also feel like i’ll fit in more there. the issue is that it would add an extra 2-3 years to my graduation and I also have no way of knowing if i’ll actually enjoy it. I’m really nervous for the future since it seems so uncertain. The extra tuition is obviously a problem but not one big enough to change my decision.

I guess I just want to see if anyone else has experienced something similar? Any advise would be helpful since i have about a month to decide

I have trouble aligning the things I do with words same for my emotions. So when I have symptoms of something.

I don't recognize I have those symptoms because my mind doesn't connect my actions to words. Which is the reason why I didn't realize I might be Neurodivergent.

I need specific experiences that is very similar to mine or I won't recognize it. For example when a trait of autism is the inability to decipher social cues and nuances in conversations.

They'll need to clarify. Like what experiences, what can be considered as struggling with that, could you give me examples. After further research I found ones that explains it accurately that I resonate it with myself.

Only because it mentioned multiple specific experiences. Sometimes even if they did explain it to me in the simplest theoretically. I still can't understand unless shown visually or again specific detailed examples.

I didn't know I stim even when I did check what stims are. Which is doing repeated actions to self regulate. Because in the examples it didn't say a specific stim I do nor do I know I self regulate by doing movements.

Cause again words, I only know the feeling not words so I didn't know what they meant by self regulate until I did further research that now I understand.

What do I do, I feel like everyday it's getting worse when I'm doing alright mildly then now all the things I learned starts to regress back to the starting point.

Background:

Over the last year, I came to realize I'm autistic after seeing it in my kids and connecting the dots. I'm sharing this in case it is useful to anyone in their own journey of self understanding.

One thing that has puzzled me about my experience is that I could be in loud environments and bright lights don't really bother me and couldn't really relate to the sensory over stimulation aspect of autism (other than being pretty sensitive to smells).

Well, I started taking Sertraline and suddenly I started experiencing sensory overload. It started just in situations like a crowded restaurant or being out in bright sunlight, but as the sertraline built up, it got worse. The world was always too bright, noises were always too loud and eventually it became disabling. At that point, I figured it out and stopped taking it.

By disabling, I mean that it felt like I had a migraine all the time and I was unable or struggled with things I had been able to do previously. I've never worn sunglasses, even on bright days before because the light didn't bother me. But now I needed sunglasses at night just to ride in the car and wouldn't be able to drive myself because of other drivers' headlights. Just being in a grocery store during a slow time was painful.

It's been a few weeks since I stopped the Sertraline and things have improved dramatically, but I still have more sensory sensitivity than before and feel more autistic in general than before (eye contact is harder, noises are startling, it's harder to listen to someone when there or other noises).

Realization:

I have used depersonalization to deal with sensory overstimulation for as long as I can remember (which, since I have very bad autobiographical memory isn't saying a lot, but I at least don't remember it ever being a problem except a couple of times when I was a kid where I "got a headache" and started crying in noisy environments).

Basically, I think that I have used depersonalization as a survival mechanism. I don't just zone out or depersonalize in certain situations (which may be others' experience). It is my default state because the world, by default, is too much.

It's like I closed the door on the connection between my body and mind. The Sertraline threw that door back open and I'm noping right back out.

Depersonalization has the downside of also feeling disconnected from my emotions. I'm not unhappy, but depersonalization has also meant disconnecting from happiness and excitement (hence the experiment with sertraline). Side note - thc also allows me to reconnect more with myself and unmask but in an enjoyable way without the sensory overload.

Takeaway:

If you're high masking and don't "get" sensory sensitivity, but believe you're autistic anyway, look into depersonalization and see if it resonates.

Understanding that I do actually have sensory sensitivity is helpful because I can be more kind to my body. I can wear sunglasses and turn off or dim the lights. I can wear ear buds or headphones. It's not that noise and light and social situations aren't affecting me. All of these things are actually wearing me down and making me exhausted and stressed without me realizing it. So, I am making an effort to notice when something bothers me and to fix it instead of just ignoring it and pushing through.

What depersonalization feels like to me:

"I" am my mind and my body belongs to me, but is not me. Touch is grounding. It is how I know where I am. My body can feel pain or pleasure, but I am generally distanced from the emotional experience of things.

So a little intro, I was diagnosed in the 90s with ADD and slow processing. I never felt like this label fit and after graduating with my b.s. in psychology, I started to do some self reflection. I know that a lot of my traits overlap with adhd and autism but I also have quit a few that only Asperger's (asd) can explain.

Anyway, tonight I am wondering what all quilifies as a stim? I have a few stims, cricketing, toe, flipping, and skin picking, that are very obvious to me. I also do things in high stress situations like touch my face briefly, almost in a rhythm. I also have other more private things i do that I only associate with stimming because I have no other reason for them. This is slightly embarrassing but I m really just trying to understand myself better.

So please weigh in. Do you have a similar diagnosis experience as me? What do you think constitutes a stims? Do you have stims you keep to yourself? Am I way off base here? Thanks for any help.

Around puberty, I noticed that I started to no longer be able to relate to my peers. This, and a few other things, have led me to believe I'm most likely autistic. I have an appointment scheduled at the end of this month to potentially get a diagnosis and get started on this journey of learning and healing. However, I'm still struggling and the realization that it might be autism has only made me feel more hopeless.

I have a difficult time understanding and being understood by even other neurodivergent individuals and feel I have to be very careful of what I say and do at all times. I have some neurodivergent friends and a partner who repeatedly and strongly encouraged me to mask less and be myself. At their request, I tried not concerning myself with these things and tried to have faith that everything would go well and that they would understand me but it did not go that way. All of them are taking a break from me after I misunderstood social situations and opened up and was honest with them about negative thoughts I was having and some things I'm struggling with emotionally. It was apparently not the right time and I ended up making everyone upset and now no one wants to speak to me except my partner and, even with her, I feel I need to be cautious because I know she is also bothered by the things I've said and my lack of understanding about what it means to be open in a socially acceptable way with your partner and trusted friends. She has felt distant and resistant to have any deep conversations with me since then so I've just been giving her space.

I'm feeling very hopeless and depressed after all this. I couldn't even let my guard down and be open with the people who claimed to understand and encouraged me to do so. I'm having a really hard time believing that a diagnosis and subsequent therapy are going to help me when even other neurodivergent people can't handle being around me if I'm not masking. I don't know how I'm supposed to wait until the end of the month feeling like the world would be better off without me.

I don't really know what I'm looking for here. I have no one else willing to talk to me that I feel safe and comfortable opening up to so I guess I'm just sending this out into the void to not feel so hopeless and alone.

EDIT: Please let me know if this kind of post is not allowed here. It didn't seem against the rules but I'm also not sure I fully understand the purpose for this subreddit. Since I'm not officially diagnosed, I feel my outlets are limited.

Without revealing my exact age, I was born in the late 90’s. I am in the older part of Gen Z. Based on that, you should be able to calculate an approximation as to how old I am. I have high functioning autism.

In the amount of time I have been on this earth, I have had to manage my fair share of interpersonal conflicts. Sometimes, the conflict was my fault. Thinking back on it really makes me think about what I woulda/coulda/shoulda done to forestall the conflict from occurring. There were times when I was a faultless victim, but there are things I could have done to stand up for myself but did not.

That is what I want to talk about. It is not the event itself that I want to focus on. The event itself, I stopped being mad about long ago (if I was ever mad about it in the first place). It is the fact that I did not stand up for myself like I should have that vexes me. I am not uneasy about the event day in and day out, but my abashment flares up once in a while. To see what that is normal and kind of makes sense, click this link ( https://youtu.be/5IvbuEuEt_U?si=4D9EmauIm4I-VWnO ).

The event itself, I am no longer bitter about. The mistake I made by not dealing with the situation like I should have, I am only kind of resentful about. I understand that I have to live in a world where people act like that. Therefore, I want to think about conflicts I have dealt with and think strategically about things I could have or should have said or did that I did not. That way, I can figure out how to do better if I am ever in that situation again and I can offer helpful advice to others.

I was standing in a line. The line was in the front of the classroom. What were we lining up for? I do not quite remember. It could have been for gym class, art class, music class, recess or even lunch.

A fellow student (standing behind me) happened to be a few inches taller than me. Feeling an intense pathological need to be uncouth for literally no reason, this transgressor walked up behind me, maliciously invaded my personal space, positioned his head so that his mouth was about an inch from my ear and his chin was touching my shoulder and made a loud irritating buzzing sound in my ear.

In response to this act of physical harassment (where I was clearly the blameless victim and the other guy was clearly the guilty perpetrator) I shouted the name of the malefactor who had just spitefully encroached on my personal bubble.

The teacher called the harasser out on his invasion of my personal space. That is good. However, she then turned to me and told me that I overreacted. To this day, I still do not understand how I overreacted. The other boy malignantly invaded my personal space. Having to hear his victim shout his name does NOT make him the victim.

Here is what I think I probably should have done.

I should have met with the teacher (probably after school) to talk just the two of us. I should have asked her these two questions:

Question #1: How did I overreact?

Question #2: If I was not supposed to shout his name, then what was I supposed to do?

Question #1 probably would have been phrased something like this.

When (insert name of the other student here) encroached on my personal bubble, touched his chin to my shoulder and made a vexing buzzing sound in my ear, I yelled his name and you told me that I overreacted.

Physical harassment is never the fault of the victim. I had my personal space violated through no fault of my own. He derived a sadistic joy from making that violation. Literally all I did in response was shout his name.

This is just my opinion, but I would argue that having his name uttered is not sufficient to make him a victim; especially when the person doing the shouting is an irreproachable victim of harassment that he committed for no good reason.

Question #2 probably would have been phrased something like this.

I honestly thought, at the time that I shouted his name, that shouting his name was the right thing to do. That is why I did it. If I knew what I was supposed to do, I would have just done that in the first place.

If you believe that I overreacted, I trust that you have an idea for what an appropriate reaction would be and can give me a step by step instruction guide on exactly how I am supposed to react the next time someone venomously disrespects my personal space.

These are the questions I would have asked my teacher.

I also should have enacted some actions of my own idea.

I should likely have requested to stand in the back of the line from now on, so no one could sneak up behind me.

I should have gotten into the habit of standing with my hands clasped behind my head, so as to cover my ears and protect other parts of my face. If ever I felt someone touch me in a surprise attack, I would have turned in the direction of unwelcome touch and extended my arm to safeguard my personal space and forefend the unwanted physical closeness.

Description (what the problem is):

Some people disrespect your personal space for no other reason besides it gives them sadistic joy. Also, teachers feel that when you fall victim to physical harassment, any reaction at all is automatically an overreaction.

Prescription (what to do about the problem):

Walk with your back to the wall to make it harder for people to sneak up on you. Walk with your hands clasped behind your head to safeguard against someone who wants to touch your ear.

When someone accuses you of reacting inappropriately, ask what you were supposed to do that you did not do.

Every descriptive observation I made, I made it because I believe that it is an accurate representation of reality. Every prescriptive observation that I made, I made it because I believe that it is a good idea. However, my mind is open to the possibility that I could be wrong. If anyone believes that my description is incorrect, please correct me. If anyone believes that my prescription is misguided, explain why it is misguided and offer up an alternative. My beliefs are malleable. If presented with a convincing enough counter argument, I might change my mind.

(Self-diagnosed: definitely on the spectrum.)

Is it normal that I feel a GREAT sense of relief trying to learn ASL? to a point where I keep wondering what it would be like to choose to never speak again?
Speaking puts an immense, immense amount of pressure on me. I feel HEAVY after every conversation like I am talking to a wall irrespective of who it is.
I am from India, and I speak 4 languages in total but I have a heavy indian accent living in the east coast of the US. The shift in accent BOTHERS my ears because I sound like I speaking a different language/singing an off-beat song among a group of beautiful singers.
I took one ASL class and it felt GREAT. I am learning to communicate simple, straight forward sentences and it offers a great sense of relief.

What does this mean? Why do I feel this way?

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Hello, Lately I've been scrunching my nose and hard blinking. It happens a lot. It seems to happen often when I am tired, stressed, nervous, ETC. When it happens I usually feel pressure or a yawn about to happen where i supposedly tic. I dont have a tic disorder or tourettes but i do have autism. It doesn't feel like stimming. I was accusing myself of faking because they're was no way I have tics, I don't want to tell anyone, because I overreact sometimes and I'm afraid nobody will believe me. But deep down in my soul I know something ain't right. What do I do? Is anyone in the same situation as me? Does anyone with tics have any advice? I hope at least someone with some experience can help.