I have been thinking about this more and more post covid. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but that our society (Western countries) are more collectivist culturally and if you are not part of a group, you will be more and more screwed as time goes on. Whether that be a religion (Mormons), trade (unions), knowing people (networking), or otherwise (military, government, etc), it seems like especially as someone who is neurodivergent you need an advocate or organization that can help you. It seems like going it alone, even if symptoms are mild, is hard and even for mediocre NTs it is super hard.

To me, reading is a freaking chore, unless it is about a thing I am deeply interested in. When I have to read a thing I am not all about, it is like an excruciating pain, takes loads of energy, and I am not quite sure I retained the info as well as others. It is like I have a filter anti-time-wasting-reads. Do you guys have the same thing?

i can remember being really talkative as a child, but entering middle school and being bullied really badly. that bullying almost forced me back into my shell, and i feel like it affected my social interaction more than the actual ASD.

To me, reading is a freaking chore, unless it is about a thing I am deeply interested in. When I have to read a thing I am not all about, it is like an excruciating pain, takes loads of energy, and I am not quite sure I retained the info as well as others. It is like I have a filter anti-time-waiting-reads. Do you guys have the same thing?

People that don't love something that way don't get it. I'm so excited my interest is relevant in real life. I'm so happy. But trying to sharing the joy doesn't translate. Alot of you get it.

I don't get what's there to be mad about sports. Although I can appreciate a talented player or a good game, I prefer not to watch any sports unless it just happens to be playing and I am around.

As for fashion, I absolutely don't understand its value, symbolism or appeal. Sure, clothes and make-up look great but I just can't believe an entire entertainment industry has been built around fashion!

I've seen some posts talking about coaching and how that was helpful, I would like to get some insights on this and maybe some advice on what to look for?

I don't really understand emotions, even my own, people seem like a roulette that can fall in any emotion in any given time. As a coping mechanism, I developed an hyperfocus in facial patterns, vocal intonations, even text communication. I see people as giant emojis, measuring the angle of the eyebrows, how closed their eyes are, if they are looking in such and such direction, how is their tone changing. As a side effect, I apply the same abilities to fake superficial emotions. A lot of people even claim that I'm so kind and understanding, when I'm not really any of that.

However sometimes I wish I could show real empathy, and feel clear deep emotions at the right time. I feel like I'm cheating all the time.

I don't expect many people here to relate to me, but I kind of don't like to eat. Kind of, because I'm diagnosed with binge eating. Paradoxal? Yeah, I know.

Actually, I like to eat, but I like to eat junk food: hamburgers, pizza, cookies... You say it. "Real food" is just an annoyance for me, and no, there isn't "real food" that I like; all of them feel like shit to me, I can eat salad and stuff, but the eating process is kind of annoying, without saying about cooking and washing dishes. Not only that, but I don't know what is to feel "hungry" (I can desire certain foods, but hungriness is something alien to me)

Because of that, I could make super restrictive diets in the past without any problems since normal food to me is bad and I couldn't eat what I like every day.

The bad news is I discovered that, as an adult, no one is stopping me from buying junk food every day, and my restrictive diet slowly progressed to a Binge Eating disorder.

Then, today, I have this weird and toxic relationship with food. I can eat 3 entire pizzas in one single hour and then stop eating for 3 entire days just to Binge Eat again later.

I tried everything: Do not buy junk food and just buy healthy stuff? Sure, I will order delivery, and the fruits will rot away // Just uninstall delivery apps! Sure, but I can install it again // What about blocking it with apps? Cool, but what about ordering directly from restaurants? // You could try medication... I tried Wellbutrin and Juneve together, but nothing happened

I know I binge eat because my body is starving and need nutrients. But cooking and eating 3 times a day? It is just too much work for me; I can barely get up from bed to go to work. Not only that, but my executive function makes me take two hours just to cut the vegetables. Yeah, I could make the food for the whole week on sunday, but that takes the entire day LOL

I will try healthy lunchbox kits rn. It is a kind of service that delivers 20 healthy meals at once, so I won't have to cook lunch and dinner for 10 days. And since it is dietetic, they're small meals. I dont have to eat a lot. I hope this works

Sorry for the weird post. I just don't have anyone to talk to about it; people would turn their noses if I said to them that (why is food such a sensible and offensive topic for some people???)

I'm sick of it. My mother did not have any infection while pregnant with me

Hi all,

For any of the socially successful aspies (those golden unicorns out there). How do you do it?

Honestly I can’t figure out how to do it, or how I made the few friends I had in high school.

The people I do talk to (through work and study related things), don’t really seem too interested in anything further. No body has asked me if I want to hang out for number of years now.

I (as well as many other people on this subreddit) don’t really know what to do. If anyone has advice on making friends (even stuff like step by step instructions on how to go about friend making), it would be appreciated.

Cheers!

I'm 18 and recently graduating from college early but I'm just a little confused about networking. People are encouraging me to start networking and going to seminars and such but the idea of people pretending to like and care about each other for self-gain seems pretty odd to me and I'm having trouble grasping the idea of it

Okay, so yesterday I had a bit of a mild meltdown with the Why Does Everybody Hate Me post. I woke up in an okay mood and then I just got super panicky for some reason. I felt like I was stuck in a void. I don't know if you understand, but I felt like I was inside The Unkown. I felt like I had no control over anything. Like I was in a desert, all alone, thirsty. And I kinda "wrote the book" on how to not feel that way, but I just dived deeper and deeper into in. Now,.I'm coming to yall chapeau à la main, to say that I'm sorry for exposing you all those those wacky vibes. I'm super grateful to everybody who had such warm and kind things to say, it SERIOUSLY meant a lot to me and how the rest of my day unfolded.

So after calming down a bit, I continued with my Payhways meditations and there was something that happened on reddit that was bothering me but I wasn't aware how much it was bothering me. There was a thread I responded to in r/capetown about a situation that could have been read in 2 different ways. The OP was asking redditors to weigh in and give their perspectives. So one person weighed in with a "negative" perspective and I came in with my "positive" perspective. And it's not like my perspective is something I put on. I genuinely do believe that everything is going well. The reason is because there is so much chaos in the world, yet somehow, and eternal cycles remain the same. So in effect, if you remove yourself from the Chaos, all you're left with is 4 cycles: evening, night, morning, day. Apply that to seasons, science, religion...whatever modality you want to use, it all goes back to these 4. But still, even knowing this, I allowed myself to escape that void I was feeling, by diving into confusion and frustration. The void was too empty and I couldnt physically take it (panic attack), so I chose to let an opposing opinion with 4 up votes and my negative 4 down votes, and connect that to the fact that it's proof that everybody hates me. It's so convoluted it hurts even my brain. I know. I'd normally be embarrassed, but I have Moon in Leo South Node so apparently I'm allowed to be like this (according to the Grand Cycles). And whenever I stop fighting it and masking it, I sync in better with the Cycles.

I'm Zulu, okay, and Zulu, in English, means "Heaven". We believe that we are The People of the Heavens. So you'll notice all our cultural talismans are circle shaped (to mirror the planets, quantum entanglement and all that...even our burial sites are circles). I mention this to describe why my frame of thinking is the way it is. I was baptised into the Methodist Church and that also has a very similar vibe in its interpretation of the bible. I also live in a town with the 2nd largest population of Indians outside of India. The culture and heritage from the East is a major influence in understanding how other people think and where we are similar. I also grew up in a country where up until 1994, I was allowed to talk to white people or else I could be unalivd. Couldn't even vote. Couldn't go to the beach. Couldn't learn the regular curriculum. Then Mandela sets everybody free, but cut to 2024 and the vibe has never been so low. Plus everybody thinks of my country as a Mandela Effect meme so sometimes it just feels like everything and everybody is against you.

And yesterday, someone mentioned something that broke my heart. I k ow he didn't mean to and I'm glad for the information actually, but when he mentioned the study about our faces! 🤣😂😂😂🤣 I was like melting in that moment. I was like "My film degree...my elective in Screen Acting... nooooooooooooo!" (Like that lady on her knees meme). But I know it's okay, I'm laughing now about it but it's just funny how the mind can just latch onto ideas and RUN with them. Sometimes you gotta just let it go. I'm listening to Kylie Minogue "Someday" as I type this section and it feels so aligned and cleansing.

(Takes break)

Okay, I'm back. Now, The Sign is playing. Yes, I listen to my own music. I've always written songs to get what's in my mind out into the world in a way that I expect NTs should understand. I used to have this weird thing with my voice up until about 7 years ago. I don't know what it was but it's like whenever I needed to tell someone "No" or how I really felt, it's like this fist would grip my vocal cords and I physically wouldn't be able to articulate myself. It was much, much, much worse when I was a kid. So I'd just never speak to anyone much, unless it was to my best friend. So obviously at school, all the teachers loved me because I never went out of line. Ever. I was literally "Knighted" in my last year of High School (they were/are crazy into this whole Knights thing...you know what I'm talking about). And it was funny because I was also the most bullied kid in school. Luckily with the Internet, everything I'm saying can be easily verified. Trust me, the last thing I'd think of doing is making the reddit boys angry (I got that from Jane Fonda).

And so, I'm feeling sucky and I'm exploring it with you all, who are so very gracious in indulging me and my slight Leo Moon meltdown, and then I decide to do my meditations. And it asks me "How do you want to feel? Yeah you feel crappie, but how do you want to feel?" And I'm scared to admit this, because of how it might sound. I don't mean it how it's gonna sound. And I don't know, I just feel like it's the next logical step...

I revealed to myself that I wanted to feel like a human. It was unusual, like a voice inside me, but behind me said it. I didn't even expect that to come out. My "whole thing" is about "fck the humans, I'm an alien and I don't want to be like those violent, selfish, psychopaths".

Oh yes, I'm gonna admit it: I've never been in a fist fight, I've never been punched in the face except that 1 tike by the cops and I was shook! Not even my Dad ever did anything close to that, and now a stranger is doing it and it's allowed because he has a uniform???? He doesn't even have a degree. Does he know de-escalation techniques? No? So why are two of them brandishing glocks in my face while I'm listening to Madonna "Don't Tell Me" in my evening jogging routine in my neighbourhood? So yeah, I'm not outwardly or consciously a fan of humans. And with my most recent experience abroad, I certainly felt like I never wanted to see another person ever again unless it was through a digital screen.

But when I heard myself say "I want to feel like a human", I discovered that what I really meant was, I wanted that ability that NTs have of not caring about other people. In my life, I've worked with a boss was literally the lady from I Care A Lot. Same clothes and everything! And while I left as soon as I found out...

Digress: (that's another thing, in the past people would always act on best behaviour around me while plotting behind the scenes, but my friends would find out and always tell me...my life was a bit like Veronica Mars OG Version so...)

...I still admired how dedicated someone could be to such a scheme. I could never do such a thing, but yesterday I felt like since I'd let go of that option for myself a very very long time ago, and since there was no connection at that moment, then I better escape into a spiralization of the situation and that's why I was so freaky deaky.

Okay last part I swear. And this seriously happened! Sometimes I wish I had cameras following me around when I go out so you can see what happens! So late afternoon, I've done my treatments, and I go to Illala Ridge and I'm waiting for my change in the shop and this lady in white walks in. I turn around and just burst out "Do you have Spotify!" And without skipping a beat, I swear! She whips out her phone and it trust into a scene, now everybody's listening to us and watching us and it felt like I zapped into a different dimension just then. A simple question, and here we are shooting the ish to the point that other people who came after us where cashing up ahead of her! Again, verifiable! I'm obsessed with proof guys. I always used to joke at Sunday school that I was doubting Thomas and proud of it. I want to see it with my own two eyes before I'll consider believing it. Otherwise I'm like Scully.

I love Scully! That's me, yes. I see all this unusual stuff and then I just go: "Well, yes...I had a thought, the thought happened and I "pushed it oit" by creating the circumstance: "Do you have Spotify?". Now if I had believed what that redditor said, I would have been too scared to speak up. But I decided to act like a human and just not care about what she was going to think of me (with my multi-coloured man satchel and black towel around my neck, while wearing black Crocs. 🤣😂😂😂, I was just dashing down to the store okay). And it demonstrated that I was being sucked into a kind of Virtual Reality earlier. You know what I mean? Like someone else's version of what life is, instead of my own. And I didnt like it, but ultimately I'm grateful for ALL of it becaause it Cycled me back to understanding that I can learn to express myself or use my voice slowly, at my pace. And if there's inference patterns in there, as long as I focus, it'll always Cycle out.

Sometimes I like to jump ahead to the answer, in the belief that the step before the answer is redundant. But recently I'm learning that the steps immediately before and after the answer are the most important. In semiotics we learn about The Sign. The Sign is like a carrier wave, a bandwidth. My job is to pack that bandwidth with 2 things: a Signifier and a Signified. Each of these 2 things are like a fractal pattern because then when you look at the Signifier, you have to consider deconstruction (Derrida) a lot (in my practice) and when I look at the Signified I go into Tillich and Barthes. Then you have to boil both down to the lowest common denominator, hopefully you find one (The Icon). And that's what I normally jump to in my mind. I hunt for The Icon like a bloodhound. And if I can't find that then I go for the Symbolic. Each one presents in a different aesthetic leaning...The point is, I've learned to appreciate the "physical" construction of the Signifier and the "metaphysical construction" of the Signified. I find that that's how I've been able to kinda "stay alive" (in the BeeGees sense of the phrase) in this dark world. I focus on the light (knowledge, techniques, technology, Tantra).

Okay, so I felt bad not saying anything and I didn't know how to explain it but I trust that of all people in the world, you are the ones who would understand me best.

I'm typing on my phone, so please excuse any spelling errors. Think of them as interference patterns and somehow the heart of what I'm saying will Cycle back.

I’ve never actually posted on Reddit so bare with me as idk what I’m doing lol My child is 10. He is currently diagnosed ADHD, anxiety & depression. I have suspected ASD since he was a toddler but my concerns were always brushed off by his PCP as “normal child behavior”. A couple years ago his PCP decided he was too complex for him to continue treating for his mental health and recommended a psychiatrist so the psychiatrist has since taken over. He has seen a handful of psychiatrists in the last couple years due to them leaving the practice and us needing to continue with someone else in the office and every one that he has seen thus far has suggested ASD, one Aparently went as far as actually putting the diagnosis in his chart, without the formal testing to verify. So anyway, the most recent psychiatrist told me to get in for ADOS testing so I did. It took almost a year to get in for an eval and after only spending 45 minutes to an hour in the room with my child, the evaluator told me she didn’t see any signs in the time she spent with my child so between that & the fact he wasn’t having any issues in school, she wasn’t going to diagnosis him but to come back if/when he starts struggling in school. I went back to psychiatrist and told her what was said and she was LIVID. She said “a child can most certainly have ASD without having trouble in school” and insisted we get a second opinion. His appointment for that second opinion finally arrived yesterday and to my surprise, I wasn’t told to sit in the waiting room, I was allowed to sit in there with him but off to the side. At the end of the eval, she said she would take the info she got today, along with whatever she gets after viewing the paperwork she had be fill out and would write up a report which will include any suggested diagnosis and/or further services recommended if there is any. I’m just curious while we wait, what exactly was being looked for in the activities she did with him?

How the eval went:

Coming into the room she had a table set up in the middle with two computer chairs on either side. She sat in one and my son in the other. Immediately my son realized what kind of chair it was and began to spin. He bounced back n forth between answering her questions (which I assume was the IQ test) and spinning. At one point he went to stop himself to answer a question and almost flipped himself onto the table 🤦‍♀️. There was a couple times where she had to tell him “you can keep spinning but I do need you to listen to my questions and answer”.

After the activities to determine IQ, she got out two bags with some little toys in it (two action figures, a plane, a fire truck, a jewelry box, a bunch of tiny toys that I couldn’t really tell what they were from where I was, a ball, a measuring cup, and a disk.) My son play with the disk, attempting to spin it with it laying down, then opened up the jewelry box and put all the tiny toys inside the box and closed it up. Then he picked up the plane and fiddled with/spun the wheels, then picked up a mini plastic wrench and said he was trying to fix the wheel. The lady asked him what was wrong with the wheel and he said “I don’t know but I like fixing things”. He then put the plane down and spun the disk a couple more times, then he started playing with the ball, bouncing it and throwing it and trying to catch it inside the measuring cup. Then he realized the plane was a pull back one that took off when you pulled it back so he did that and launched it off the table, then he smashed everything else off the table, then picked the action figure up and took the hands off it, then tried to dismember the arms & legs as well but couldn’t get them off. She then asked him to clean up but he was too preoccupied playing so it took multiple “let’s clean the toys up” reminders before he finally stopped playing.

Next she gave him a frog book with no words and asked him to make up a story. He went page from page basically just saying what each page looked like, “the frogs flew”, “then pigs started flying” “then they took the grandmas cell phone” etc.

Next she gave him a paper with a shape and asked him to put the blocks within the shape and let her know if he needed more so he did just that, when he needed more he said “I need more” and she gave him more 🤷‍♀️

She then gave him a photo of a US map with animated pictures on each state and asked him to tell her what he sees. He said things like “a rock with 4 heads, a corn cob, a cow boy hat” ect. She then asked him if he had been to any of those places and he told her “yes, Florida and California”, she asked what he did there and he told her we went to Disney. She asked if he went to Disney world in California or just Disney land in Florida and he said “just Florida”. She’s asked what he did in California then and he said “idk, my mom had a wedding”. She then pointed to somewhere on the map and told him she has been there and he replied with “Nikki has been there, huh mom?” And turned around and looked at me and I just smiled and nodded. That was the end of that activity.

She then pulled out a bag with a bunch of random things and told him she wanted to him to pick 5 things and use them to tell story. She demonstrated first and told a story about her popsicle stick going to the beach and having fun riding the waves, then he was tired so he laid on the sand to rest. My son messed around in the bag, immediately he grabbed the car. He then kept asking “do I really need 5 whole things?” And she said yes. He then grabbed a block. And a feather that was broken into two. He asked if the feather would count as two because it’s broken into two peices and she said “you can use it but it only counts as one”, “he said ugh oh man, okay” and continued going through the bag, he grabbed a small box. Then just ended up grabbing a candle stick and said “I guess I can use this as a person”. He then says “okay I’m gonna tell a real life story” (seeing the car I knew exactly where this was going already 🤣) he put the block down and said “one day we were going down the road and this block is a deer that we seen and mom slowed down (slowing moving the car) and then the deer jumped out (moved the block in front of the car) and then mom hit the deer (he threw the feathers onto of the car). He then said “it was really traumatizing”. Then he grabbed the candle stick and put it in front of the car and said “then my mom got out and there was no damage so then we drove the rest of the way to my papas house” and put the box at the other end of the table and drove the car to the box. He then added, but didn’t show it, “but then on the way back, we drove by and the deer was gone so what happened to the deer!?!” The woman said “that was a great story, you even left us sitting at a cliff hanger” and he said “but really, where did the deer go?” And she said “maybe it was just stunned and was able to get up and run away after you left” and he said “no because it was dead. My mom ran it over like 30 times.” i did not run it over 30 times lol and it wasn’t “ traumatizing”, I barely tapped it and there was absolutely no damage to my car 🤣

She also asked him to describe to her how to brush your teeth if she was someone who had never brushed her teeth before. She outlined the shape of a sink with her finger on the table, told him where the hot & cold water handles were, and where the tooth brush, toothpaste and a cup would be. He said “ugh I hate brushing my teeth, it’s so boring”. She then said “well show me how”. He turned around and grabbed a tissue out of the tissue box behind him and twisted it up to resemble a tooth brush and rapidly moved it back and forth by his front teeth and said “like that”. She then asked “that’s it? That’s all you do?” And he said “well you gotta rinse it with hot water after so the toothpaste doesn’t stay on the tooth brush then you leave the bathroom with the lid off the toothpaste and then your mom yells at you so you gotta go back in and put the lid on the toothpaste.” (He did not act any of that out, just verbally said it).

She then asked him about feelings. Like asked him if there were things that made him happy, he said “yeah my family and video games”, she then asked him what happy felt like inside and he said “i don’t know, just happy”. She then went onto sad. He said when he doesn’t get his way he gets sad. She asked him to explain said and he again said “I don’t know, just sad”, she asked him to explain further and he said “it’s hard to explain. Maybe tears”. She then asked angry and he said his siblings make him angry and explained it as “mad like I wanna punch something”. (There may have been a few other emotions that I’m forgetting but it was all basically the same format with him saying he can’t explain what the feeling feels like inside) She the asked him if he had friends and he said “one, he is Asian”. She asked him how she knows he is his friend and he said “idk, because he is”. She then asked him how he can know someone is his friend vs just someone he goes to school with and he said “because he talks to me and isn’t mean to me like other kids at school”.

During the time in the office (about 1.5 hours) he bounced back n forth between spinning in the chair, sitting awkwardly, having his top half on the chair & his feet on the couch behind him and his rear end dangling in the middle, or just standing or sitting on the floor. I’m not sure if she caught it obviously but I did catch him stimming with hands and some verbal sounds at multiple points throughout the eval.

She said it would be a couple weeks before the report is sent out to me but just curious what was being looked for with each of the activities, how would a NT person have responded vs the things someone with autism might have done differently.

As I said before, I’ve always felt my son is on the spectrum, he is incredibly smart and functional, he just struggles a lot with emotional and social things so if he is, I do think it would be on the end of “high functioning” or “level 1” or whatever the proper terminology is for that but I do think he needs help so I’m hoping this eval does amount to something that will lead us to more beneficial services for my boy. If you got through this long post and are able to provide some input, thank you in advance! (Hopefully I can figure out how to view comments and respond if needed lol)

Here's last week's thread

Suggestions are ALWAYS welcome on how to improve the threads I post at any time. After all, I do this because the community wants these threads to exist, and I take the time out of my day (every Thursday and Saturday) to post the weekly threads, to ensure the community gets what it feels it needs.

So, continuing with the theme... /r/aspergers, How is your week going so far? :)

What the title says. I feel like throughout my life I need to understand the reasoning behind feelings before I can start feeling them myself.

Like, really simple things like happiness, sadness, anger, those can just happen to me. But when it comes to more complicated emotions that mix different things, I feel like I need to understand what they are, exactly, where they come from, and why other people feel them, and only then do I actually experience them.

Things like envy, jealousy, attraction, romantic love, shame, pride, pity, grief. Throughout my life I have found myself being perplexed about why people feel some of those, because I hadn't felt them myself. Then I go into long periods of ruminating and introspection and downright research until I more or less manage to understand where those feelings come from an intellectual perspective. And then suddenly I find myself feeling those emotions when I hadn't before. Almost like I need to understand something logically in order to unlock the emotional aspect of it.

Has anyone gone through something similar?

is this an aspergers thing that nothing interests me and I dont want to do it because its so stressfull to pretend that it doesnt stress me out.

Like my personality is rotting in bed

Hey, I don’t know if I only have this problem. From young age I never fit. Everyone always bullied me, makes fun of me etc. I’m now 21 years old and got a new job (I left the previous one because of bulling), Iam here one month, collective is only FOUR PEOPLE WITH ME, but still…nobody likes me. Nobody wants to talk to me, they makes fun of me, because after one month I can’t remember a lot of information.. My therapist told me, it may be because Iam different..not in a bad way, but Iam easy target. Iam oversensitive, never scream on anybody.. I don’t have anyone..zero friends. Is someone here with same problem?

I think they think that if you fall short of their standards even a little bit, you're a useless part.

There's a study group KakaoTalk room where me study together through Google Meet, and I checked because there were a lot of conversations, and they were complaining that their acquaintance seemed to have Asperger's and that it made them nauseous. They were talking like they found some kind of monster, and I couldn't sleep all night after reading that.

I don't think I could ever authenticaly feel this excited

https://x.com/MLB/status/1851835258875900011?t=ARWScqn5lg7YZKfy8E59Tw&s=19

I’m an avgeek, and I have tried to post something in aviation forums. But why are my posts getting downvoted? I’m frustrated by that now. I didn’t insult anyone, and I abided by the rules.

What should I do?

Usually I talk to everyone in my normal voice (me myself) and make sure I ask some good questions, share things about my life, and don’t make people uncomfortable.

A therapist and a parent told me to slow down when I talk, not give monologues in a loud voice.

Humor doesn’t work for me as I don’t understand it and there is a blurry line between humor and offensiveness.

Someone told me just to focus on this. Is this good advice?

How do I not appear shy when talking go people?

My main problem with aspergers is this inability to convert from the "acquaintance" to "friendship"-style relationship. Its basically made me unable to work, maintain a stable friend group or be able to talk to the opposite gender in a romantic/sexual way. If you are in a social setting and arent able to quickly adn effectively transition between the 2 types of relationships, you will get bullied heavily. These issues have persisted my entire 22 years of living.

I used to be bullied for being fat/ugly etc. but basically every single south asian immigrant in white countries goes through this yet they able to deal with it. Girls would ask me out as a joke and they would pretend to run away from me. I dont want to be a pussy but for some reason I am so insanely affected by this? Every single time I look in the mirror I just want to rip off my skin and seriously hurt myself. Whenever I think of the idea of me having friends or being in a relationship I feel CRINGE. That is the key word. CRINGE. I don't understand how people find it so easy to exercise, one I have to deal with the social anxiety of going to the gym and second I have to put in so much effort to exercise that I have to s*lf-harm in order to force myself to go. Its that bad. Could this low motivation be a result of long-term severe depression?

I understand that being hot doesn't immediately fix your aspergers but my god some of y'all really have no idea how hard it is being conventionally unattractive and autistic at the same time. You are always seen as the weirdo that everyone actively avoids and gossips about from your extremely weird social interactions.

I get teary eyed when I speak with those of the opposite sex (in my case, women)

Mainly because most of us don't get social cues. Even when I try my best, people can still something is off about me and decide they don't like me and they go out their way to be rude about it too. And I'm sorry but I have a really difficult time believing I'm the asshole even tho I literally did nothing to anyone. They just decided to hate me because I seem off. Hearing stuff like that just makes me wanna be a hermit and never go anywhere anymore because I do not understand this world at all and when I try to, I get attacked for it and then gaslit like I'm the problem. It's so weird man. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I need an outlet for my special interests that is not family. Their values contrast with my own sharply enough that they find my special interests all but revolting even though my peers find nothing wrong with them (kind of otaku lite).

This has gotten especially bad over the last 2 weeks because I've had to depend on my family extensively due to a medical emergency that has kept me out of school and dependent on my mom for wound care.

I need advice if I am to stay sane.

If y’all like Kendrick, J Cole, Eminem, Jay Z, OutKast, Pre batshit crazy Kanye you’ll probably vibe with the music but I really just wanna know what connects in your soul. Thanks :)

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0gQUhyf5M_kDjPqi47D7BIAXAAVrbl8l&si=_nuZC4dtaPiLxToY

I've noticed a trend of post that're really negative, so I'll be a counter to that using my real life experiences. I only learned I had Asperbers this year in my mid 30s. I've been diagnosed by a psychologist. So until this point, none of my issues were protected until asperbers, I was just hard to work with. In spite of all of those things, I am very successful in every category of my life.

I've been in a happy, healthy relationship and I'm married. I have a bachelors degree and over a decade working in the same industry in which I am senior leadership. I've traveled around the world. I have 2 really close friends, 3 friends, and a large group of closer than associates but not really friends people.

I've navigated my life successfully, 100% due to luck. Both my parents are Black Americans and married. But my mother is who I mirrored primarily. And my mother has a high amount of self love and self confidence. And from my father I was able to mirror physical prowess. We were also middle class. All of these things are important.

I've had the same issues most of you have had. Issues connecting with others. Severe bullying for years, by peers, teachers, bosses, colleagues, etc. Teachers specifically hated me as a student, because I frequently undermined them by being too literal. I miss ques and didn't understand if girls liked me. I struggle severely in social situations. And even now, my sense of justice threatens to get in the way of progress daily when someone does something wrong and it goes unpunished.

But because I mirrored and learned self confidence, I feel in love with myself very early in life. And I developed a sense of borderline narrisctic love with myself. So people attempting to attack me or bring me down was met with a wall of unshakeable confidence. "You think you're better than everybody else." My response, "No, you think I'm better than everybody else. And you're right." Which led to a lot of fights lol. But my father had a passion for martial arts, one I love and mimicked. It's one of my core focuses even as an adult.

I refused to compromise my beliefs, and even though I went to a primarily terrible school I did what made me happy. I would play yugioh in the lunch room. I remember a girl in homeroom saying, "Cash, I think its really cool that you don't care what people think. You'll play your pokemons or whatever and just do you." Until she said it, I don't think I considered what people thought about me. Because in my mind, "you don't look better than me, you're not smarter than me, and you can't beat me in a fight. My family also has more money than yours. I don't care what you think."

It's weird to say, but that's what helped me the most in being successful. Self love at a really extreme level. I have an ex girlfriend who used to say "You would drown if I left you alone with a soda cap full of water, because you'll keep trying to see your reflection" lol. Because I love me, I focused on making me the best version of myself at all times. I've always been in great shape and physically active. I'm handsome. I'm intelligent. I can hold a great conversation, especially about special interest. The issue comes up, when I talk to people long term. It's like studying something under a microscope, and I peel back the uncomfortable pieces and it makes people not like me. They don't like being forced to acknowledge bad behavior patterns, and I NEVER let it slide lol. But I also decided I'm okay with that.

I say all that to say this, you can be successful. You can be happy. You can get married. You can have sex. You can be that person you may want to be. But if you don't really truly believe in you, it'll never happen. You can mirror self love, but it'll exhaust you. You have to learn to genuinely love YOU. And acknowledge the world might not accommodate you. So make them. You only need to better yourself, and the people need to fall in line. Nothing more. Nothing less. Because I, a Black American with all the negatives of being born in the states, am categorically in the .01% when you lay my achievements out. And I did it all with aspergers.