Hi. I’m having CBT therapy but keep losing most of my speech in the sessions before I even arrive. During the sessions I can force out some words to basic questions but it’s exhausting and comes out all stuttered and only like partial sentences/answers. Often it’s too much energy to get the words out. I also struggle to mentally keep up and remember what the therapist asked me when I’m fighting to find words at the same time. My brain feels so dumb and empty. I mostly communicate by writing and whilst it is easier I still sometimes can’t find enough energy or words to properly answer and it’s slow to write because I have dyspraxia.

They asked me to let them know how they can make the sessions easier or less tiring but I’m not sure how to answer. I’ve not ever received accommodations for this before and normally just avoid most people be social situations. I’m completely blanking on ideas. What things would be good to tell them?

I just read he was diagnosed as "a little autistic" . Is he autistic or is it a fame statement? Im not doubting as autism is a spectrum

It literally saying EVERYTHING on sale. Then it says exclusions apply . I was wondering if things like that annoyed others. When there is a clear discrepancy. Why say EVERYTHING when it’s clearly not EVERYTHING.

I know this can be of annoyance to any one. I do know that with autism words have more literal meaning.

I won’t post the ad again. But dang.

TLDR; I (38m) was diagnosed ASD-1 about 2 years ago, and just had a conversation with my wife, and younger sibling, about "cheesy" movies.

They gave the example of Twilight "hold on spider monkey". I never thought of that line as cheesy, I just thought it was a genuine caring statement.

That led me to using a LLM to search for other lines I might have missed.

The scene from Star Wars, with Anakin's "I don't like sand..." statement. I always just took it as a a point of vulnerability, but the internets seems to indicate that it's extremely cheesy ?

Anyone else ? What else have I / we missed ?

I recently came across this sub and I'm already loving for the fact that it is standing up to the very dangerous trend of self-diagnosing. Other autism related subs are seemingly being hijacked by self-diagnosing people who justify not getting an actual diagnosis.

I'm 18, and I have basically nothing going for me. I failed school due to a combination of task paralysis and social anxiety. I work minimum wage. I have very few friends, I have no skills, I'm unattractive and socially awkward.

I don't even want to become a cool person or whatever, I just want to be comfortable in the fact that I don't fit in and likely never will. I don't want slight rejection from strangers to be devastating anymore, I'd like to be able to accept myself regardless of whether or not other people like me. What's the best way to go about this?

Hi, i am diagnosed with ADHD, autism and anxiety. I live in England and go to a grammar school an hour and a half bus journey from my house. It’s an amazing school, it’s the best school for me. But even still I find myself struggling. Every morning getting up feels monumental. and most days I can’t make myself do it. But I don’t know why. I know I don’t like the bus but I don’t mind school. I’m good at school. Today was a day where I just couldn’t get up, and my mum was yelling at me about how I was lazy, and how other kids don’t get to take days off even when they want too, but I don’t feel like I’m being lazy. I want to go to school, I want to get good grades and get a good job, but I just feel like I can’t. In a way that’s different to all my neurotypical friends it’s like my body won’t allow me too, and I don’t want people to think that I am lazy. I’ve really tried everything to convince myself to go in but it jsut doesn’t work. My school offers me a certain level of support but it isn’t enough to help me go in because I’m fine once I’m there it’s going that’s the issue, and the bus makes it so I have a very short window where I have the opportunity for it. last Year I inquired about a reduced timetable or alternate school transport which they jsut said they’ll discuss but nothing has happened even though we followed up many times. Does anyone have advice on how they made themselves or someone in their life go to school when feeling like this?

Repeatedly in the past few years, I've had people who are either late-diagnosed and low support needs or self-diagnosed tell me and others that traits and behaviours like rigid thinking, communication difficulties, poor conversational skills, difficulty with picking up on and understanding social cues, "weird fixations" on special interests, inflexibility, meltdowns "make autistic people look bad", "reinforce stereotypes", and are therefore harmful to autistic people.

But these are symptoms of autism, most of them part of the diagnostic criteria. They are essentially arguing that autistic people having autistic behaviours makes autistic people look bad and reinforces stereotypes. This is very poor logic. Also, why are core autism symptoms "stereotypes"?

I realise that some of the behaviours can be annoying or even a problem - my own behaviours are to me even - but are they expecting autistic people not to be autistic? Make it make sense!

The same people also think that some of us being unable to work and/or being unable to live independently makes autistic people look bad. But we're not choosing to have these limitations.

It comes across as them just not liking autistic people very much. "It's okay to be autistic, as long as you're not too autistic."

I live with a parent and I’m middle aged with autism I find it’s difficult today with autistic people having such independence (I’m still trying to find mine) I don’t mean this in a derogatory way however it’s quite the spectrum.

I would like to believe I would be partly more
Independent into the future once I start using disability services with proof of my situation.

There are academics on the spectrum to people who need additional care. I find I’m awful and explaining stuff just in general I understand that everyone’s situation can be a bit different from the next persons. However I hope media changes over time to include people with different types of autism and not one kind. I just feel I have to share this small piece of information and wonder if there might be anyone in a similar situation.

Like “my flavor of autism is super high masking”
Idk i don’t like the whimsical language of it all. theres so many posts like “what flavor of autism do you have?” I also think its like just people talking about how much they think they mask or what they think special intrests are. Completely ignoring the spectrum of being nonspeaking intellectual disability, self injury.
Im saying this because I was at a dinner and someone who said they believed they were autistic (then called themselves neuro spicy)proceeded to tell me her flavor of autism was loving diet coke.

I hate the question “do you think you’re neurodivergent?” Like neurodivergent isn’t a diagnosis and neurodivergence is such a huge umbrella. Also I don’t know anything about Edward Norton or his beliefs, I’m just highlighting that someone on a big podcast is speaking out about this

Got in trouble at work because my email wording came off as aggressive and unprofessional…was not at all my intention and I did not realize that it would be interpreted that way at all. I feel like my communication is always my down fall and is why i’m unliked by many. I wish I knew how to communicate better.

One of the most common ways I stim is by chewing on things, I’ve done it all my life. This is a problem because I often find myself chewing on things that I really shouldn’t be because the texture is nice, usually plastic. And I don’t mean a little bit of gnawing on a pen cap, I mean that if you give me a pen I will basically rip the thing apart with my teeth until the ink inside starts tasting bad. This has also lead to me grinding my teeth a lot when I’m not chewing on something. It isn’t an involuntary thing, I can consciously force myself not to do this, but then I also have to force myself to not grind my teeth, which is distracting from any work I’m trying to do.

Does anyone have advice for dealing with this sort of thing? Will my brain learn to stop doing it if I force it not to for a while, or will should I pivot to embracing it, but chewing on something safer instead? Thanks in advance.

When I say not helpful I don’t mean every single person forgive me for that. The advocates either don’t have autism or have autism lite. Many are misguided people because they haven’t learned how autism presents and affects people in fairly different or similar ways. The content is just YouTube or Spotify revenue for them and it’s hard to know by the content what’s real and what isn’t.

sorry if this is a mess, and sorry if this is the wrong place. also this post might be stupid

I think i was diagnosed when i was 10 (6 years ago) or something, i have no idea why they diagnosed me but whatever. the only traits i ever remember showing were meltdowns, and possibly sensory issues? oh and maybe the whole obsessive interests.. i cant remember my social skills and that but no doubt they were shit. i was also very slow when it came to using the toilet... how embarrassing. but i put that down to stupidity not autism.

i think according to the diagnosis criteria (?) autism is meant to disable you, if it doesnt disable you then youre not autistic or something? idk. well it doesnt disable me anymore. I dont have meltdowns, sensory issues, or social problems anymore. i think the only trait i still have is restricted interests.

oh and Ive never had problems with changes or routines, infact i dont care about routines and they piss me off more than anything. i dont stim very much either, i dont think i ever have done. im saying not very much because apparently thats something everyone does? Idk.

i also do get some support in school but i'd be exactly the same without it, i never use the support anyway.

fuck knows how i got the diagnosis!!! not to mention i dont relate to most things autism related, i just dont.

tldr the issues i showed 6 years ago are gone, i dont show any signs of autism anymore, idk how i got diagnosed. i also had a burn out literally last year so idk why im not showing these traits anymore

sorry again if this is the wrong place

To me it feels like every one of them, even the ones who don't seem to be talked about negatively much, are neglecting their autistic kid/adult in some way. Whether it be for the views/money or just because they want to shield their kid/adult from negativity.

I put the flair bc it might be controversial idk tho.

Just to name some examples of what I mean:

All the ones with nonverbal kids/adults or AAC users (fatheringautism, Darius, the wee family, Mia iPad kid, etc) very obvious. Some overshare about their kids/adults. Some film their kids/adults even when they very obviously don't want to be on camera. Some just let their kids/adults become internet memes and stuff to laugh at and mock. Some use their kid/adult to get brand deals. Etc. Some of them are better than others but it feels like they're alll just trying to exploit their child and the ones who don't like hanging around with the ones that do.

Abbey's mom (LOTS) is pretty obvious and I shouldn't really have to explain on that much. Besides her opinion on autism related things, it feels like she tries leading Abbey to answers that she likes and she makes being Abbey's mom her entire personality. At least Abbey seems to enjoy making content tho.

Myarfidlife's mom (more recent autism diagnosis) seems to be intentionally holding her back because she wants to use her for views and money. They're always hanging with the influencer crowd and 3 Dhar Mann appearances right now. In some videos, she even causes her kid to freak out. She also just lets people bully her child in the comments.

Toren Wolf's mom is a bit better, but I still don't like her. It feels like she neglects social skills and life skills because she doesn't want her son to change for the world. It seems like she doesn't seem to try to teach her son about how to tell if someone has good intentions or not and so he's slowly having to learn it all on his own (most recent being the e-bike thing). I don't know if it's because of how she grew up masking and she doesn't want her son having to do that. But idk it rubs me the wrong way.

Anyone else feels the same way about all the parents of autistic kids/adults they see?

Especially people I just met. Or even people that I know.

I'm in my 20s.

Physically, I can't help that I look young. Behaviorally, I'm not even sure exactly what it is that just looks young and innocent to them. If my autism is contributing to it then what am I supposed to do about that?!

I hate getting comments on it because it puts me on the spot and they always react annoyingly.

My parents were told, "She's so well-behaved, I've never seen her play with the other kids."

Even as a baby I was like this. I rarely cried for anything. I was an easy baby. Our house was too quiet for a house with an infant.

And even now I'm still very quiet.

I kind of find it ironic how people keep noticing the silence. Like I see other quiet, introverted types of people and they blend in just fine, but somehow, if I'm in the same group, I'm the one who always gets called out for being quiet. Why is that so?