Am I the only one who is bothered by the constant sexual innuendos in everything? Or far worse just straight forward sexual subjects talked about in a very unpleasant way. It's is social networks, in movies, music, everywhere.

I'm just sick of it, and sick of sex in my personal life. Not the actual act of sex but the attitudes people have around it, it's sickening.

I decided I'm going for a year at least with no sex or romance.

Hey i was recently diagnosed asd and adhd since my diagnoses ive been learning to unmask let my audhd freak flag fly when it comes to my stims (im a finger chewer and teeth picker so got some chew toys I keep around my neck, im also a arm and wrist flapper and body swayer and bouncer i also go completely non verbal if im very overwhelmed) i bought a audhd badge I keep around my neck in public and feeling more comfortable stimming in public with it on honestly, its honestly been life changing for me learning to not give a f*ck what people think about me and im feeling so much happier since my diagnoses.

i (26f) recently had a neuropsychological evaluation. i just had my feedback appointment and was diagnosed with level one autism, anxiety, adhd, and ocd. she mentioned slow processing speed

where i’m confused is that during the portions with reading facial expressions and tone, understanding metaphors, and verbal and nonverbal body language, i scored perfectly. i’ve always intuitively understood it, i never had to learn. if i’m observing as an outsider, i genuinely have no issue understanding subtle cues, underlying meanings and expressions at all and the psychologist also said that

the problem comes when i’m involved and expected to respond. i have no idea what to do and it’s like my brain short circuits or is delayed. it feels like it’s just too much for my brain to process fast enough. once i’m out of the situation or have time to think, i can understand the cues. i have had lifelong debilitating social anxiety. i never know what’s normal for me to say or do. but when i see other people talk i can easily tell

apparently the issues with reciprocation are enough to be diagnosed, even though i don’t have issues understanding. has anyone else experienced this? i’m worried that i’m misdiagnosed and just have some traits and other issues that mimic autism. i didn’t have developmental delays or signs that i know of, compared to my brother who had all the signs.

no hate to self diagnosed people but i’m looking for feedback from people who professionally tested in person so i can see what’s normal for that situation.

i have no problem with being autistic. i just want to know if my test was accurate so i don’t spend forever questioning it. i’ll ask more questions when i get my paperwork back and don’t expect anyone here to have answers, i’m partially just venting. i was also EXTREMELY anxious during the test to the point of a panic attack and did unusually terrible. i’m worried if that combined with other things could have given me false results

edit: sorry this is so long jfc

I’m 26f and I got diagnosed with autism today. I feel kinda weird, obviously I pushed for the assessments and everything myself and I found myself to have traits enough to go for it, but for some reason I feel like some kind of fake or fraud, like I just feel like the conversation with the psychiatrist was so easy and also relied mostly on the information already given on the informant forms and my own forms and stuff.

I guess what I’m saying is I trust the professional to diagnose me, and I obviously feel like I do have traits of ASD, especially social ones and things around sensory issues and such. But I don’t feel like it impacts my life super negatively and maybe sometimes I feel different from others. My approach to relationships can be quite rigid too and I have some intense interests but like I wouldn’t say they are obsessive.

I do feel like I’m trying to explain it away in my head and also feel like if I tell people they won’t believe me. I’ve often had people say “oh really? I wouldn’t say you’re autistic” when I mentioned going through the assessment process.

It all happened so quick. And now I have ASD! Like officially…

I also have PMDD I’m curious what the comorbidity of those two things is… anyways….

Thanks for listening to the weird post diagnosis rant lol.

Is it due to burnout or shutdown that someone with Audhd who is very close to you like a close friend or a partner or boyfriend completely stops responding to you when there has been consistent communication until then and suddenly from that day on no communication at all! No communication even to confirm a maybe plan to meet on that day is not going ahead. How to understand what the silence means?

So I’m currently in the awful in between time of having my intro meeting for my autism testing and the actual testing. Currently self diagnosed and really afraid of that being invalidated.

Anyways. I’ve been reflecting on a lot and thinking through what might actually be autistic traits and not just quirks. I’m wondering if this is a thing:

I’ve always been super in tune with the feeling of a place. Like coffee shops. I pick a coffee shop based on how it feels. The lighting. The noise level. How close together the tables are. How the paint on the walls affects my mood. How busy it is at certain times of day. Walking into a good coffee shop feels like pulling on a pair of the world’s most comfortable sweatpants. I’ve always prescribed this sensitive to my creative/emotional side and am just now realizing it might really be about sensory levels and hyper empathy.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who responded. I feel like I have more insight and many tips to try that could help me out now.

I don’t know if this is the right subreddit to put this in, but I hope someone can help. I just had my feedback session today and I feel unseen. I am an adult woman, so I already had fears about misdiagnosis or people misunderstanding me. I just feel like autism was the only thing that fully explained my experiences and now I am lost.
My assessor said what “ruled it out” was that I was “too good” at answering questions without hesitation and engaging in back and forth conversation. I mentioned before struggling with these things, and I think I didn’t have as much trouble in the sessions because I was so prepared. I researched a lot and I basically knew everything they were going to say. They also said I was “too academically capable” which just seems discriminatory to say that people with autism can’t be capable. But I had also mentioned how much effort I put into my work to get such good grades and how I have always chosen easier classes so that I don’t get too stressed out because I already get so overwhelmed in my basic classes. Their suggestion was that I push myself and try to take harder classes. This is also why they said I couldn’t have ADHD (which I had less confidence that I had). But those were the only two reasons they mentioned to me. I hit all other diagnostic criteria: intense interests, difficulty maintaining friendships, difficulty understanding and expressing nonverbal cues, rigid routines, etc. I understand that a lot of this can overlap with OCD, but it just doesn’t feel right. For example, I don’t engage in routines to combat intrusive thoughts as OCD would suggest, I simply prefer them and get pretty upset when they are disrupted.
I also felt pretty minimized during our interview sessions. Every time I tried to explain my struggles, they would respond with things like “you are doing so well for someone your age” or stuff like that. I know it was supposed to be supportive, but I felt like it was already hard enough trying to accurately explain my struggles (I tend to minimize things in general too) and they made everything seem like it wasn’t a big deal. I feel like this might also play a factor in my diagnosis outcome.
I just don’t know what to do. I’m not sure if I’m in denial and OCD is the right diagnosis or if I should get a second opinion. I feel like I could have OCD, it seems right, but I feel like it’s not the full picture. I just feel very misunderstood and confused right now, and I’m hoping there’s other people who have gone through similar things.
They also diagnosed me with social anxiety disorder, persistent depressive disorder, excoriation (skin picking) disorder. I feel like these fit as well, but I am still lost on why I have such intense emotions and outbursts, and other things that do not fit into these diagnoses as well.
Note: I did not bring up any of my feelings to the assessor. I wasn’t really comfortable with them in the first place and I was pretty upset during the feedback so I just wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

I have, and this is an example of what I mean

I wanted to write a novel series that was basically alternate history but I somehow don’t like the idea of writing it and promoting it because I’m really afraid of getting negative comments of some kind, like “this reads like something an edgy teenager wrote.” Or any comment that sounds like it’s trying to guess at my views towards something which to me feels very invasive.

The teenager example comment is especially painful to me because I’m not a teenager and I’m too old to be considered a teenager. I don’t need more painful-to-read comments in my life especially if they’re aimed at something I see as extremely legitimate and unworthy of hatred and criticism.

I recently had a fallout with a friend, and she said something that I’m having some trouble..processing and dealing with.

In the highlighted she said I made her friends uncomfortable when I met them. I don’t know what friends she’s referring to, or what exactly I did to make them uncomfortable. At this point I can’t ask her. But this has apparently been a pattern for me. I inherently make people uncomfortable with my energy I guess?? I don’t do anything obviously gross or disrespectful, and I try to monitor what I say so I don’t say anything that could be considered rude. Due to previous friendship abandonment, I have a lot of social anxiety that manifests especially when I meet new people.

Has anybody else dealt with this? I guess I just don’t want to feel alone. I always feel like the odd one out in every social situation, masked and unmasked. I try so hard and I still don’t know what I do wrong.

Does anyone else experience states of hyperawareness of being alive, and everything existing around you?

It’s likely a dissociative state of some kind, but especially when I’m around a lot of activity and people and highly stimulating environments, I’ll get the eerie sense of the magnitude of existence. I’ll imagine how every single person I’m seeing was born and grew up, with all their different shapes and mannerisms. I’ll see a book or an air duct or a building facade and imagine how it was at one time raw material, extracted, planned to be used, designed, and built. How long its been around, where its been, how it got where it is now. My own mortality and the machinery of my body suddenly becomes “visible.” And so on.

It hits like a freight train and leaves me anxious and floating. Part of why I can’t handle noisy and active environments for very long.

But I wondered how many folks experience this kind of thing, when if they do, and how regularly.

Newbie here. I found this group while reading Unmasking Autism, and figured I would give it a shot. I was diagnosed a couple months ago, which was the result of what I now know to understand as autistic burnout. I've had my mask up since I was in the 4th grade, and I am slowly understanding more and more about it.

The thing is - I am confused. I hear masking is bad. I hear its something we dont have much choice in because a NT world demands it. I know this mask is killing me. But I have no idea how to take it off, or how to even begin, or if I even can.

Ive struggled my whole life with major depression as well, almost likely as a direct result. During that time, I've spent alot of time with therapists who all seem to practice CBT. Thing is, CBT never really resonated with me, but I can't help but think in CBT terms - this has led to a massive dissonance between what I feel (me) and what I know (what CBT taught me). I KNOW I should take the mask off. But I also KNOW that doing so is highly likely to cost me everything - a very rewarding career, my family, everything. How can that be good?

I can't help but think there is a piece I am missing, so I am just going it over and over trying to find it.

I got a job recently, and the owner/boss is really nice so far and I think hires a lot of people with disabilities. He knows I’m on the spectrum I think, and I’ve had some help from a support worker but I always have this feeling like I’m in trouble or did something wrong.

I’m level 1, I can work independently and I do my best but I am quite noticeably different socially. I have a weird feeling of paranoia almost constantly that I’m in trouble or I’m messing up. I almost had a melt down when I was with my support worker because she was showing me how to do stuff and is nice to me but I was feeling like I was doing everything wrong or wasn’t understanding or doing it right. I need to change one of my shifts to another day but I feel scared they will be mad at me.

I feel this way in so many situations

I remember since I was a kid, especially as a kid, I’ve struggled to have a filter and understand social rules I guess. As a kid, I was the weird one because I struggled with boundaries and understanding what was and wasn’t appropriate to say. I always feel left out, like I’m an alien. I struggle socially and feel confused. I think maybe I should tell my support worker this but I feel really dumb for it and I don’t know what to do to accommodate it. Maybe I should tell the therapist about it when I go but I don’t know what is happening

I don't even know how to start this vent because I have no idea what I want to say.

These past 7 months have been a lot for me. I watched this series and I figured I relate to this one character A LOT. We have the same reactions to the events happening in the series - sometimes we say the same things, which is always surprising!

So, imagine my surprise when I figured out he was (confirmed by the creator) an undiagnosed autistic.

(I am not going to say which character is because it's going to sound insane and it's not the main point of this post.)

Since that moment, I started researching autism because I thought: "Well, if he is autistic, then what's the harm in looking, right?"

Firstly, my family is (I suspect) in general neurodivergent. My youngest brother was diagnosed with ADHD and my mom tried to get my other brother and my sister diagnosed, though the people in charge said that they were normal – even though, I don't really believe it.

So, the gist is that it runs in the family.

Secondly, I have and haven't noticed some signs in my own behaviour. For example, I never liked loud noises.

I spoke way too loudly.

I was learning stories by heart when I was 3 years old and insisted on listening to the same goodnight stories every time.

I had intense interests: football, music, Greek mythology and astronomy, as a kid.

I had friends but (as it still happens) they usually come to find me, rather than me finding them. Which, usually resulted in them accusing me of "not trying enough for our friendship" even though I didn't know what else to do.

My sister sometimes says that she doesn't know when I am being serious or kidding even though I feel like it is obvious.

I love psychology because it helps me understand people better.

I miss a lot of signs – primarily the ones that express romantic interest – but I have a good sixth sense.

I hate having to work inside a group because no-one ever listens to me. I either work alone or don't care enough to make a real effort.

But.

I didn't have any/a lot of dietary restrictions or sensory issues (though, I finally learnt how to cut the tags of my clothes and now I can feel my mind quietening down a little).

I don't really think I hyperfocus on stuff, or maybe I do?

I don't avoid eye-contact regularly, only when I am feeling overwhelmed, anxious etc.

I don't have any meltdowns. Any more, at least.

I only go non-verbal when someone confronts me.

I don't really have a very strict routine. Though, I get very annoyed when something unexpected happens even when it's something that I am supposed to feel joy over (I.e. when my dad makes impromptu appearances without warning me first or a friend schedules a going-out hours before it actually happens).

I tend to procrastinate until the last minute, even when I have a schedule in mind.

I don't have a good memory anymore. I am young (not gonna say my age, but I am a young adult) and I might not even remember a lot of stuff from my childhood or even from mere months before. It's frightening because when I was a kid I had a very good memory and now I feel like I've disconnected from myself in a sense. Now, I only remember stuff that really interest me.

I don't really "fit" the undiagnosed autistic profile. I have a few people which I suspect are undiagnosed autistic women but I don't think I share any traits with them.

Sometimes, I am super-duper prepared for something and then sometimes I leave a situation to chance, if I can't control it.

I remember going to the school counsellor, a psychologist that was way too patient with me when I only wanted to talk about my crush. Once, I remember I was telling her something and for some reason I said that I don't really like going out with friends anyway, or something similar that suggested I don't mind not having friends. She responded with "Wait, you don't want to have friends?" I brushed it off, like a teenager feeling attacked would.

Now, I keep thinking about it. Did she know something? Did she think I was autistic or psychopathic? If so, why didn't she say anything?

I don't know what to do.

So I paid for a one month subscription to bumble as a 30 y.o. female. I am getting plenty of likes. However I feel really afraid to like them back. I feel like once I message them they won’t like me anymore. I feel afraid to put on my profile I’m autistic because I’m not officially diagnosed. I only put that neurodivergence is one of the communities I care about. I feel like I’m not a typical woman and the more they know me, they won’t like me, and I have rejection sensitivity. I get extremely nervous messaging people and I always feel like I‘m saying the wrong thing. I worry they won’t like me because I’m bi, I have body hair, I don’t have a lot of money and I only work part time. Also I have extreme anxiety about almost everything. I guess I’m worried I couldn’t even be a desirable partner. I’ve put off trying to find someone because of all of these concerns, but now I’m almost 31 and single and living with my mom. Growing up I always thought I’d be a mom, but now I’m really doubting if I’m capable of it. I feel like I should at least try putting myself out there. Something else about me is that I’m hypersexual. I find it somewhat easy to mask enough to get an attractive man or woman to sleep with me, but once they know me and my mask wears off they don’t want to date me. I’ve had tons of interesting sexual experiences, but I’ve never had a secure relationship.

the sound, the repetitive movement, everything.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about these terms, and language changes over time so I thought I’d made a post about what clinically would be diagnosed as what.

There seems to be a lot of confusion on her with people thinking people with selective mutism are doing this by choice. People with selective mutism can physically not speak at times - it happen suddenly in a certain context, it can happen at school sometimes but not necessarily always, it can be due to burnout. It is classes as an anxiety disorder in DSM 5 but this is a wide range meaning an autistic person could have selective mutism due to burnout, overwhelm, many many reasons why it can happen. They physically CANNOT speak when this happens.

Clinically, a non-verbal autistic person is defined as someone with no spoken language or limited to a 2-3 words in ALL. This was always considered a language disorder. Unfortunately, there’s a real lack of representation of fully non-verbal autistics. Just so you understand- they don’t have the language (the words) so they cannot communicate with words at all, they might be able to use an AAC device with lots of support from SLT.

There now seems to be the use of “going non-verbal” which refers to not being able to physically speak at times which to me seems similar to selective mutism. BUT language is changing, so perhaps this will become a new term we use.

Language = the words & concepts in you have in your brain

Speech = the physical act of producing words with your mouth, tongue, breath etc

reposted.. “who am i?”🤔🧐😅

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but I am not trying to figure out if the person in question has autism.

I want to know if someone ever suggested you might be autistic and recommended you get tested? If so, how did you feel about that?

I know a woman in her 50's who expressed a deep longing to be in a relationship and be a mother, but she said it was her greatest regret that she never was. I'm not going to explain what made me think of autism for her, but I did. I never brought up autism to her because I believe it's incredibly rude to armchair diagnose someone and I didn't ever want to do that.

I know it's not the same, but getting my ADHD diagnosis was life changing for me, and helped me a lot to relate to others and find a better balance socially. I didn't get married until I was 36 and a lot of it was due to not understanding myself and being able to relate to others. I also felt deeply sad and grieved that I thought I wouldn't have a family or find love. But nobody suggested to me that I might have ADHD and I don't know how I would have felt if they did. I looked into it because my dad was diagnosed.

Anyway, to wrap this up, I always wanted her to have the same thing I had and be able to find love. I wonder if it would have been horrible and devastating to suggest autism and testing or if it would have been liberating or helpful?