this is something i think about from time to time because i’m so confused about it. i used to struggle really badly with arfid (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) everyday things i could eat would change, and always be restricted to a few things or nothing. everyday i’d feel really hungry and sick, and it felt like my body would just reject anything that i tried to eat. after ages of struggling with this i experienced the worst year of my life with my parents divorce and then i just started eating again, i no longer felt sick and it didn’t feel like my body would reject everything that i would eat. i don’t understand what changed and made it go away and i’m wondering if anyone else has a similar experience with being able to eat again

I'm in my Junior year of high school and a lot of my English assignments involve analyzing literature. I often have to answer questions involving the "deeper meaning" of a text which I find really hard.

I don't know how to explain it beyond that. I can read just fine but reading between the lines for implicit information is extremely complicated. Don't get me started with Shakespeare.

I can't understand that writing style AT ALL and I'm required to read his plays without a modern translation.

Have any of you went trough something similar? Every time I stim I notice and I feel ashamed and childish (even when I’m alone). I don’t think it’s shameful when my autistic friends do it, but I do judge myself heavily for it. I don’t want to feel this way about it.

I was wondering who of you have conversations with characters in their mind. I do it all the time. I would rehearse a conversation i am planning to have with a friend for example many times over. I've driven past my turnoff on highways so many times because i would be so deep in conversation in my mind.

Also in social environments I find if somebody wants to physically talk to me they are usually interrupting the conversation i am having in my mind so i might come across as startled.

I asked this question to an Autistic friend of mine and she confirmed she does it too.

So i am wondering if this is an Autistic thing or does NTs also do this?

I was talking to friends about how a Bible passages had aided me in life because of me acting on its advice on a certain situation and I realized that my whole life, I have thought of Proverbs and other instructions for believers in the Bible as literal. I just thought it was great advice to help people, that things in life go best when carrying out these instructions (in general). I relied on them to know how to behave in different situations.

The more I review my life, the more I see how my autism played out and the reason why things happened. It makes me sad.

i have a huge foam earplugs in, they block out almost all noise theyre phenomenal. when theres nothing im touching, and am like upright in my chair, then all i hear is my tinnitus, my heartbeat, and my own bones/joints depending on when im moving and how im moving.

but because my bed is touching the wall, and my back is against pillows (3 seperate large/thick pillows), and the first pillow is touching the wall. i can hear everything in the other room clearly. like its just being heard from within my skull.

i can clearly hear whats on my mom's tv, when shes talking on the phone, the little noises of her opening the fridge, of her just opening /something/ (a bag a chips, a cup?). all of thats happening, and i can hear it all wtf. and when she turned the sounds off, i can hear her mumbling a song under her breathe.

i used to think i was going crazy thinking i would hear noises from the walls late at night when id try and sleep, and i thought it was just sleep deprivation and auditory processing issues being mixed into one, but now i think ive probably just been hearing actual stuff, like my neighbors, or rats in the walls etc. (bruno?? jk lol).

what exactly would this be? like science-y wise. anyone know? is this like how with certain types of hearing loss you can hear better through bone than through the hole of your ear? am i just hearing this through the bones of my self and like the "bones" of the house??

i know when ive laid flat on my bed, no pillows touching the wall, but an ear to pillow thats flat to my bed, ive heard things. sometimes i knew for sure i was hearing my neighbor, or my bf-at-the-time in the other room. but alot of the time i think (especially late at night) that i mightve been hearing more distant neighbors, so if they spoke or had tv it was much more distorted and weird sounding.

(to me this sounds super suspicious of having psychosis or hallucinations, so just adding this here too: one time i told my therapist i was so scared that i was having psychosis, because i kept hearing this weird whispering or something and it sounded like it was coming from somewhere near me and only at night, but i couldnt figure out /where/ which was weird. bc i like to search for sound-orgins when i hear stuff. we figured out that if i had multiple of my fans (dehumidifier, air-allergy-cleaner, standing fan, ceiling fan) going at once, then when i laid in bed their combined noises/patterns overlapping each other sounded like whispering, and was coming from multiple directions. i literally tested it with other ppl too and they said it did sound like weird mumbling/whispering but they could just tune it out within less than a minute. so, idk adding this here, throughout the years, have been very throughly assesed for psychosis and hallucinations etc and confirmed many times that i do not experience them per my therapist.)

is the only way to not hear this stuff to literally be in a bed thats not touching the walls at all? or will i have to try to get a weird combo of foam earplugs that can also send some colored noise/audio of my choosing maybe? maybe ill try putting my bluetooth speaker on my bed, so that if i hear noise ill just hear that vibrated throughout the mattress?

any advice? or any advice on how to explain this without immediately thinking others just assume im schizophrenic? (not using schizophrenic in a bad way, but i do not have that, and would like to be viewed and treated accurately, as someone with no psychosis or delusions.) or is this just me being hyper-aware of that others may view me as "crazy" (due to history of abusers saying stuff, etc etc), but not an actual concern?

How do yall handle days where mostly everything is triggering sensory wise?

How do you get back to center?

I'm running my first campaign, and while it’s going well, I find it challenging to create vivid descriptions. As someone with autism, I sometimes struggle with roleplaying. How do you remember what rolls do what, and how can you provide better descriptions? Any advice from fellow DMs with autism would be greatly appreciated!

do you guys ever just hate how loud fireworks get? I just hate how people aka my neighbours set off fireworks and firecrackers that are so loud not thinking about their surroundings like bruh.

Since Diwali came up, indians and those with religions celebrated it with fireworks and it’s starting to piss me off for the fact that they keep setting off loud fireworks and firecrackers. my point is i hate how they genuinely do that because of their culture and religion and them thinking about it and themselves not knowing other people surroundings. For example, me as a autistic person hate the loud noise plus some pets hearings are sensitive to it and so much more yet they think about their selves and set off the fireworks thinking about the culture than how other people would feel.

Just lemme know how your day is going :)

When I was 6-10 I imagined myself as this weird anthropomorphic being, with blue skin, bald, without any facial features except of eyes (lack of mouth was really important to me, although I did start talking very early), also genderless. I probably have an album somewhere with same drawings of it on each page. Does anybody else had similar experience? Is this connected to autism?

Hey everyone! I recently joined the autism community, and i've been impressed how supportive and understanding the international community is. However, in my country (hungary) It's very different. Here no one seems to know anything about high functioning autism (/lower support need autism/ level 1-2 autism) They only notice those who are visibly disabled by their asd, and they look at them as they're a nobody. How they look down on someone with asd is disgusting. As for the level 1-2 autistic individuals, people here (in hungary) always tell us to just "try harder" and they pretend this issue doesn't exist at all. They refuse to notice it entirely, and that's why there are a lot of undiagnosed kids, especially girls, who were told their whole life not to complain , just shut up and try to fit in basically. Teachers, parents and even doctors refuse to notice something is different in us. (as for the doctors, there are good ones, but they're only available if you have money- a lot) and the saddest part is that even INSIDE te autism "community" autistic people tell other autistic people that they don't actually have ads they just don't try hard enough or they try to follow a "TREND" i mean WTF. and these things that i mentioned are told to officially diagnosed autistic people every day, in every possible situation. Imagine what it's like for some people to be self-diagnosed around here. Anyway, I'm SO SO GRATEFUL for you guys and I'm very lucky to be part of this incredible community. What do you think about it? What it's like in your country? How do you get over it? Let me know please!

Hello Everyone,

About two weeks ago I discovered that I am Autistic to some degree. I wasn't shocked tbh and the more I looked into it, a lot of things started to make sense.

Ever since joining college, I have been trying to make friends but it seems every effort of mine goes to waste. There have been multiple occasions where a person who I thought I was in good relations with has hosted parties and quite brazenly not invited me. Their excuse being "you don't know many people in the party"

I was willing to let those things go, but them making a WhatsApp group without me and planning things without me was shocking to me. Over time, despite my efforts, they always drift apart and I honestly feel so lonely sometimes.

I often can't make plans with people, but they say "you asked too few people" and so they won't come because others won't come.

I seriously do not see any point in even talking to these people but I do feel like I am wasting away some of my most fun years.

I am now in the last half-year of my course and the realisation has hit me like a truck. I am lucky that I had a week of vacation right now, as I feel burnt out both by the academic pressure and my constant faliure in being able to socialize with my peers. The past few months have been especially rough.

I deactivated most of my social accounts atp cause all I can do is to look at their posts and stories, which only puts me in a worse mood.

Please, give me some advice on making friends and maintain relationships.

Also, do you guys have something that helps you deal with stimming, cause I have a habit of humming out of the blue when bored.

Sorry if this is too long.

Hi! I'm struggling these days and wondering if I'm burned out by my job. I did a bit of research, but there's some overlap between work burnout and autistic burnout.

What I've found is pretty vague, so I'm searching for concrete stories.

Are there people who had both? If so, how was it different?

So I am autistic—aspergers—and almost 18. My parents are overly bearing, don't want me to move away to college, and very strict. I wanna be able to move away, be myself, and I unfortunately cannot with them wanting me to move, and I'm wanting to run away once I am 18 and graduate high school. My step dad is transphobic, somewhat homophobic, and an ableist, whilst my mom is over bearing on me living at the house, getting things that I actually want, getting a job, and so many other things. My friends say I'm legally an adult and allowed to move away once I turn 18, but autistic kids don't really have the privilege due to being disabled. Now given, I'm high functioning, but my parents beg to differ I am unable to care for myself and beature, when in reality they are in the dark and I'm not stupid. Any advice and help for me? I need to make sure this will be legal without cops following me again, without having myself in trouble, and having my own side of the story.

I was always the "Weird girl" in my classes, I relate to some of the criteria of an autistic person, I have trouble in social situations, with textures, Noises, Smells, Routines, touches... and so on. Its exausthing trying to be "normal"

Problem is: I'm probably not autistic at all. My mother says that Im just dramatic and my fear is that I have to live the rest of my life without knowing what is wrong with me, I will always be the odd one and have no peace for as long as I live. What do I even do If im not autistic? Do I give up and Isolate myself to preserve my sanity?

When you feel drunk and happy for literally no reason suddenly. Like now.

Feels so funny. Haha

I am now substituting swear words with funny sounding words in my native language. I feel dummy dum, happy and drunk and zooming around the house

Basically a part of my autism is not being able to pick up on my general needs very well. I often forget to eat, drink and when I’m unwell I often leave it until I’m severely unwell. I just need advice on if I should visit my doctor or if I should just ride this out. I came down with a viral illness last Sunday, coughing, extreme fatigue, body aches and a temperature. Since then it’s been nearly a week, I haven’t improved very much. I have been keeping on top of fluids and food best I can but my appetite is just gone. I’ve also been taking paracetamol. But this cough is really bad, I’m coughing every 5 minutes but there is no mucus or anything, it’s making me go slightly dizzy at times. Then my fatigue has just been so bad too, I haven’t been able to do anything but shower and make myself something to eat without having to lie down. But now over the last 3 days I’d say my toes and fingers are getting waves of pain, almost like cramping. I’ve also been extremely hot and then extremely cold. What should I do? I struggle so much to know when I need help and when I don’t, I hate to over react but also find hospital and doctor environments incredibly overstimulating to the point I generally try to avoid them. I’m just worried that I have something more serious going on and I’m being a fool for just riding it out. I know things like bronchitis, pneumonia and sepsis are really extreme and some of my symptoms are similar. Hopefully someone can relate to this and offer some advice

I have found that I love progression so much. Religiously. It’s very fulfilling to my life. And by that I mean leveling up in video games, binging tv shows, I even track my music on last.fm. The only problem is I get tunnel vision, and will avoid real life issues to accomplish the next materialistic goal. I think this might be an underlying OCD issue too. Anyone out there feel the same?

Note: been playing BO6 a lot lately and can’t escape

I'm very stoned while writing this and this may already exist. (if it does please link it too me) Does anyone else ever get tired of the feeling of bed sheets? Or just straight up get annoyed and overstimulated by them if you're in bed for a while (for example I'm really sick rn so I've been in bed all day) I mean yea you can get different materials like aatin, cotton or even rubber sheets but do they make any that mock other furniture? Like leather or those various other soft materials that recliners and couches are made from? I'm sure it'd be difficult and annoying to use since it's not as stretchy and easily cleaned as normal bed sheets but I feel like this is something that should definitely exist if it doesn't already and if it does please comment links to them.

Hi all,

I've had a referal for something completely unrelated but on the NHS app I saw a list of things I had been diagnosed with.

I know that at some point I had been diagnosed with autism but I guess since school I've kind of just tried to live life as I am.

But anyway, I saw on my records I was diagnosed with infantile autism in 2000 and the comments next to it specify Semantic Pragmatic Disorder.

After doing some research I saw that SPCD hasn't been classed as autism since 2015 and that you can't have both, so then that made me wonder if it also says autism on there because it's an old record?

I'm just curious really! Thanks :)

I hate fireworks, they're too loud, I also feel for the animals as they must be terrified, it's coming up to bonfire night in the UK and it's gonna be awful, I understand in like an event or something but there's a lot of people who are setting them off in their gardens/yard, anyone else relate?

Hot pockets stoped putting the crisper thing in the package. The texture is different now and they don’t taste like they normally do. When I realized i literally almost cried. :(

i'll give an example from my own experience:

- when i lay on my back i have to turn on my left side before turning to my right side. if i wanna lay on my back again, i have to turn back to my left side.
- if i wanna lay on my stomach, i have to turn to my left side and then turn on my stomach, turning to my stomach from the right side is not allowed.
- same goes for when i lay on my stomach and wanna turn back to the side.

also, i really can't sleep on a pillow so i never used one in my life.

anyone else have rules when laying in bed?

The first YouTuber I came across was: I’m Autistic, Now What? And I am still watching her videos a lot.

But I would also like to see other channels. What do you recommend?

Hello! I hope it's ok to post here for advice without a professional diagnosis, I'm just extremely stressed right now and hope someone has experienced similar and has words of wisdom!

I just got surgery yesterday on the bottom of my foot, and pretty much my entire foot is bandaged up. It's an absolute sensory nightmare. I hate even having even socks in bed let alone this. It's itchy and feels suffocating which I know sounds ridiculous because it's on my foot but it really does. I know I can't take it off but does anyone have any good distractions for this? I'm so overwhelmed I feel like I'm gonna cry and I'm absolutely dreading not getting this off until at LEAST my post-op monday (if my doctor even lets it come off then). I'm mainly coming here because I feel anywhere else I could express this I'm gonna get mocked for it, I know a lot of people care very little for sensory issues. Thank you in advance for anyone who has advice 🙏

On an slightly unrelated note, I despise crutches. It feels humiliating using them and I keep almost falling, plus they hurt the insides of my arms.

Colors that make you feel calm when you look at the mine are pink, baby blue, black, and white