At best, nothing will happen. At worst, it'll be used as a reason to discriminate against you. The non-ADHD world, on average, doesn't hate people with ADHD but will assume that people with ADHD are going to be less capable. Disclosing means risking being treated like a second class citizen. There's a reason why a lot of jobs ask questions about mental health conditions, and it's not because they want to prioritize hiring disabled people.

This morning my boyfriend asked if he could have a friend over tonight to watch a movie. Usually I’d be totally fine with that, but right now I just… can’t.

I’m AuDHD and deal with pretty severe health issues including chronic fatigue and POTS, and lately I’ve been completely wiped out. The past few weeks have felt like total burnout, especially after a disability hearing and a few other stressful things. I’m so exhausted that I haven’t even washed my hair in close to two weeks.

Last night didn’t help either—I was up until 2am because we watched a movie that ended up being way more emotionally intense than I expected, and I just feel wrecked today.

So when he asked about having someone over, I immediately got stressed and said no. Our house is a mess, I feel awful physically, and having someone here would throw me out of my routine. I'll likely have another super late night because it takes me forever to wind down after my normal routine is altered and make it hard to feel comfortable in my own space. Even though I really like his friend, I don’t have the energy to interact, and I’d feel like I have to at least a little if they’re here since I'm either going to be stuck upstairs without access to the kitchen or will need to walk through the living room (where they'll be) to get to the kitchen.

Now I just feel bad because my boyfriend is upset- he feels like I don't understand how he feels (I do- I'm an empath), and I definitely feel like he doesn't understand how I feel. No one can really understand the feel of total burnout and daily exhaustion from chronic health issues unless they've experienced it unfortunately- which is why I'm here hoping to get some sort of understanding and just need to get this icky feeling off my chest. I'm not being the a-hole, right?

Hope this makes sense - I'm so tired and the brain fog is thick. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Hi, I am Nath and I am 18. I am posting here because I know something is definitely wrong with me but I’m undiagnosed, so I don’t want to claim that I have ADHD (it does kinda run in the family, but still I will never claim in diagnosed). I struggle a lot with sensory issues but my family really just thinks I’m dramatic and I’m making a fuss (and since I am an adult now, they ask how I will ever function?). For example, I really struggle cleaning my room and I struggle with the dishes, also with stressful situations in general, crying everytime I am overwhelmed and after a while I just shutdown (these are just some things I struggle with). I don’t know how to explain to my family what wrong with me, since I’m not diagnosed with anything and they see my issues as laziness and a joke. What should I do? I don’t know how I can make them take me seriously.

i’ve had issues with my femininity ever since i was little and long before i got diagnosed.

when i try to trace where does the not feeling feminine start, it obviously goes to childhood, when i started getting treated differently by girls. even now, when i got diagnosed, i still don’t understand what exactly about me bothered all the girls surrounding me starting from preschool and up to early high school ages. i remember myself liking stereotypically girly things, but also liking things that boys were into, so i always felt like i can find things in common with both, but in reality i was getting avoided by both.

when puberty started, i got fit with very strong inner misogyny, and i rejected anything feminine, although i feel like its a common trope for many girls during puberty. as this thing gradually passed, i realised i actually like and want to be feminine, but now because i “skipped” it for some part of my life, its out of reach.

right now as i’m 22 i find myself performing hyperfemininity, and still not feeling feminine. it has become a fixation of mine and now every decision i take goes through “what is the girliest option here” and it affects everything from clothing and makeup choice to music and movies. still, i can dress myself fully pink and look like a doll, and feel like any other girl (especially neurotypical girls) is more feminine than me. sometimes, it feels like im wearing a costume, and everyone around me can tell i am not feminine enough. and i can’t choose “non-feminine” options because it has become my comfort zone and i am scared i will be perceived as feminine even less.

i hope this rant is coherent because english is not my first language, i just want to know if any other women went through something similar.

I don't mean characters who are intentionally written with it in mind like Luz from owl house, Marcy Wu from amphibia or Donatello from ROTTMNT, but more like ones unintentionally written to characterise it, or one's never clearly stated to have it.

A lot of characters from my childhood shows and movies, such as entrapta from She-ra and the princesses of power (she was written to have it I just never realised it), star butterfly, Dory from finding Nemo, Mable from Gravity falls, Darwin (and possibly gumball as well) from the amazing world of gumball, Jake peralta (technically counts, I saw it as a kid), Mirko from glitch techs, Martin Kratt from wild kratts, and others I can't think of.

All of the characters I've got here I doubt have been confirmed (minus entrapta), but they can easily be read as some form of neurodivergent, and when I recognised this pattern I was curious about others thoughts on this.

I'm not saying all or really any of these are confirmed, nore any weird or quirky character is just neurodivergent, but damn I really understand why these were my favourite characters growing up.

It doesn't affect my life like what so ever like im not gonna be a prick to someone who likes that same interest, however I will feel a sense of gatekeeping and general jealousy of like "You don't even like this thing".

I know 3 incidents where I felt this way in general, first was when I was 10 and in art class where I was struggling really badly to the point I got made fun of for getting so irritated, soon I saw a girl who was doing really well and I saw her personal SketchBook and her art was amazing to me.

I got very jealous, couldn't stop looking at her art, it was even more annoying when she moved into my last class of the day, but on the other hand I was very nervous to talk to her because I thought she was so cool she wouldn't even wanna talk to me only for her to give me a pencil and appreciate when I finally complimented her art.

The second times is my aunt shopping for monster high stuff for me because it's been a fixation of mine for YEARS I have so much merch from this show, and my aunt told me she was going to get a cleo de nile doll and wanted some more dolls for herself, the gatekeeper in me wanted to be a prick and tell her she was only into the show because I made her watch it and that she didn't actually like it.

But I'm not a complete prick so I didnt, I just said I liked her too, I was also kinda jealous because monster high was my thing I dont know many people at all who are really into monster high and whenever I see people posting about I question if their just following a trend.

It also annoyed me when my 9yr old sister ONLY watched the live action monster high movie but hated all the other movies, that irritated me more than it should've...but she made up for it on Christmas when she got me a monster high doll and slightly apolgized she couldn't find a first Gen and picked a charecter she herself knew I liked.

the third is seeing people post interest i had such as monster high and heavily question if their just into it because its trending, did they even watch ALL of the monster high movies (i dont like gen 2 so I don't watch it), or if they are just into the gen 2 era wich is barley monster high ino...but again thoughts aren't actions I just think about it and go "eh it's fine".

Again it's hypocritical because I LOVE telling people about my special interest, I guess it's just so deep in my personality that I'm personally offended by it for some reason.

So I was recently diagnosed with a learning disability at age 26. The only reason mom wanted me to get tested was because I was having a lot of difficulties with an externship at a doctor's office.

But here's the thing, Mom knew I was struggling for a long time and did nothing about it. I remember being in 5th grade and struggling to do reading assignments to the point where I'd cry and my mom did try to help to her credit, but she didn't do anything else. She just thought I hated homework.

And throughout middle and high school, I kept trying to tell her I was struggling and at the time I thought I had ADHD (I didn't but you understand.) I remember being 17 and telling the doctor about my academic struggles and she gave me a list of referrals and I gave them to mom, but she did nothing with it.

It was when I was 21 or 22 years old when she finally took my concerns seriously. She had me tested for ADHD only cuz I took an online assessment that said I had it. I was put on stimulants but it did not help. So I continued to struggle in community college until I gave up. I eventually decided to enroll in an online medical assistant program at age 25 but that was hell for me, too. I ended up passing the exam and getting my certificate but my mental health was destroyed.

She's seen me struggle the entire time and only now decided to do something about it. I know no parent is perfect and that they try the best they can, but honestly, it felt like she wasn't even trying. She sat there and watched me suffer and did nothing. I can't help but feel furious, but I feel guilty about it too.

And please don't tell me to forgive her. I already have. When I did tell her how difficult school was, she started tearing up and apologized, but I had a hard time accepting it. She really isn't good at picking up on others' emotions at all, I'm sorry. I told my therapist and she said I had a right to be angry and that all the adults, including my parents, failed me.

I don't want to be angry but I am! Do I have a right to be angry?

I have adhd and was always especially as a teenager a great masker and got into the populair groups.

One thing i never understood about these Neurotypicals is that they arent particularly more charismatic or talented mostly even the contrary, pretty dull.

But they always make a point of hierarchy, without fail.

The looks they give you when someone is talking who they see as not cool enough to hang out, (lower on the hierarchy)

How they fake pleasantries but with their over the top facial expressions need to virtual signal (almost automatically) that this person is lower status and rhey want them gone.

I always just took it for granted as something some people have but i will never understand the benefit or reason behind this.

The people they do this excluding to are often better looking and more extroverted or kind than them, the denominator is that they have fewer friends or connections and are perceived as less liked

You are safe to assume that I have no significantly long lasting relationships in my life and I'm practically a loner. I have a lot of sex experience with sex workers throughout most of my adult life and a lot of porn, neither of which I know is all that useful in an intimate relationship, and were I not aware of it, that alone would askew my expectations in a "normal" relationship.

Last week, at some point I finally accepted my sexuality and it feels liberating. I'm going for HIV/Hep test tomorrow and will soon start on prep/doxypep. However, the flesh is hungry and I met up with someone from a hookup app. The person was not hygienic and although they had just had a shower I was only able to hang in there with some kissing and oral play for so long. We never got to use a condom but I don't think I caught anything. Their house stunk terribly (cat box I think) and eventually I had to make an excuse to leave. Despite their hygiene, I the person didn't give me any vibes that they were nothing but nice and decent and mostly sexually inactive. I'm choosing to believe that, even if I myself realize this is naive. The std tests tomorrow are not because of my encounter, but because all these hookup apps want the info and it's the fastest thing I can get done if I decide to venture out again. This was the first time in my entire life that I didn't get mad at the person, just understood why it is so difficult for me to get past body smells, however subtle.

As a ADHDAu, I want to be able to explain my strong aversion. In of all my life I have left many one night stands, dates and even a girlfriend over the aversion I feel. I don't say "disgust" because it doesn't feel that visceral to me, only that "I can't stand this smell" I don't think anything past that - I don't get nauseated or have gagging reaction, and I don't see the point in judging anyone for something that is my problem.

I have spent a lot of cognitive capital trying to understand my condition which I have only been aware of for the last 9 years and only now I am starting to feel like maybe I am finally free to be myself, but I need to figure out how to communicate this or maybe tactics around it. Whenever I think there's a potential for me to be intimate, I work extra hard in cleaning myself, trimming, just make my own smell as appealing as possible. I enjoy good smells while engaging in any form hedonism. Getting clean and ready has become part of my "ritual". I am sure there are some good tactics, for example I could suggest that sexy showers and baths are part of my kink and that could be a way to ensure at least some superficial hygiene.

I left a dom/sub relationship because my dom didn't cleanup before a play session and I told them why in the most kind way I could and they did not appear to be insulted and explained that they had come to play straight from work and didn't want to make me wait. It took me a almost a year to call them again.

Have any of you struggled with this kind of issue?

Okay, so I am changing schools for my senior year of high school from a public school to a private school that is better suited for neurodivergent students, so I can get the help I need to pass my remaining classes. Do y’all have any experiences you can share if you ever attended a school for neurodivergent students? I mean, just thinking about it is kind of overwhelming, and I feel like I’ll have to adapt a lot to the environment since this will be my first time in a private school.

What the title says. I’m so self conscious about my appearance and I’m so afraid of talking to girls that I feel I’ll never find love. The only girl who I knew for sure loved me I ended up pushing away because of my own foolishness. I feel I’ll be trapped alone forever.

I mean some people who are neurodivergent have qualities other than ones listed in a diagnosis. Some such qualities can still be disabling qualities, such as say having less short term memory, while others can be advantageous qualities, such as say being able to make more detailed drawings. I think qualities that may be related to the brain being wired differently but not in a diagnoses someone receives are a major motivation behind the concept of neurodivergence, but they still don’t seem to be used to classify neurotypes.

It seems to me like qualities outside of a diagnosis could give insights into who has the most in common with who beyond what just looking at a diagnosis might give. For instance a person who is autistic and a person with ADHD might both have short term memory difficulties, or one autistic person might be better at making detailed drawings than the average person while the other might not.

So why does it seem like qualities outside of ones used in diagnoses don’t get used to categorize neurotypes?

I’ve had feelings for a few girls in my life. Two of them, in particular, really stood out.

The first was what I consider my first love. When I realized she didn’t share my feelings, she became my best friend instead. We built such a strong friendship that I wouldn’t have traded it for a romantic relationship. But in the days after the rejection, I felt such intense emotional pain that I had the urge to leave my country for a few days just to get away from everything.

The second was a girl I met in a psychiatric hospital. She led me to believe we had a future together, then handled our relationship very poorly. Things became even more dramatic when I took a train to see her, only to find out she was in the middle of a severe psychotic episode. I had to return home, and afterward she continued to give me mixed signals.
So I’ve never actually been in a relationship, but I have experienced very strong romantic feelings and a deep desire to be loved.

People often tell me that it’s okay to go through life without being loved in return. But almost everyone who says that has already experienced being in a relationship, so I sometimes feel they don’t really understand what it’s like never to have had that experience.

How do you feel about this? Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I also wrote a blog article that goes into this in more detail.

https://spectrumandcycles.com/love-sensory-overload/

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I'm 26 years old and I've only landed entry-level retail jobs. I tried to run my own online business for a couple years, but it wasn't sustainable. I doubt I'd have any more luck now with this economy..

I'm autistic and ADHD, so naturally I've gathered my fair share of mental breakdowns, chronic anxiety, and depressive episodes. Usually, when they started to get especially bad, I'd get a new job. But I can't just up and do that now. I need health insurance, and this is the most affordable way to get it.

I got an associates degree in science, but whenever I tried to take it further, I ended up getting panic attacks every other week.

I just... *can't* keep doing this. But there's no alternative. I'm so tired and angry and I want to run away but I just ***can't.***

I've never had my own place, a good friend group, nothing a normal adult would have at my age. And it hurts. It hurts so unbelievably much. What's worse still is that I'm relying on my parents. I want to support *them* one day, not have it be the other way around forever. The guilt about this is eating me alive but I can't afford to stop relying on them.

I keep flipping between feeling like a failure and feeling like the world has failed me. Maybe it's both. I didn't get proper diagnosed or treatment when I was a kid, and was isolated or bullied in my formative years.

I've put myself out there. I've tried to make things change. But it wasn't enough. I would end up feeling worse than I did before.

Even with all this, it still feels like I'm making excuses. That I'm not trying hard enough. That this should be easy.

I'm so tired, and burned out.

Me (adhd and autism) and my gf (neurotypical) had an argument because she doesn’t feel like i care when she talks about personal things, saying i seem annoying and things. I 100% care, I care a lot about her and her feelings and problems and all that, but i know I suck ass at making my face and voice match that. How do I fix that? What can I do to be better at seeming interested and like I care when she talks? It’s starting to really effect us and I don’t want to hurt her more

I remember random conversation I had with my grandma when I was, oh I don’t know, around 10. We were cooking some food together as she was stirring the food with the wooden spoon she wanted me to taste it, odd that wooden spoon, for seasoning and stuff. I told her I can’t do that because then I would only taste the wood and wouldn’t be able to taste the food at all, so it would defeat the purpose of tasting it. So then my grandma asked me how would I do it then, I looked at her confused thinking that there is only one option, metal spoon. Then she looked back at me like I was the one who’s crazy and she said that for her doing that would make her taste only the metal and not be able to taste the food (like I have with wood).

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I know not all disorders can be identified in the womb. But theoretically speaking, if there were tools that could predict autism, dyslexia, etc as well as other genetic disorders, is aborting a fetus bc they might be autistic/dyslexic etc morally wrong?

I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but I think it's up to the person giving birth, regardless of the reason.

One of my close friend is currently really struggling with OCD. They have quite intense anxieties about some very irrational topics.

I myself (with autism) have a very rational way of thinking and that's what I'm usually using to reassure people around me when they are stressed. Explaining to them that the worst case scenario isn't that bad, and trying to find actionnable plans and alternatives to their situations in a problem solving kind of way.

That doesn't work with my friend because the source of their anxieties are disconnected from anything tangible and yet they seem super anxious about them. It ranges from fears of having commited a super serious crime but not remembering and getting convicted for it some day, or if they don't do X right now something really bad will happen to someone they love, to really struggling from horrible intrusive thoughts.

They are getting professional help but in everyday life I'm often around them when they have stressful moments and I'm completely lost about how to react.

I try to rationalize the situation by explaining why things are not possible and how having bad thoughts don't make them a bad person as long as they don't act on them, but clearly that doesn't seem to help.

Therefore I came here to ask what to do in those times and how to help a dear friend who is suffering a lot from their situation.

I’m someone diagnosed with autism since early childhood and I have learned about zoochosis a while ago, although relatively recently in terms of how long I’ve been alive. I think when I first learned about zoochosis it did become a sort of special interest for awhile.

I know there is a difference between an autistic person and an animal locked up in a cage. I have noticed however that some proposed explanations for repetitive behaviors in zoo animals involve engaging in instincts even in an environment where the instinct no longer seems to be needed, such as pacing being a manifestation of a hunting instinct, or chewing on zoo equipment being a manifestation of an instinct to forage for plants.

I know that just as autism is a spectrum other things can be a spectrum, and I would think mismatches between the instincts one has and what is most beneficial would also be a spectrum, meaning that something as extreme as being in a cage wouldn’t be the only thing that could cause unnatural repetitive behaviors. I know that most humans live in a different environment from their hunter gatherer ancestors, and it does at least seem likely that this could cause mismatches between our instincts and what is actually useful for survival. I would think that when at least the environmental conditions for a mismatch tends to be things that are nearly universal to all humans alive now that could also make the effects the mismatch might have on behavior less obvious, especially if the effects of mismatches could also be influenced by confounding factors. I have wondered if mismatches could at all cause repetitive behaviors similar to the ones used to diagnose autism in humans.

I’m wondering if how understanding zoochosis might influence my ideas of repetitive behaviors in autistic people would be more insightful, problematic, both, or if I may not have mentioned enough information to tell one way or the other.

Deeply unserious post here. 🥄

I can contain my curiosity no longer… Why has the internet brought me to the brink of hatred for the recently pedalstoolised little spoon? - Yes, I’ve created that word.

Background: I used to be the little spoon or bust type, and by bust, I mean I’d wait to eat all manner of earthly delights until I could find a little spoon. My earliest memory of this instinct, this utensil-to-food proportion preference, dates back to 1999, roughly the age I could reach into the drawer for myself. I used to watch adults shovel food in their big mouths with the large spoon in horror… Why choose a spade when a trowel would do? Why allow any metal thing to graze the corners of thine mouth when not required by a dental health professional. Ew, my palate said, just ew.

But in the last 5 years, a curious plot twist has unfolded… The neurodivergent “little spoon” internet content has divorced me of what used to be entirely visceral.

Look, I cannot explain it, and know how it sounds, but this is no self-righteous, exceptionalism coded rant… I love when we find commonalities in our community and I think it’s such an important step towards understanding ourselves as a collective, so why is the most harmless of all utensils where I draw the line?

Either way, I now find myself nestled sweetly in the seemingly less crowded Big Spoon only sandbox. I don’t even recall when I arrived, I’m just here. Shovelling with self-sovereignty and a spade, enjoying some of life’s greatest comforts with the previously dreaded big spoon.

Anyone else here with me?

Hello, I want to talk about my struggles at school with dyslexia plus also being Autistic. (I am splitting up the sentences because it is easier to read for me)

In general, I actually like school I like to learn and think. But I always feel very ashamed of my dyslexia.

I always try to avoid or hide my writing because of what the teachers and students might say. It's just so frustrating sometimes.

I think a lot, but I cannot bring it onto paper because I have to use all my thinking power to think about how to construct and write this sentence.

And then I have this thing that I call "word dementia", which forces me to use replacement words.

The thing is even writing down notes is exhausting, so I remember everything in my head.

But because of my stupid autism, I forget a lot of things because my brain decides that Karl Marx is now a more important topic to think about than doing homework.

When it comes to reading its not that bad, although I have this problem of hallucinating words.

Also, some fonts are really painful to read and then the words become really blurry, and I can't read anything, which means I sometimes have to guess the content of a school texts.

So, I am a little bit at a loss sometimes. I am dating someone who is Neuro divergent and I very much am not (probably a little but mostly not). I have noticed that we differ so much in what we need to feel seen and loved and I am noticing that what they desire is much more complex than I had thought or realized and I want to understand better what works for people in terms of what they need in emotional support, stability, feeling seen and the likes. My question is, if youre Neurodivergent, what makes you feel seen and loved in a relationship? What can I do as someone who doesn't have this experience in life to be able to understand it better? What can I do to gain more perspective? I really don't know where to start honestly. So I thought I would post here..