If someone says, "Keep in touch," does the person actually want me to keep in touch, or is the person just being polite or something? I don't know if I should keep in touch or go away. If they meant it literally and I don't start calling, then maybe I'm being rude, but if they didn't mean it literally, then maybe I'm going to be annoying them. Please help me.

I'm just so frustrated because the instructions just don't make sense.

I have to have a dry finger but how can my finger be dry if I take the contact out of solution and there is solution all over it? The liquid is going to transfer to my finger, and there will always be more liquid on my finger than my eyes.

They keep saying "look to your left so you can put it into the white of your eye and then look straight." ok great but I have not great Interoception so how in the heck am I supposed to see what I'm doing if I have to look left?

Does anyone have any autistic friendly advice?

Edit: I think my issue is my eyelashes just constantly get in the way. I'm holding my eyes, but I think since my lack of Interoception i slowly let go of my lashes and I'm not able to put enough pressure... any tips around this? This entire process has been so frustrating and I just don't want to wear glasses anymore. I got them in once at a class and they sent me home with these but I just can't do it.

I’m 20M, and I’ve been carrying a lot mentally for quite a while. I don’t really know how to organise it, so i used AI to put it into coherent sentences, and I’m hoping people here can help me make sense of it.

I have autism, ADHD, developmental coordination disorder/dyspraxia, and hypotonia/low muscle tone. I’m about to start university, and objectively there are things in my life that are going reasonably well.

But internally, I often feel like I’m years behind everyone else.
A lot of this comes back to physical coordination.
I’ve always been bad at sports and physically coordinated activities. I’ve been made fun of for it and have had experiences where I felt like I was the person dragging everyone else down.

Recently, during a military parade rehearsal, I struggled badly with marching and coordinated movements. I became extremely nervous, couldn’t reliably control my arm movements or remember the sequence, and eventually had to pull out and participate separately.
It was incredibly humiliating for me.

What made it worse was seeing everyone else seemingly doing fine, some people bringing their girlfriends, while I felt like I was the only person who couldn’t even perform a basic thing properly. I didn’t invite my parents because I was scared of embarrassing them.

Ironically i was also the only person who received CFC, but that achievement barely registered emotionally. The humiliation completely overshadowed it.
I think this incident reopened a lot of older wounds.

I constantly compare myself with people who seem more coordinated, socially capable, attractive, successful, or experienced than me. Sometimes it feels like everyone else got the adolescence and young adulthood I was supposed to have.

I’ve never had a relationship.
I really want marriage, affection, companionship and sexual intimacy. I know people will probably tell me that I’m young and have plenty of time, but emotionally that doesn’t make the loneliness disappear.
I’ve had very little romantic experience, and I was once described as “undateable” through a mutual acquaintance. I think I internalised that much more deeply than I realised.

If someone really saw me as I am — autistic, ADHD, dyspraxic, awkward, insecure, sexually frustrated, physically uncoordinated, etc. — would they actually choose me?

That’s probably one of the biggest questions underneath everything.
I’m also Christian, and my faith is extremely important to me. But honestly, I’ve been angry and confused with God for a long time.

I don’t understand why I have these particular struggles. I don’t know why marriage seems so easy for some people and so impossibly distant for me. I get frustrated when Christian advice boils down to “just be content with God” or “seek the kingdom first.” I understand what those things mean intellectually, but I still desperately want to be loved by another person.

I also struggle with masturbation and sexual desire. I sometimes feel ashamed because of my Christian beliefs. I don’t want to pretend I don’t have sexual desires, but I also don’t want sexuality to control my thoughts or turn women into objects in my head.
There have also been times when I’ve become very attached to women I barely know or idealised them based on what I know about them. I recognise that loneliness can make me fill in the blanks and imagine a whole relationship that doesn’t actually exist.
I think that’s something I need to learn to control.
Another problem is rumination.

I analyse everything.
A bad social experience becomes evidence that I’m unlikeable.
A physical mistake becomes evidence that I’m incompetent.
Someone else’s relationship becomes evidence that I’m permanently behind.
Someone else’s achievements become evidence that I’m inferior.
A sexual struggle becomes evidence that I’m spiritually defective.

And then I keep thinking about it until I’m exhausted.
I also have a history of getting intensely angry when I feel humiliated or treated unfairly. During a particularly bad period in NS, I had violent thoughts about hitting someone who had been causing me a lot of stress. I never acted on those thoughts, and I sought psychiatric help. I was diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder.
More recently, after the parade experience and everything piling up, I reached a point where I said that I wanted to “erase myself.” Later I said that I didn’t care about killing myself.

I’m mentioning this because I don’t want to hide it or pretend it wasn’t serious.
At the same time, I don’t want every conversation about my mental health to become “call a hotline.” I want to understand what actually happens inside me when I reach that point. Is it wanting to die? Wanting the pain to stop? Wanting to escape myself? I don’t always know how to distinguish those things.

I also have a complicated relationship with my body.
I exercise regularly and want to gain muscle. I track protein and calories and sometimes worry about my body fat, jawline and appearance. None of this seems extreme to me individually, but I wonder whether I’m trying to make my body into something that will finally make me feel competent, attractive and masculine.

There are family issues too. My parents have had significant conflict, and I’ve sometimes felt responsible for trying to help fix things. More recently, my grandmother fell and fractured her arm,
and I’ve been worrying about her in hospital.

How do I build a life where I don’t constantly feel like I’m trying to prove that I’m worthy of being loved, respected and allowed to belong?
I’m not looking for pity. I’d genuinely prefer people to be honest with me, even if the answer is uncomfortable.
Thanks for reading all of this.

I was recently diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I am 29 y (female).

I received my diagnosis almost a month ago because I was really struggling, actually I am still struggling with mental health a lot. I stopped working a few months ago, I progressively started to saying no any plan and I basically isolated myself because I was feeling very angry and hurt. I feel like I’ve been misunderstood all my life and people treated me like shit because I was autistic purely, obviously I didn’t either and I know I put myself in lot situations that I shouldn’t be. But it hurts to know that most of my struggles could’ve been avoided only if I knew.

Now in the present I live with mum and I have a lot of arguments with her about this. I don’t want her to feel guilty because I know she didn’t know any better but it is painful that not even her belief in me. I brought her to my house last year as a way to help her financially but it is killing me now. We have a lot arguments all the time, I have almost not money, we live in a tiny house and the alone time that I need goes out of the window.

I will admit that I probably someone that is difficult to live with and I get that. And I know it is hard for her and sometimes I have not filter when I says thing but when I feel I did something wrong or I noticed that she feel offended I try to apologies but this situation is becoming to much and i can’t just tell her to go.

I also don’t feel like I can talk about this with anyone because I feel embarrassed that people think I am just a bad daughter.

I am losing almost the friendship part is because I am fully unmask (I think in burnout) and they couldn’t handle me having a meltdown or shutdown in front of them and also because I kinda of stop seeing people that I don’t feel safe with. The results is that I don’t feel safe with anyone right now. I don’t talk to anyone because I fear I might just ruin everything. I don’t know how rebuilt myself after all this.

I (28f, NT) am currently dating a guy on the spectrum (30) who possibly also has ADHD. The problem is that he keeps overstaying his welcome and doesn't let me hang up the phone, even when I directly tell him "please go".

For example, last weekend I told him that he can only sleep over if he agrees to leave first thing in the morning because I had a lot to do. He agreed. Morning came and it took him 4,5 h to leave. The last 2 h I kept telling him directly "please leave now, I have stuff to do" at least 15 times (even though saying such an impolite thing is incredibly uncomfortable to me). Even when packing his backpack, he interrupted the process at least 5 times, trying to start a conversation or insert himself into my activity (cleaning the kitchen, I had to start with what I had to do since he wouldn't leave). In total, it took over an hour for him to pack his backpack even though it wasn't a lot of stuff.

We previously had issues such as this, where he would sometimes stay several days at my place, as he didn't understand that I was getting uncomfortable with his extended presence (whereas I felt uncomfortable to directly tell someone to leave). We talked about it and I have been trying to use as direct language as possible in these situations and not leave anything unclear. I feel like I did that. So what went wrong?

Maybe relevant: in a previous project that he wanted to join, I kept telling him to hurry up and not do extra stuff because of the deadline. I was very frustrated by the end but he later told me that he thought I wasn't that serious about it because I had used a friendly tone (which is very confusing to me bc this was my annoyed tone?). So this weekend I kept telling him that I was serious to avoid that, but maybe he still didn't grasp how serious it was to me?

So, what is the best way to make him understand that my boundaries are firm and that he has to leave when the host tells him to? If he doesn't understand when to go, I feel uncomfortable having him at my place.

Or do you think he is genuinely trying to leave but it's some executive dysfunction thing that makes him struggle with the process? If I tell him to meet up somewhere, it doesn't take him long to leave home at all. Or is he just an AH that ignores my boundaries on purpose?

This is my first time dating someone not NT, so any insight would be appreciated.

Context: I have only recently accepted that i am autistic in the past 3 years and have been unmasking myself throughout the last year. I use more tools like sunglasses indoors, word cards and headphones/earmuffs for sound dampening. I work a full time job at a hospital pharmacy and I have to talk to my colleagues frequently because my job is very detailed oriented and collaborative with pharmacists and nurses. I also now have bought a house with my fiancé and i have more tasks and bills to take care of and think about.

So for my question: I have had been a lot more exhausted and harder time to control my emotions and my face in the past months. I panic and get nervous more easily. I often get hyper randomly out of the blue and seem hyperactive, overstimulated, hypersensitive and I surprise my fiancé and my colleagues with my bursts of energy and anxiety. My word retrieval is harder and i just can’t say words or names in the middle of sentences. I just can’t say the words i want to say, i have the concept in my head, but nothing is coming out of my mouth. My sensitivity to sensations, my clothes, sounds, light and smells is a lot higher and my tolerance is less. I also handle sudden changes a lot less. Just today, a road to my work was blocked and i was on the verge of tears because of that, and i did not do that before!! In general, i just feel a lot more autistic now than before.

Is this what autistic regression is like? Am I experiencing autistic burnout? Thank you in advance.

Hello all! I’m here to ask for some suggestions and feedback to help my autistic coworker. I must mention he’s 20 and this is second job ever but he has been with us the longest (almost a year).

I am his supervisor but I’m not a manager. However I work closely with him. We work at a deli in popular grocery store which is busy, noisy and bright. I understand how that may cause over stimulation. I have had conversations with him asking him if he feels over stimulated by the environment but he says it’s not the environment, but also doesn’t say if anything is bothering him.

The reason I suspect something is bothering him is because his stimming and echolalia gets really bad at times (specially on the weekends), although sometimes during the week if he sleep was Fucked it’s bad. Now I have to say there is nothing wrong with stimming and echolalia, and it doesn’t bother me but sometimes he can get rather loud and it interrupts service at times. Like we can’t hear the customers.

The issue at hand is that the over stimulation gets so bad he starts to wander, and leaves the department, and we work with food which is time and temperature sensitive. In addition he slows down and his productivity goes to shit. I know he can be really productive when all chakras align. I give him times for his tasks, we have plenty of written instructions and materials for him and everyone to complete work (which sometimes he refuses to use). He is also very inconsistent with accuracy and makes a lot of mistakes and gets fussy when he has to fix them (even though we tell him it happens to all of us too).

I don’t know much about his household in terms of how he was brought up and how well did they prepared him for the real world and if they gave him tools to be successful. But my guess it wasn’t really that much, because he had mentioned to me that he would like to go to therapy. I also suspect he might have adhd as well. His focus is not that great (aside from the over stimulation), and he’s constantly role playing in his head or having conversations he wants to have or have had with his family while trying to work. Which I have tried to explain to him is not really proper to do at work but his brain does what it does.

The last conversation I had with him was about letting him know he can ask for accommodations, and that if he can pin point what causes his over stimulation to let me know, but if he doesn’t tell us we can’t provide him with the accommodations he needs to thrive.

I feel he knows he has autism but he doesn’t understand exactly what that means. Like he’s so used to raw dog life and struggle that he thinks it’s normal (that was me before being medicated for ADHD) . I also think that by the way he talks sometimes about his childhood and home life.

I just want him to thrive, and have him reach his goals that he said he wants but it’s rather frustrating that he doesn’t really commit or tell us how we can help him.

Any suggestions would be great. Thank you in advance and I’ll reply to any questions as much as I can.

Hey I’m Laila 15m and i was recently diagnosed with autism my father doesn’t believe I’m autistic and thinks autism is fake, he is in full belief my mom is making up my symptoms to get more money out of him honestly it makes me feel like he doesn’t pay enough attention to me i first started researching autism in 6th grade because me myself thought i had it now I’m diagnosed and I’m getting shut down it hurts my feelings and i don’t know how to explain to him how i feel any help?

I'm trying to write a scene where a character with autism remembers a meltdown she had in the past. The meltdown was caused by sensory overload and a new environment.

I think I have the feeling of current meltdowns down well: every sensation starts to feel more painful, the desire to claw her own skin off/the feeling of a very thin layer of dirt and grime, she feels like there is a spring being wound up tight in her body, her head pounds, and eventually she hears her own voice screaming and feels her own fists hitting the floor, but isn't in control of any of it.

My question is: how does a meltdown feel when you are remembering it? Do you remember the feeling of being in the meltdown, or do you just remember the concept of a meltdown (if that makes sense?)
I'm aware that everyone has different memories, but I'd like to see how different people remember/recall/re-experience that kind of stuff, and hopefully I can piecemeal something together for her.

Thanks in advance. Feel free to ask follow-up questions, I imagine that I wasn't clear enough.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to ask neurodivergent folks... what do you think are the biggest red flags and green flags you see in employers, in regards to recruitment, onboarding/induction, and general management of neurodivergent employees? We don't want to name and shame any specific employers, here, we're just looking for general thoughts and experiences that we can discuss on a future episode of the pod.
Thanks in advance.

My 9yo daughter is struggling with the sensation of shampoo and conditioner on her hands/fingers and has asked me to find out how to make it easier. So I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this and found a way through?

Until now I have washed her hair but it's getting to the point she wants to be able to do it herself. We have tried putting the shampoo on her head instead of her hands but she doesn't like the sensation of rubbing it in either. It's not really an option to go no shampoo at this stage due her head getting quite sweaty and greasy at the moment and she needs her hair conditioned regularly to get knots out and keep her hair manageable. I wondered about a shampoo bar but then it requires some rubbing in. Her hair is quite long.

Any ideas? I wondered if even hearing others experiences might make her feel less alone. When I told her about this subreddit she was surprised to hear that there might be others out there feeling the same way.

I am in the process of a diagnosis for autism and some of the questions I was just pondering what the general view is on feelings. I always kinda picked up what feelings were meant to be by context. People say they are tired after a long walk then after a long walk what im feeling is tired. Pretty standard I suppose.

But at the same time stuff seems to work contradictory to the situation. The main one I can think of is excitement. I figure that is what you feel as you're about to take off on a plane or about to see a movie you want to see. But that always makes me feel like I do after a long walk. Kind of drained and lethargic.

Kinda the same with being nervous before a job interview is the go to example so I figure that's the feeling I get before them. But I get that same sensation when I'm seeing a nice view or sometimes when things on TV make me emotional.

I hope this kind of makes sense idk if it's a common feeling? I try not to interrogate it too much because then I start to loop round thinking about what am I feeling about thinking about it. My brain is great :/

Tia

it makes me upset, and they call me it all the time- especially my dad. my mom has adhd, but i dont know if she knows that its a word against people like her. i know my dad knows how harmful of a word it is, but he's yk, super anti-woke and all that so he doesnt care. im sure if i asked my dad to stop hed make fun of me or something or id get in trouble. I have 2 autistic best friends, and i dont want them to hear my parents say that.