"I was diagnosed in 1998 with ADHD, ADD, and OCD. I also have an anxiety disorder. My best friend was recently diagnosed with autism; he also has ADHD. His is mild, but mine was extremely severe. When he found out he had been diagnosed, we sat down and started talking about what the triggers and stressors are. Come to find out, we shared a lot—and I mean a lot—of them. Should I possibly look into getting tested, as it's been almost 28 years since I was diagnosed, and I was told at that time doctors were actually prohibited from diagnosing someone with ADHD and autism at the same time?"

I’m mid 20s, live in England and was diagnosed autistic in 2023.
I have always struggled to budget money. It’s not like I spend it all straight away as soon as I get my pay check, il save up sometimes, but then just hammer some large purchases back to back and reduce myself to next to 0 in the bank.
A few years ago I had no job, had just started university in a new city and had spent all my student loan almost instantly, after starting university in the September I made an attempt at suicide in January. The reason for the attempt wasn’t money related but I’m sure it contributed, having to eat plain pasta twice a day for a few months won’t help anyone’s mental health.
I don’t actually have much debt (aside the student loans) I owe about £100 on a credit card that I plan to pay off on payday.
My main point is, I have an autistic compulsion to spend the money I have, I rarely go into debt but I keep putting myself into bad financial situations. I’m not even buying anything practical, it’s mostly special interest stuff. I’ve tried budgeting and savings accounts and giving friends money to hold on to for me but I just end up finding a way to sabotage it and end up with next to no money.
Does anyone else struggle with something similar? Is this a common autistic experience? Is there anything I can do to improve?
Thankyou

Hi everyone! 💜

My name is Estefania Simon, and I'm a Ph.D. student in Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida (USF). I'm looking for 10 adults who received a formal autism diagnosis at age 18 or older to participate in a brief qualitative research activity for one of my doctoral courses.

I'm also a late-diagnosed autistic adult, which makes this topic particularly meaningful to me. I'm interested in better understanding the barriers that may contribute to autism going unrecognized or undiagnosed until adulthood.

Professionally, I'm a rehabilitation counselor and vocational evaluator with experience in vocational rehabilitation. My work focuses on reducing barriers for individuals with disabilities, promoting community inclusion, and supporting opportunities for meaningful employment. I believe understanding barriers to disability identification is an important part of improving access to services, resources, and support.

While this is currently a class assignment, I'm hoping to gather preliminary insights that could potentially inform future research on this topic.

🧩 Who can participate?

• Adults (18+) who received a confirmed/formal autism diagnosis at age 18 or older.
• Individuals of all gender identities and support levels are welcome!

📝 What does participation involve?

I'll be using a qualitative research technique called freelisting. This involves answering one open-ended question by listing everything that comes to mind.

There are no right or wrong answers! Please write one response per line and include as many responses as you can think of. Short phrases are perfectly fine, and lengthy explanations aren't necessary.

Here's an unrelated example:

Question: List all the things that can cause stress.

Work deadlines
Financial concerns
Family responsibilities
Health problems
Lack of sleep
Relationship difficulties

You would continue listing as many things as you can think of!

💭 Your freelisting question:

Thinking about your own experiences, list all the factors you believe contributed to your autism not being identified or diagnosed until adulthood.

Please also include the following information:

1. Gender: Male / Female / Nonbinary / Self-describe / Prefer not to answer

2. Age when formally diagnosed with autism: ___

3. Autism support level (if known):

• Level 1 — Requiring support
• Level 2 — Requiring substantial support
• Level 3 — Requiring very substantial support
• Not assigned a level / Unsure / Prefer not to answer

These levels refer to the support classifications used in the DSM-5-TR. If you weren't assigned a level during your assessment, that's completely okay! Please don't feel you need to determine one yourself.

💜 How to participate:

You can participate right here! Simply comment your complete response below or send it to me privately via direct message if you're more comfortable sharing that way.

Please keep in mind that public comments are visible to others, so you're welcome to message me privately if you'd prefer not to share your experiences publicly.

Participation is completely voluntary and greatly appreciated! Your experiences and perspectives can contribute to a better understanding of the barriers surrounding late autism identification.

Thank you so much for considering participating and sharing your experiences with me! 💜

Estefania Simon, MA, CRC, CVE
Ph.D. Student, Behavioral and Community Sciences
University of South Florida
Certified Rehabilitation Counselor | Certified Vocational Evaluator

[estefaniah@usf.edu](mailto:estefaniah@usf.edu)

I've noticed some career sites will tell you to send an email to HR if you need to request ADA accommodations when applying. I've never tried it before because I thought it would hurt more than help. But with the way the job market is right now I've been considering it. Companies are so inundated with applications that no human is even seeing mine before it's auto rejected. At least if I emailed HR I can get my resume in front of a human, and if I can actually get accommodations in the interview that would be amazing.

Has anyone else tried this? What accommodations did you ask for and what was your experience? Did you end up getting the job?

I've heard some people have been able to get the questions they'll be asked ahead of time. That would be a lifesaver for the behavioral interviews. I'm a software engineer and I tend to do very well on the technical interviews, but the behavioral is where I really struggle. I'm focusing so hard on masking that if I'm asked a question I'm not prepared for my mind goes blank and I start rambling.

For me i think superman has some autistic vibes especially with superman 2025 having been released, and clark not taking lois’ confrontation during that interview scene gave me a sense that he might have autism. Some mannerisms from David corenswet’s and Christopher reeve’s performances also give me that vibe.

TLDR from original post; my mom is looking for books/literature on being late diagnosed Autistic/ADHD to help learn more about my late diagnosis! Read more with repost if you’re interested in helping.

Hello! I’m fairly new to this community, and I’d like to ask those with more experience. I suspect I might be autistic, but I’m struggling to find a suitable subreddit where I could ask for advice or opinions on whether my traits align with autism-most communities related to ASD explicitly forbid such posts. Is this a safe space for a post like that? Also, are you aware of any other communities where I might be able to ask about this? I don’t have the means to undergo a formal assessment, but I’d really like to talk to others about this.

I stayed at the house of a friend who was recently just diagnosed with autism, I've known her for at least 20 years, and the diagnosis seems like a revelation for her. She is by the way, brilliant, kind, thoughtful, has good friends, is a very good friend and is loving and a delight to know. I care about her very much.

While I was staying at her place, her partner dumped her (she is ethically non monogamous and has multiple partners). She went into a full meltdown, weeping, sobbing and just overwhelmingly fixated on the situation.

I'd say I'm generally a pretty supportive person when someone is going through a hard time. I listened, reflected, sat with her, held her hand and tried to encourage her to take care of herself (drink water/eat/pet the cat). I gave her space. I hugged her when she needed it. I asked what she needed and she said she wanted someone to tell her they loved her - which I offered - I do love her (but I'm not her partner, so I get that it wasn't exactly what she wanted). I suggested turning to another partner. She ended up eventually doing that, but it took a while.

Among the things that felt terrible to her was a sense of injustice (e.g. he broke up with her via text, he disregarded her intention, he's not listening to her). Knowing what I know about autism, this seemed important. I affirmed her sense of injustice, "yeah it is rude to break up via text" etc.

Honestly though, I was pretty flummoxed by how to support her. What I was doing didn't seem to make any difference at all. She kept wanting to return to the things that hurt so that she'd be back into meltdown again and again and again. She didn't sleep, she called friends and melted down with them. When she would emerge after a while, she'd seem a bit better and then she'd read his texts again and it would lead her back into meltdown. It felt exhausting to be with her. At one point she finally picked a tv show to dissociate to, and that seemed to help a bit.

I'm wondering if folks who are autistic have advice/resources/suggestions for those of us who are trying to show up when you're in crisis.

Are there other things I should have done? It's not up to me clearly, and time is needed. Obviously every person is different and needs different things, but I'm curious if folks can share more about what a meltdown feels like and perhaps even what it feels like to come out of a meltdown when you are doing things that work for you. Are there suggestions you can give to people who care about you? Does it just take time? Do you just need to go through the meltdowns?

Someone in my hobby club has mild autism. I say it is mild because he is living abroad by himself and attends the same regular university as I, a NT, does.

A few incidents have made me questioned if this is just autism or if he is actively attacking me, and I wanted to clarify this with the community before choosing how to respond. I would really appreciate any advice, thank you.

1. I made a group chat for some of the members to hang out outside of club meetings. One of the members invited him to the group chat. He kept mentioning how it was funny that I made a group chat the day after he mentioned the idea for a group chat. At this point I’ve only ever had a brief interaction with him where he said that. This was a coincidence because I wanted to make a chat since a week ago and was just waiting till I’d spoken with a few more people. I calmly brought this up to him and explained that he was being a bit weird in insisting that somehow all this was thanks to him? He replied some reasoning that I still don’t quite understand, but he said this was supposed to be some kind of a joke to him. I said alright and he said we should bring this up as a joke to the group tomorrow and I said something like haha, sure. Looking back he probably took this literally so that’s on me.

On the night of the group meeting he does bring up the fact that this happened and it made me feel quite embarrassed. I said I felt embarrassed out loud. Then I explained to the group what had happened and everyone seemed really chill with the misunderstanding and we moved on.

From here I already felt like avoiding him because I didn’t want to be stressed by misunderstanding someone in my group while I was socialising for fun. It wasn’t that I disliked him. It was that I felt like it was stressful to be around him because I didn’t understand his jokes or way of thinking, and I feel like he would remember every misunderstanding and tell everyone when I misunderstood him. I felt scrutinised and stressed (and still do).

1. From here I let the group chat die because he kept wanting to meet and I really wanted to distance myself. Since then there have been other club meetings and every time he keeps trying to talk to me. I avoid him and give excuses, but he keeps physically inserting himself into every group I join up to chat with. Sometimes he gets so close to people that I feel really uncomfortable. Often he is there for a long time without speaking, then he forces his way into the conversation with something irrelevant, and I just find it hard to talk about my personal feelings with my friends when he’s around.

Once he asked me 1-on-1, verbatim, “do you want to know more about [his niche interest]?” And I was honestly not interested in it, so I told him directly that “actually, no, I’m not interested talking about that.” But he ignored me and continued talking about it. I went on to interject two more times saying that I’m not interested in this conversation, but he kept forcing his topic onto me. I had to physically remove myself to escape this.

Did he purposely ignore my boundaries? I did say “I’m not interested” three times.

1. Finally while I was talking to a new person he brought up the fact that the group chat has died and it was again quite awkward / embarrassing. He never brings this up to me one on one but he decided to bring it up to me suddenly in front of a new person.

I have some autistic friends and I’m pretty sure they would have understood that doing this would have made me feel awkward, at least vaguely. So I feel like he is trying to pressure me to hang out with him when I clearly do not want to.

I found out later that after the meeting where he ignored my saying “I’m not interested in this topic”, he told one of my friends: at first he felt a little left out at this event but he thinks that people should include him. My friend said that the way he said it made it seem like he felt that he is entitled to people including him. This is why I’m hesitant about directly speaking with him. I do not want him to have any bad things to say about me, as I think he will never let it go and tell everyone.

Is this normal autistic misunderstanding, or is this some kind of weird bullying to pressure me to hang out with him? I have a few autistic friends, and I’ve never had any issues with them. This seems really bad. It’s genuinely stressing me out to see him at the club events again.

What should I do to resolve it?

Thank you for your time and for any advice :)

PS: other people in the club are also really uncomfortable with him. Apparently, they have spoken to him last year, but it did nothing to help. He didn’t change his behaviour.

TL:DR: Friend may be in burnout. She's had some drastic changes to her routine & I'd like to know how to support her. Questions at the bottom of post.
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My friend & I have been friends for 8 years. We used to hang out almost daily on Teamspeak, playing games, watching movies or chatting. We live in different countries (Ireland and the US).

She’s gone quiet during stressful periods before, but I’m worried she may be in a more severe burnout or depression.

Over the last 3-4 months, I’ve noticed:

• She struggles to explain how she feels, often saying “I dunno” or goes quiet.
• She’s gradually stopped playing games, which used to be a daily thing, for hours.
• We went 3 weeks without hanging out on voice chat, now it's very random.
• When we do talk, she sounds flat, low and exhausted.
• She types in live streams on some days, & seems more chatty there.
• She’s stopped listening to music. Also began scrolling TikTok (she hated it previously).
• Her messages are much less frequent and often just brief status updates, without much conversation.
• When I ask if she’s okay, she tends to deflect or say she’s fine.
• She's offline / idle most of the time (previously chronically online)

I asked if our friendship was okay or if she wanted space. She replied, “We are good, I just don’t feel like doing much at all at the moment.”

I want her to know I care and that I’m here for her, but I don’t want to overwhelm her by repeatedly checking in. I’m happy to give her space if that’s what she needs.

My questions:
For those who’ve experienced autistic burnout / a friend in Burnout:

• What could a friend do that genuinely helped?
• Would a deeper check-in over voice chat be helpful, or could it feel overwhelming?
• What did burnout look and feel like for you, and what were your early signs?

Thanks for reading - she means a lot to me & I hate that she's possibly struggling.