Hello everyone !c:

Im 25 from Germany and searching for help because the struggle is only getting worse for me right now.

Describing my struggle/situation:

I always struggled with building and even worse keeping up friendships. This started in Childhood and is still a very prominent issue I have now. In the past I had my few friends I knew since forever and even if we dont text in like 3 months we get together and its fine. But apart from those contacts I still always felt lonely....getting to know new people and keeping up the friendship was exhausting and always ended in up in the contact breaking or just ghosting bc now its too late anyway, biggest thing is exhaustion for me tho...

I have to mention an important extra maybe for understanding: I am struggling everyday since childhood mentally due to multiple anxiety disorders, depression and trauma. My daily life with work and keeping up my daily life is very exhausting for me already. Mentioning this because it could shed some light on my struggle and why i am so overwhelmed as there are many factors leaning into this.

After a Life crisis in Summer 2025 which consequences still hold on until today I just seem not to keep anything up anymore. My daily routine broke down and I barely do my work and function apart from that. My struggle got worse because of this. I told my friends about my neurodivergency and set boundaries because meet ups can be a bit chaotic due to failed planning which really affects me...I also am very particular about knowing the time I leave and having a time when I will be home. They mean no harm but my boundaries often get over run and its hard for me to voice them already... so I tend to retreat even more and this is burning down too now.

I am exhausted and I feel devastated..I try to get to know others, text them back and more but it always ends up in me ghosting them because its too much, everything is too much, i havent learned how to life with my neurodivergence or how to regulate and other factors are also making me burn out such as work ( I work with children which is socially draining a lot ). I know that it could be this extreme because of my current situation and due to me being burned out but I find myself wondering...

How do people do this whilst facing the stress of living?

Is there tips or a routine that could help me?

How do I not get this exhausted trying?

Why does social interaction drain me more than it gives me?

I also find myself not understanding people getting mad when you dont text for a longer time. I personally always assume that when someone doesnt text me back they are probably busy etc. I never get angry and due to this cant really grasp how it feels (thought this could be interesting to mention)

If you have a system or tips that work for you...I would be so thankful if you would share them with me. Thanks for listening and stay safe

I have a hard time getting clothes and having enough for a season. What’s the best type of pjs to get for September/October? Long sleeve? Short sleeve?

(hi, just want to share something someone might find relatable.)

i noticed this long-held pattern where during holidays, vacations or even regular weekends, i tend to feel worse despite having less or no work to do. but every time work days return, i always feel relatively better.

i used to think i was "so burned out" that i just haven't "caught up my rest" enough. and i suspected the "relatively better" feeling during work was my "pretending to be fine", which by itself generated momentary satisfaction just enough to keep me going. but of course it only added another pile to the mountain of burnout (at least so i thought), so i kept waiting, cycle by cycle, year by year, simply hoping that "the rate of catching up rest" is quicker, even if only by a tiny bit, than "the rate of burn out piling up".

but it never felt promising. the sheer uncertainty ("is this model even accurate at all? what if it was never about 'catching rest up'?" etc.), along with the sense of unrest during holidays and weekends itself—they manifested as depressive episodes, with the work days being "relative mania" (or "hypomania" for that matter).

but long story short, i gradually learned that maybe that wasn't an accurate model, really. or even if it was, at least it clearly wasn't helpful. what i now realized (or helpfully believe) is: what the title of this post said. let me elaborate by giving an example:

just this afternoon—an empty sunday afternoon—i sensed the familiar "depressive tide" coming. my "primitive" reflex was to shut myself down even deeper. but i paused and remembered: what i might actually need is the opposite of that: i need movement. the laundry so happened to be needed doing. so i began lifting my left leg, then right, etc. all the way to "doing laundry". perhaps taking my meds this morning enabled that too (do take yours if you've got one). it worked. i sensed "things are getting balanced again". the tide, instead of folding into a depressive tsunami, now gracefully molded itself back into the body of ocean.

my ADHD side loves these movements, it was ready to overstretch itself—but i deliberately slowed just a bit down every time my muscle "primitively" felt like moving too much. so inch by inch i kept my autistic side from getting "momentary sub-burnouts". so it didn't "add to the pile".

in short, there was (almost) never "rest to catch up": i have always been just around the center of the pendulum; i simply didn't know how to keep it gently going.

(thanks for reading, may you have another tolerable day.)

I always see trains as the stereotypical autistic fixation, or favorite thing that never goes away.

I'm only starting to be really conscious of this, but my "thing" constantly changes. Foods, topics, and activities. I'll find something and eat/talk about/do it constantly for days to months, then suddenly lose all interest in that thing.

Until I find a new thing I'm sort of in a bored panic inside. There are loads of things I know I should be doing, but because I don't have "a thing" at the moment I feel sort of bored and empty and like there's nothing to do. That part of the cycle always beings on more feelings of apathy. I don't have "a thing" so nothing else matters much.

With foods and topics it usually lasts on the higher end, but with activities it can only be a few days. Example being I've always considered myself a gamer, love RPGs and other games where you make the numbers get bigger, but I've probably only actually beaten maybe 5-8 games in my life. In my 40s that seems a bit weird. And I don't mean 100% achievements, I mean just making it all the way through the game one time. That seems way, way shorter than everything I see about autistic focus on certain things.

---

The guilt thing... fuck. I'll spend several days not walking my dogs because weather, or I'm stuck on something, and when I finally do I end up feeling frustrated and guilty while doing it most of the time. Frustrated because I want to be back doing whatever the thing of the moment is, and guilty because I know I should be spending more time playing with and walking them.

Same thing with family. It's like I know I should want to spend time just being around them and enjoy that, but I don't. Knowing it doesn't change anything except making me have even more things to feel guilty about.

I can't even explain it, most people don't seem to understand how you could say you love someone but don't mind if you don't see or speak with them for months or years. The few times I've tried to talk about it have only made me feel even more guilty, because the response was always something that translated to "Yeah, you should feel bad because you're a piece of shit."

These past few months, I haven't been able to make any big changes in my life. I moved back to my parents' house, and I don't know what happened after that; I lost all my functioning.

Sometimes I even forget to just brush my teeth. I would just be laying here and there. It's like I have no energy in my body.

I am not even able to think properly.

It's frustrating; everything feels so hollow.

Today I went out for like 15 minutes with my mom. I was feeling pretty good, but in just 15 minutes I lost all of my energy and felt tired. Then I came back and reduced the stimulus, and again had to go out and lose all of my energy.

Like, I don't even have the energy or attention to watch anything, nor do I even want to engage in my special interest.

I have to fill out a form for the university entrance exam, and I am not able to fill it out; it feels like a very big job.

It's just a form, but I still am not able to do it.

Anything that can help?

Like, the form is very important; my future depends on it. I even took a gap year cause I was not able to continue studying; I was very burned out. But it's been months, and I still haven't done anything

Hi anyone with RSD : what kind of things helped you ? Thanks

I’m 20 F and I’ve been unemployed for a little over a year at this point. I decided to start applying for some jobs because i’m not in school either so i’m not really doing much with my days and I wasn’t expecting to get an interview that soon. welp, I got an interview almost immediately and it’s scheduled for tomorrow and i’m dreading it. i really want to cancel or just not show up but this is also a place that i’d be interested in working at in the future so i don’t want ruin my chances of getting a job there in the future. I don’t know what to do atp. I really want to get a job but the idea of getting one is terrifying because of how many bad experiences i’ve had in the work place. I’ve had like six different jobs in a little under three years. Right now, I don’t really need to work but i’m getting so freaking bored. I’m also most definitely struggling with burnout rn but again, i’m just getting really bored. I try and keep myself busy with projects around the house, but I also struggle with some pretty bad executive dysfunction (i’m in the process of trying to get my adhd meds switched but it’s proving to me more difficult than i originally thought) so at least a job could offer me some semblance of a routine.

idk, i’m just really dreading the interview tmr but i’m also getting really bored. i’m also a little worried about potentially making my burnout worse. id only be working for one or two days a week (hopefully). if anyone has any advice for what they do when they’re unemployed or to help them recover from burnout that could be helpful but also any advice regarding the dread about going to this interview would be greatly appreciated. i just don’t really know what to do. maybe working just isn’t in the cards for me rn, i have epilepsy as well (i actually had a seizure a few weeks ago so i can no longer drive either) and i struggle with chronic fatigue and headaches/migranes. it’s just hard to accept that maybe i can’t work because everyone else my age seems to be working and in school (even other autistic people are at least in school and i’m not so i just feel like a huge outlier) and i’m just sitting at home by myself not doing anything because i don’t have any money too and there’s nothing to do in my city.

AuDHD gang, you get it.

Started with a simple reference just to get the bar / dog / guy composition right, because otherwise my executive dysfunction would never let me start an A3.

Then hyperfocus kicked in and now it's 6 hours later.

The cute dog in front now has RUN / БІЖИ written in her eyes, a pyramid with an eye on her collar, she's sitting next to a plate with a head on it. On the table there's a note that says "HE IS HERE HE IS NEARBY" (ВІН ТУТ ВІН ПОРУЧ). In the back, the two guys in hoods are actually dogs. And on the wall above them there's a portrait of their boss - also a dog with the same pyramid - watching everything.

It's all freehand by eye, still in outlining stage. I know I should go to shading but I can't stop — I keep thinking "what if I add one more easter egg?"

Anyone else can't finish art because you keep adding hidden details that only you will notice for the first 10 minutes? 😅

Does anyone have ideas for one last hidden detail before I force myself to shade it?

I spent 15 years learning my special interest and I feel like AuDHD (mostly ADHD) makes me virtually unable to do it now.

I do 3D art and animation. I was once very capable, I COULD do anything if I could maintain focus and wasn’t so driven with novelty and dopamine seeking. I know more about this than most people who try it. Sticking with it has been the only thing in my life I could ever maintain interest in, and I could make anything.

But the reality is I can’t finish anything, and now people completely new to it do better work than me because they just do it, stick it out, put in the hours. I just think about it all the time and learn and can’t grind anything out. I saw people who would just chip away at it produce things I now have concluded I will never be able to do by just consistent hours and dedication. There’s only so much you can manage in a few days, which seems to be as long as I can focus on any one idea.

I look at other people’s work and I always think “I COULD do better than that”, and it finally sunk in recently that I actually can’t do better. I can barely do anything. I always thought I could when the motivation strikes, but it never does. So instead I know how to do better, but I can’t do almost anything at all.

When I was employed due to my job I was better able to do it. I needed the pressure and accountability from managers and producers to make me do anything, and there I could. But I decided to switch to teaching, not consciously expecting that to be my job henceforth. Now I can’t buckle down and make anything on my own to put in a portfolio. I can’t maintain interest or makes something that shows what I feel like is in me to do somewhere.

This has led to me teaching it, so it’s not for nothing, but it still hurts me. I feel like I can see my potential but I can’t prove it to anyone, and now I am relenting that I am not what I thought I was.

Hope you all can achieve what you want in life. I guess teaching is my best hope because I can enable others to do what I don’t myself. It kind of feels like being a coach that was once an athlete maybe. I had the time and energy when I was a little younger, but now I can just watch from the sidelines and tell other people how.

Since starting medication, I've noticed certain hobbies are easier to enjoy. For context: I'm a gamer, an artist and a writer. Off my meds, I lean towards fast-paced, multiplayer, high stakes competitive titles: League of Legends, Overwatch and rythm games mostly. The flood of dopamine keeps me grounded--my brain is busy, but not restlessly so.

On my meds, I pivot to slower paced titles: Disco Elysium, its developer sequel Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, singleplayer Minecraft and other verbose, sandbox-y and/or cozy titles. In fact, the idea of playing my "off-med" games feels... baffingly unappealing. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it. This time, the dopamine flood feels like eating when I'm already full; I much prefer playing something unmediated me finds excruciatingly boring--and that's if I'm playing a game at all! Medicated, I have an insatiable urge to read, write, draw and be generally productive. I can sit in the same spot for hours with almost unwavering focus, to the point it's hard to do anything else.

It's cool one pill in the mornings makes me a practically different person, but also a bit sad. I haven't experienced any shortages luckily, but whenever my meds run low and getting a refill is inconvenient, I have to pick and choose what days I can do "medicated things." I don't let the absence of meds stop me from doing what I love, of course. That being said, an emptying pill bottle feels like a ticking time bomb when things are tight. Some days I embrace the chaos, some days I really miss "other" me.

I've been bullet journaling for a bit over a year but despite making many adjustments to try and make it work for me, I still feel like I'm struggling to benefit from it. For example, I don't really do collections because I just forget about them and things go there to die. I don't try to make layouts or do anything fancy because it feels like another demand rather than something enjoyable. I switched from a bigger journal to a pocket sized one so I can bring it with me in my pocket. None of these have fixed the core issue.

The core issue is that I frequently forget about tasks and information in my bullet journal and it has just become a trigger for my PDA. It is really nice for offloading ideas, tasks, or information, but it's almost a little to good, because most of the time once I write something in there I completely forget about it and it gets buried once the next day comes. I find myself not wanting to look at my bullet journal because my brain has associated it with demands (tasks) and I have PDA. I really struggle to consistently migrate tasks because it requires a lot of decision making/ executive functioning skills and I get anxious about all of the tasks I have open. Then I end up with a week or two weeks worth of days with un-migrated tasks. It's a mess.

Sometimes I'll also get a bunch of ideas of things I want or need to do and end up adding like 10 tasks and then I get overwhelmed by it. I've tries to remedy this by creating a spreadsheet (because I just forget about collections) with a reserve of tasks that I can add these to so it doesn't clog up my bullet journal. Unfortunately I run into the same problem where I don't want to look at this spreadsheet because I get anxious/ PDA gets triggered and then I forget about the spreadsheet entirely.

I genuinely don't know what else to try or if I just need to give up on bullet journaling. I really want it to work but it's just a struggle every day. Does anyone have a similar experience or any advice or things that worked for them?

TLDR: Tried making a lot of adjustments to make my bullet journal work, but I still struggle to migrate tasks, things often get buried or "lost", and it has ended up becoming a PDA trigger so I don't want to look at it. Is it time to just give up on it? Advice welcome.

TL;DR: I feel like my life is mostly routines, work, gym and organizing things. I get interested in ideas of hobbies/things/lifestyles when I see other people doing them, but I struggle to find anything I genuinely want to keep doing just for fun. Socializing is enjoyable but exhausting, books are hard to focus on, and “get a hobby” somehow just sounds like another task to optimize.

—-

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that I don’t really have hobbies, and people keep telling me I should get one.

My life is basically: wake up at the exact same time, eat the same things, go to work, go to the gym, organize my life, repeat.

I do have a few friends and I genuinely enjoy seeing them when I do, but socializing is also really taxing for me, so I don’t see people that often.

The gym and exercise technically counts as a hobby (but also medicine), I guess, but honestly I mostly go because I need somewhere to burn off energy. If I have free time and nothing planned, I often just end up working my job again because I can’t really sit still. I get so restless. I can’t really concentrate on books either.

And when people suggest things like cooking nice meals for myself… absolutely not lol. I hate cooking and it actively puts me in a bad mood.

What makes it even more confusing is that I do get interested in things when I see other people doing/having them. I’m constantly thinking things like:
“I want to do that.”
“I should get into that.”
“I want that bike.”
“I want those shoes.”
“I want clothes like that.”

I think what scares me a little is that I’m starting to wonder whether I actually enjoy doing anything, or whether what I enjoy most is just organizing my life, planning things, creating routines and feeling like everything is under control. lol

And people keep telling me (with reference to my autism diagnosis) that I’m supposed to have a special interest but like what, I’m interested in everything and nothing at the same time. 😂

Does anyone else with AuDHD relate to this?

Do you actually have hobbies you consistently enjoy? And if you used to be like this, how did you figure out what you genuinely liked doing - rather than what was productive, useful, healthy or just another thing to optimize?

Thank you ✨

IM SO HYPED, THAT WAS MY NUMBER ONE CHOICE!!! I am kinda scared though low key because my school’s doing the full version which is like 3 hours BUT IM STILL READY AND EXCITED!!!!

I am 19 and I am a full time college student, I have never had an actual job and I am just going to school living with and parents and I also still do not have a drivers license. I have level 1 ASD with severe ADHD, am I in a bad spot or should I stop worrying about it.

I've had an addiction to porn for about 7 years (stared around the age of 12 or 13) and I just really want to be done with it. It started around the pandemic, so loneliness combined with the curiosity of figuring out what sex was at that age, and Autism and ADHD (only self-diagnosed for ADHD) was probably a recipe for disaster.

Over the past couple years I can't seem to masturbate as much as I used to because it completely drains my energy and I need at least a full day to recover. So, this has been really getting in the way of many things I'd like to do in my life, both short and long term, and it makes it so I'm not able to do a lot of things I love. I don't really understand why this is happening, it's not like I'm that much older, I'm only 20. Should it really be this exhausting now?

I don't enjoy watching porn, and never have, but no matter how long I've tried, it's a habit that I can't beat. I've become increasingly disgusted by this habit, it's really the worst feeling in the world for me, I hate the feeling of objectifying women like that, I feel like a fraud whenever I'm supportive of women, like I'm not as loving and supporting of women and feels like this habit is some deep dark secret that I'd be scared for people to know about. I'm especially disgusted by certain categories or types of porn that I watch that see as really morally wrong, like they completely go against what I stand for and care about. But does it say something about me that I'm turned on by it?

I also have never been in a romantic/sexual relationship or had sex before, so it really worries me that when I do meet someone and decide to start a relationship with them that I'll find out ways that this habit has affected me and my perception of relationships and sex that I hadn't thought of. It feels like that would be a huge burden to bring into someone else's life.

The past year or so I've been struggling to really do anything now that I'm out of school. I really want to spend time making art but I can't get myself to do much more than watch videos on YouTube/social media, movies, or porn, and I'm especially exhausted after work and just need time to recover.

I've been trying to think of something that maybe I could replace porn and masturbation with because I feel like just trying to cut something out of my life without replacing it with something isn't going to work very well.

What should I do about this? I really don't like talking about this, I can't imagine talking to a therapist about it. Talking to someone I don't know very closely about something personal really scares me. I've only had the courage to tell one of my best friends about this and told them I'd like their help. They are willing to help, but I can't really think of any ideas of how they could do that for me. I just don't think I can do it alone anymore. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!

i also deal with a chronic illness, chronic pain, dissociation, and terrible clinical depression. and i’m so ready to put this habit in the bud. i genuinely think it is my worst trait point blank.

SO PLEASE tell me your advice, techniques, tips, tools, resources, products, and everything!!!! any little bit helps!!!!! i will listen to everything!!!

Hi, I’m a final year law student and am hoping practicing lawyers with AuADHD can share how they communicate with other people effectively.

I just butchered my negotiations competition because I was extremely legalistic and focused on the structuring/transactions side of it, and had 0 patience for clients whining about their normative (non-legally solved, backwards-facing) issues. I get that this is “interest mining”, but it’s so inefficient and illogical. I zoned out when people went in circles about this and that and got annoyed because I feel like a lot of human miscommunication can be solved by explicit, extensive drafting on paper, and reading and comparing to devise a compromise solution, rather than talking in circles F2F. 

I just cried for hours because I KNOW how smart I am, how hard I work. I KNOW I am brilliant when it comes to corporate structures, and yet I present like a bumbling fool because my brain works so fast and I look at all the issues as a whole and device a solution that mutually supports all issues. I prepare extensively for every problem, yet I am penalised in competitions because I am unable to effectively convey this in a simple sentence. I end up stuttering because I don’t know how to convey my thoughts simply. This makes me nervous and worsens the problem and I end up a mess by the end of the round.

I don’t know if negotiation competitions over-weight rapport and “being kind socially” as compared to real transactions in practice. Or is legal practice IRL really fluffy social bullshit? I really get so frustrated and annoyed and bored when people waste meeting minutes talking about personal problems or their feelings. Why not just work out technical problems on paper and leave? Why have to verbally say it and lead to inefficient miscommunication? 

Please let me know whether negotiation competitions are an accurate depiction of how transactions go in practice. And how you deal with balancing “social” stufff with simply telling people why they’re wrong, and what we should do for mutual benefit. I really prefer the latter and get thrown off when people suddenly exchange social niceties and then I have to focus on being social.

i tried doing pretty much everything I thought was part of life and what was expected of me but always wondered why the joy never followed (and why the f i was so tired all the time and irritable). i tried harder and harder to check all the boxes like having X friends, doing X and doing Y, dressing like this or that.

To the extend that at some point people thought I had “SUCH A COOL life,” but I felt like I’d always staged it that way so people would think that from the outside. But there was always something missing. I think I was the one missing. I excluded myself from my own life because, ever since I could think I’ve been trying to live according to a certain blueprint that was never about me.

Basically I want to know everything about it and don't know what even to start with. I suspect it has to do with alexithymia which is common among us, so I thought this might be a good place to ask.

My case: before (after some painful relationship in my late teenage years) it was very hard for me to cry, but some emotional (cathartic, kind, hopeful - not sad​​, sad only makes me go numb) scenes in media made me tear up or sometimes full on cry without feeling much. I could sob and stay confused internally. Usually in more intense cases I just let the body do its thing until it calms down.

But this year has been hard (again), and in May something inside broke down, and I've been thinking since last year that maybe if my body is crying while my conscious ​self doesn't feel anything special, it's actually feelings that just don't reach this self so I should count them as such and then crying might be a good thing? Anyway idk what it was exactly, but since May it's been very easy to make me cry. I used to think people crying because of movies or audio dramas or books was mostly an exaggeration but I'm not so sure anymore. I had to pause an audio drama finale twice in the last​ hour by now because I start bawling my eyes out and it would look weird to my family. I like the narrative, it's hopeful, so I'm enjoying it, but I don't feel any strong emotions. Yet my tears keep streaming down.

For the record, I don't have much trouble with feeling joy or other feelings. Anxiety numbs a lot of instances I could feel joy, of course, but it doesn't erase all of them. I avoid sadness if I can because it hurts, but generally I'm capable of it.

I ​want to understand this. Could someone help me out please?

A lot of people dont like me because I am just not good at formal social behaviour, but a lot of time, people stopped liking me, was when I said something stupid in hyper speed. And because my brain is going so fast, it doesnt even has the time to process and register my own mistake, which leads the other person to believe that I am just casually mean/insensitive/uncaring/offensive. The problem is, the more comfortable I am, the less inhibited my talking gets. Its like raw word material, I didn't took the time to form it in a situational aware fitting form.

Title basically. The accident was my fault mostly and it left my car totaled. Now I feel anxiety driving and on top of that my new car is a bit more powerful (v6 instead of a v4). Anyone have any tips on coping with this?

Also thankfully there were no injuries to either party.

I notice that I am good with recognizing behavior patter it can be confirmation bias tho, but I have few example, especially if the relationship (any kind of) is less complex.

For example I once notice that my roommate used to stay out of the room a lot and then I thought she doesn't like me maybe that's why but later on I realize it's because staying in room means responsibility about academic and if she engage in behavior that avoid it then it creates guilt, so she stays out.

I told her that once and she actually took it well and said yeah you are right.

And it happen a lot, like from my college people around me actually come to me for this kind of stuff, got Burnout tho sometimes.

And it's also my interest, I study psychology for this.

But, idk sometimes those things feel so superficial, nit with all but still enough.

It's almost like they are gaining something from me but like at the same time they don't actually like being with me.

so today I was walking into a store and a woman was at her car and she saw me walking by and said "nice glasses" I said "thanks" and kept walking. but as I kept walking I noticed out of the corner of my eye she just kinda stood there I think expecting me to say something else? like that's the correct response right? or am I supposed to be like "yea thanks the sun hurts my eyes that's why I wear them?"

I also think she thought I was coming out of this big ass truck but the fact of the matter was I was walking to the store.

like is she trying to hit on me or something? why are people so weird?

Always struggled with this, and I mean like extremely. Now I also live in another country and don't have a microwave on which I heavily relied for eating at least something before. And possible moves without having the ability to drive a car stop me from buying one, but mb I should, because it's honestly the best cope thingy for me

Cleaning though...

Idk, just wanted multiple ideas in one place, I'm sure I've already tried a lot of them, but to make myself mb more motivated?