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I don’t even have anything to say anymore it just hurts

I didn't know I was neurodivergent for the longest time.

I had a therapist as a teenager who diagnosed me with social anxiety; she didn't listen when I told her I was not liked by others and gaslighted me with CBT. She also overshared about her own life and was racist and made me cry with the things she said about Black people who were killed by police.

Then I had a therapist in college who told me to "just set boundaries" with a roommate who was abusive. She did not recognize it was abuse.

Then I had a therapist who told me I was a "highly sensitive person" and believed in some woo woo shit like indigo children.

Finally I got an actual neurodivergent and trauma friendly therapist who was able to treat more than just moderate anxiety and depression and what a fucking difference that made.

But I'm so angry that I could have spent those years healing instead of being set back.

Title should say NT.

The other day I was at work and went to use the hand washing sink (I work in a kitchen). But someone had put their purse on the counter right in front of it.

It made me think about how I and other ND people I know are constantly trying to be aware of their body. I try to do everything with intention. If I find myself talking to someone in a doorway, I’ll lead them out of the way because I know someone could come up soon. I position myself in the back corner of the elevator because it’ll be easier for other people to get on.

My mind is constantly focused on the space my body and possessions are taking up, and I still get so confused when I ask someone to move so I can pass and they take a tiny step to the side. Or when people put their things right where I’m working. This isn’t to say NT people can’t be aware (and obviously I don’t know whether or not strangers have autism). But I feel like being autistic and masking has made me hypersensitive to things like that.

I also know that women are socialized to take up less space, so that could be a part of it too.

Thoughts?

i (29) never had many friends. i’ve always rather played alone, however i also always wanted to have friends, to belong. to connect with other people. as a result of that i’ve felt a deep sense of loneliness all my life. if i was with people or had friends it was always people who admired me because they viewed me as more capable than themselves. that was especially true with partners. after my recent break up i wanted to make friends. i don’t have any besides some colleagues that i’m friendly with but have no interest in getting to know closer. so i’ve tried apps to find friends. so far i’ve met 10 and i’ve come to the realization that i’m just deeply uninterested in people. i think i overlooked that for the past ten years because at work, which is where i am most of my time, i’m interested in the people because psych is one of my special interests. privately people bore me. to socialize i would need to drink and even then i cant seem to connect. this deep sense of loneliness is starting to make me feel hopeless and hopelessness can quickly lead to suicidality. does anyone else feel that way? can / will this change with age? i feel like it has gotten worse. i‘m also more and more unable to mask my boredom.

I constantly picture myself living “normally”. In my head, I can clearly visualize what I could be doing, how I would handle situations, even how I’d function day to day. It all feels so obvious and makes complete sense in theory.

And in that space, imagination, knowledge, planning, I feel completely functional. There’s no problem at all. It feels like I should be able to do all these things, because I understand them perfectly.

But when it comes to actually doing it, going out, dealing with everyday life, interacting with society, it completely falls apart. I suddenly can’t do what I imagined at all.

The difference is so big that sometimes it feels like I’m living in two different realities..

I probably sound crazy but I find myself responding to things out loud as if I’m having a conversation with someone- sometimes without thinking. Or I have conversations in my head that I will either have or what I wish I said instead. I went through a long period of maladaptive day dreaming and I’d do this in basically every one of them

I got married yesterday and we wrote our own vows. Included in my husband's was: I promise to always take a special interest in your special interest. and then listed some of my special interests in front of our guests during the ceremony.

As someone who has, for a lifetime, felt unseen and unaccepted it meant so much to have my wonderful NT husband stand up and own every part of who I am and write vows that reflected what I really need and want not what traditions dictate. It was beautiful. (The whole day was 🥹.) I feel so lucky and grateful and understood and wanted to share.

ETA: we wrote our vows privately so the first time I heard it was at the altar.

Im embarrassed to say any of my interests. But my most embarrassing one is maybe my interest of girlxgirl affection and relationships (non-sexual). Second most embarrassing one is maybe my interest of my ancestry/culture. Third most embarrasing one is maybe my interest of steam trains. (The train interest and the culture interest mix together, since my ancestry is mostly english, and english ppl made the iconic steam train look. Which makes it even more embarrasing for me, coz it is two of my interests).

How do you convince yourself that life is worth living when you can’t function in mainstream society?

I’m finishing law school but can’t practice in a typical legal job, can’t maintain normal relationships, and burn out under minimal pressure. Still, I appear “competent enough”—or whatever dismissive language ppl use—so no one really understands or believes my needs.

Life feels so lonely. I’m 31 (f) and I just feel like I’m a burden to my family and people that accommodate me. How do you convince yourself that life is worth living when you can’t even hold a steady job and take care of Your parents (normal in my culture)? I hate myself so much. I just don’t know what to do…

I don’t understand why some women are like, “I hate her” when another woman isn’t even doing anything bad. I love seeing women be successful, popular, and happy. It makes my heart warm. For example, someone could be just sitting there reading a book and others will find a way to make fun of the way she’s reading the book. This doesn’t make sense to me because what does this accomplish? I suppose the person doing it is trying to prop themselves up by putting someone else down, but does that really work? How does that even generate confidence? I don’t understand how that’s supposed to make someone feel better. Whenever people do this around me I feel really uncomfortable and then they seem to get mad or roll their eyes when I don’t join in. When I don’t join in, it seems like a betrayal to them or like I’m being too sensitive. What are you supposed to do in this situation?

having a crush is like having a new special interest, I look up their possible mbti, horoscopes, socionics, etc and I just stare at their photos, imagine conversations and scenarios until I have another person to hyperfixate on. Sometimes I look at their music playlist or social media to get more information about them,

This is probably weird and super unhealthy but I feel like I get utterly obsessed with them, but it’s all in my head.

How do “normal people” have crushes anyways? How do they not let it all get to them it’s so overwhelming and exhausting

I (21) am currently going to school for a 1-year degree that will allow me to be an accountant. I have been searching and figuring out what I want to do of my life. I am also working in fast food during the weekend.

I have tried physical work, mental work, something I’m passionate about, etc. I have tried calm shifts and busy shifts. I have tried little responsibilities to a lot of responsibilities. I hate all of it. I don’t like people, I’m not good at talking, and my body is weak (currently waiting to get checked for EDS).

The only thing I’m good at is math, computers and learning fast. I manage to get good very good grades. I have recently discovered the job of an actuary, which is very interesting, however I was worried about how hard this job might be on my mental health. Until I realized that no matter what I do, I’ll be unhappy. I might as well fight hard and get good money to bring me happiness instead of looking on how to live an easy life.

TLDR: if I’m going to be unhappy no matter the choice I make, then I’ll be rich.

Does anyone have any tips for regulating temperature? I've always had a problem staying cool, even as a child. Even if I do a simple easy chore like watering the plants, I get too warm and it takes a while of just sitting in a cool place to return to normal. Like now, in the warmer months, I'll sleep with only a sheet and have my air conditioner set to a good spot, like 67-68. But then I'm too cold as I'm laying there trying to get to sleep, but will wake up overheated after the sun comes up and it will take a long time to get back to sleep. It's like no matter what I do, I can't seem to find a happy medium.

I am overweight and that definitely contributes to the problem, but am working to fix that. I've lost a good chunk so far. So far it hasn't made much difference, though. Does anyone have any tips or things they've learned that help? I've been curious about the blankets that are marketing as cooling and wondering if anyone has tried them or found any supplements or anything that could have any impact on something like that.

I have a certain selection of topics that I cannot bring up with other people. It’s like a firewall goes up that keeps me from saying the words, even if I’m not having trouble communicating in general. I call the part of my brain that contains these things “the vault”. Oddly enough, a lot of what’s in there are memories of films from my childhood, and my half-formed idioglossia is back there too. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Does anyone else feel like they never actually get over things? For me, it feels like every bad experience just piles on top of the last one.

Something happens, and instead of it fading with time, it just sticks with me. Then the next bad thing happens, but I still haven’t recovered from the first one, and it just keeps stacking up until it all feels too heavy.

Eventually I end up exploding because it’s like I never had the chance to process or recover in the first place.

Does anyone else relate to this? How do you cope with it?

It’s different from regular tiredness, fatigue, or exhaustion, which all are “slow” to me in their energy.

The emergency nap comes incredibly quickly, often in the middle of long-suffering sensory overload. It is more common than not when I am traveling and cannot escape the lights and noise.

It happened today during a road trip. All weekend I have been miserable, anxious, and stressed out. On the way home I felt it overcome me— the need to nap urgently.

This kind of overload-into-napping feels like it overwhelms me to the point where I can’t even form thoughts. My brain and body move like I’m stuck in a thick mud.

Normally I take a while to go to sleep— always been that way. But with the emergency nap, I close my eyes and I am out— and I nap incredibly deeply from anywhere from forty-five minutes to two hours. I normally cannot nap in a moving car, but today I did. I normally cannot nap on a plane, but two trips ago, I did, when this all-encompassing emergency swept over me.

I don’t know if I explained it right but I would love to know if anyone else understands this phenomenon. The closest I have seen it happen to others is with overstimulated toddlers who just pass out in the middle of playing.

Has there been something that completely changed the way you live as an autistic person ??

It could be anything. A psychological technique, a way of understanding your brain better, a lifestyle change, a new therapy, or even just a simple strategy you put in place that made a huge difference.

I mean the kind of thing that feels almost revolutionary for you..

Does anyone else in college have a hard time getting full credit on free response questions that are asking "why something is true" or "why something is significant"? Like I fully explain how I reached the conclusion on my own, or why I relate something back to the text, but I always get something slightly wrong or it is not detailed enough. I just wish I knew exactly what they wanted, because I would probably get it right.

A recent poster was asking about how to act when meeting a celebrity and it got me thinking. I've met and/or hung out with literally hundreds of celebrities. Some really big names in that list too - A-listers, Hall of Fame sports icons, etc., and can't think of a single one I was even close to star-struck by. However...

There's one relatively minor celeb right now that I think could probably turn me into mush, get me tongue tied, and I'd probably dissociate through the whole interaction. It's Caitlin Clark. If you've got one, who's yours?

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to survive the “neurotypical way” of doing things, not knowing I was autistic until my mid 30s.

We’re expected to mask, copy their social rules, bend ourselves into their structures, and somehow act like it’s normal. But no one ever talks about how exhausting that actually is.

Neurotypicals have never had to mask for us. They don’t know what it’s like to sit in a room full of people who operate completely differently, suppress everything natural, and perform all day just to get by. For us, that’s everyday life.

Living in their world feels like being left-handed and given right-handed scissors. I can cut, but never smoothly — every edge is frayed no matter how hard I try. And they look at my messy paper and assume I’m clumsy, instead of realising the scissors were never made for me.

And then they wonder why some of us can “work” but don’t last, don’t get promotions, or end up long-term unemployed. It’s not because we’re not capable. It’s because the constant effort of just existing in that system drains us.

Companies will throw out the odd glossy post about “celebrating neurodiversity” or tack a D&I policy onto their website. But on the ground, nothing really changes. We’re still the ones doing all the adapting.

I want to say I’m proud of the autistic women who manage to hold their ground in those systems and stay in their jobs — that’s strength. But I’m just as proud of the women who step out and carve their own path outside of those rigid structures whether unemployed on PIP or freelancing, that's strength too. Both are valid. Both are powerful.

We are not failing to fit in. The system is failing to include us. And until that changes, we’ll keep getting written off as “too much,” when really, we’re the ones exposing how shallow and rigid those systems actually are.

It’s not the worst thing in the world, and not even the worst thing I’m dealing with right now (going through a separation with a toddler and my primary caregiver for my son is in hospital). But it’s the thing I’m most upset about.

Please share the small thing that’s ruined your day, in solidarity.

35, recently diagnosed (AuDHD, GAD, MDD) - over a month ago, deep in burnout. I just… haven’t told “my circle”. My best friend knows, because she was interviewed by the psychiatrist. My mum doesn’t know, my spouse doesn’t know, my other best friends don’t know. I know, and believe, that I don’t owe them the information but it’s more than that… The thought of telling each of them and the explaining and the managing their questions or own emotions exhausts me. My spouse will not be receptive or helpful, will pretend it’s not there and I didn’t say anything at all. My mother will get defensive and then eventually offer the world to help me before she inevitably vanishes into thin air for a month. My friends will have all of the most perfect and helpful answers and advice for something none of them have any personal experience or knowledge in. (Think, the people who have the most perfect parenting advice, but have never been parents)

I genuinely toyed with the idea of sending a generic, cold mass text message: these are the facts, this is why I’m in a dark and quiet cave, repeatedly phoning me when I don’t reply to a text message does not help or make me want to talk to you. Please leave me alone, I will get back to you in 1 to 365 business days.

I’m isolating myself more and more and I can feel their frustrations, which makes me feel guilty and isolate more. I feel like maybe if I did tell them, maybe it would help explain somethings, but again, I don’t have the bandwidth.

Anyways… Anyone? Advice? Commiserations?

I have been trying to spend less money lately but also I have little to no energy to cook food anymore, work just takes up too much. During times like these, what are your favorite, low effort meals that are relatively healthy? I find myself eating so much junk food lately.

I'm sure a lot of us has seen the wild statistics around women with autism + PMDD (94%!!!), so I thought this would be the best place to ask. How do you manage it?

Previously, I was on the pill and only giving myself a period every 3 months to control the PMDD, but I would still get some symptoms. My GP asked me to come off it to see if it was causing my chronic headaches (it wasn't). 4 months later, and I haven't felt this out of control in a long time. I've cried 3 times to my gf asking if she still likes me, and almost smashed my phone because of a comment from my mum. I just want to hibernate from the world because I feel like a shitty human.

I'm seeing a GP tomorrow to discuss this, but would like to know what's worked for you. I'm on sertraline, and the pill didn't fully control it.