A community for respectful discussion and memes related to autism acceptance. All neurotypes are welcome.
Community:
Values
Rules
Encouraged
.
Helpful Resources
Anything time-based. Fuck voicemail, I don't have time to listen to the slow voice read everything out, give me a ui and words and let me read at 700wpm. Even shit like power buttons make me mad. I'm always doing stuff, I can't dedicate 2 seconds to turning on my headphones because I'm using that hand for something else, like carrying food or opening something. The only bottleneck for how fast I can do something should be me. Bring back switches!
There's something about waking up that just ruins everything.
Something scheduled. I am useless in the lead up because "I have to be ready"
Even a Teams call where I know what to do and say and am fully versed in the topic. The whole day I'm like "got that thing at 11, can't miss it".
And then I randomly start doing something else and forget the really important appointment or meeting anyway
10:58 waiting with the Teams window open, might just check my email
11:17 oh no
AuDHD gang.
Turns out the Sword of Damocles is not a parable about the precariousness of people in positions of power, it's just a first hand allegory of a neurodivergent person with a scheduled phonecall in the the afternoon.
Something scheduled that gets canceled 5 minutes before it's supposed to happen.
God thats the best feeling
Getting interrupted "real quick" while I'm in the zone.
To not understate, everyone hates that, yes, but I am actively done for the day. I don't want to talk to anyone anymore, I lose my appetite, I don't want to play my games, I don't want to finish work.
I'm done, and the task that I was doing is at an extreme risk of never being completed ever again.
I make my space to be "in the zone" with so much effort, don't break it, it's sacred to me.
Imagine watching a magical 3 hour movie and 2 hours in somebody cuts the power, and if you want to watch it again you have to start from the beginning
I'm in Autistic burnout... the slightest stress - just about any official letter, appointment with benefit agency or sometimes just something nasty on the news - can lead me straight into dissociation or shutdown. Occasionally, just having to concentrate hard can also wipe me out in a similar way. It usually takes at least a few days for me to recover.
I'm nearly 60, and this is new to me - I mean, I've had bouts before, but never as debilitating as this. I used to be able to cope with these things, even if they darkened my day.
That one little reminder that you are different than everybody else, and no matter how hard you try, no matter what medicines you take, you will always be alone in that way.
Yeah I don't think you're alone in any of that.
Any minor inconvenience or disruption of my plans.
Someone wanting something but instead of asking for it directly, they drop hints. Even if I pick up the hint, I refuse to acknowledge them if you're not going to just say what you mean.
Persiatent and/or loud noises. Macherinery going, big fans, large groups of people all talking at once, the chirp of a smoke alarm needing a new battery, etc.
Bright white lights give me headaches. Bright neon lights are cool and fun tho. I don't really understand this one myself; a light blue light is almost white but it's okay. 🤷♂️
"Hey, let's meet up later today and do something fun!" Instant anxiety for the rest of the day. Plan changes are bad and worse if they are non-specific. There's a reason I don't cultivate friendships anymore.
People being rude. In particular, people eating or making sporadic noises near me at work. And people who talk on speakerphone on quiet trains. I just… can’t handle it.
Plans changing or being shown something I forgot/didn't realize I was supposed to do can make me just not want to do anything for the rest of the day. Even stuff that makes me happy like watching movies or going for a walk in the park just seems like these monsterous tasks I can't handle afterwards.
Same. And my (now ex-) wife knew that, and toward the end of our relationship, it seems like she would make the most intricate plans just to completely change them at the last moment.
There was one day we had a plan to take the kids to meet her brothers at a sandwich shop down the street that we often went to - we were going separate ways afterwards so we took different cars, I went down the street and waited... And waited... And called her, she said she had gotten hung up getting something for one of the kids, but she was almost there... Waited another couple minutes (the place was literally 2 minutes away from the house) still no sign of her or her brothers so I called again... She said she was turning on x street- 3 miles away! Long story short (too late) she had changed the plan and we were going to the mall, and supposedly she told me that, but I sure as hell didn't remember that... And as it turned out, where she was going afterwards was to meet her affair partner, but I didn't know that then...
When someone interrupts you in the middle of doing something to talk about something and they keep talking on and on just repeating themselves bringing no new information.
When my workflow is repeatedly interrupted by a stupid notification, request to "log in your Microslop account" or the OS hanging a few seconds after every use input on the Windows computer that I am forced to use for work. All unnecessary hurdles that interrupt my ideal workflow are the worst.
Sock getting bunched up near a toe when I'm in a public place and can't remove the shoe.
Any big event in the afternoon/evening will just completely ruin my morning, as I will be unable to think about anything else
I have this friend that I invite over sometimes, but he has this habit of extending that invite to mutual friends without telling me, and so I’ll suddenly have 2 or 3 people rocking up to my place unexpectedly.
It drives me absolutely bananas. It was supposed to be a low-key hang out and now I have to come up with group activities on the spot.
That is unacceptable behavior, and I am quite sure many neurotypicals would also agree, even though it definitely depends on the cultural context as well. At least here it is just extremely rude to bring more quests without asking the host first, or at least telling them beforehand, unless you specifically have that type of relationship, or the invite was clearly open. That is like intentionally trying to embarass you in front of their other friends, as you might not have enough food, or drink, or other things prepared. That person would not be my friend afterwards.
Yes one quest is enough thank you very much
Id fucking convulse. Props for keeping your head
Not being on time to a planned event. I want to be slightly early/on time. For reasons unbeknownst to me, when I say "we need to leave at 35 after to get there on time", the people I'm going with aren't ready until 50 after. Drives me absolutely bonkers.
I hate not being on time. It gives me mad anxiety. I’m usually 10 mins early and then everyone else is late (which I’m surprisingly ok with - I just don’t want to be late myself).
I can completely understand how anxious and upset you’d be if someone made you wait so you were late to an event.
One time in high school I was supposed to go to a movie with a friend of mine, she was supposed to come to my place first and we'd leave from there. She never showed up (and it was the 90s so no texting) so I was just like "okay" and went about my day. Two days later she randomly showed up at my house and asked if I wanted to go. I said no because she was two entire days late and now I'm doing something else, and she got annoyed at me for not dropping everything and going.
I do not understand this.
Doing or saying something that you later realise afterwards was not "normal" behavior and that people saw past the crack in your mask.
Guaranteed to give you an instant impostor syndrome attack that will last for the rest of the day, leaving you obsessively overthinking about how your messed up that basic social interaction, which leads you to make even more mistakes like that which compounds the problem.
I’ve had similar experiences about childhood stories. My parents were… Uhh… Not great. There have been several instances where I have told what I thought was a funny story, only to have friends/coworkers/etc end up looking horrified instead.
Them: “Ugh I hate having to tell my parents no. My mom keeps nagging me to do [something benign] and I really don’t want to. I know it’s going to be a big argument. It’s just bad for my mental health.”
Me: “Oh yeah, I know how you feel. My dad would always try to pick me up from elementary school while drunk. I’d have to tell him I was walking home instead of getting into the truck with him. It always turned into a big argument, where he’d follow along beside me yelling out his window while I was walking on the sidewalk. But I knew that eventually he’d get frustrated and drive off by the time I was at the end of the block, and he’d always be passed out by the time I made it home anyways. She’s just testing your boundaries and you should stick to your guns. Don’t let her pressure you into doing something you’re not comfortable with, cuz we’re full adults now. Don’t let her treat you like a kid just because she’s older than you. Ya know?”
Them, visibly concerned: “I-… Uhh… Do you still talk to your dad?”
Me: “Not really. We just see each other at holidays. He lives a few hours away, so it’s not like I’m going to hang out with him regularly. Why?”
Them: “Oh, no reason…”
Damn that is some story! I'm sorry 😔
This question, but everyone has to sit in a circle a share their answer plus repeat the answer of everyone that went before them.
Surprises or a change of schedule/unplanned activity, basically spontaneity is guaranteed to mess up the rest of the day.
My wife leaves her sunglasses on the dashboard of her car and they slide to the left or slide to the right when you go around a corner.
A few minutes of that is enough to ruin my day.
A loud place.
If I go shopping and I accidentally stumble on a Saturday market or block party, and they're blasting music and people are dancing and going wild... I'm sleeping in for the next 24 hours.
When the elevator takes too long.
Edit: Also, this might be work specific, I do maintenance, when someone keeps talking with superfluous language and I already know everything they are going to say. Situations are formulaic, tell me where and what, everything else is erroneous, stop wasting both of our time. You’re at work, not on stage. Fuck!
Two related things: people commenting on my tone of voice, and people assuming my emotions (usually because of my tone of voice.)
I've got a lot of trauma related to my tone. I've been punished so many times for it without having any clue what people were talking about, and now whenever someone brings up that word, all the deep-seated pain immediately rises to the surface. The only way I've found to get by is to heavily mask - if I'm clearly cheery, nobody can accuse me of having the wrong tone or attitude. Problem is, masking takes effort. When my energy is low, I can't self-monitor the way I'd like to, and people start to think I'm upset because my tone reverts to the way I naturally talk. I'll be happy, just a bit stressed or tired, and people will start saying shit like, "Calm down," or "Do you need a break? You're upset, go take a break."
Then when that happens, it's like my battery goes from 20% to zero. It's so hard to self-advocate when others think they know what you're feeling better than you do. When you can't control your vocal tone, people will assume any response is proof that you were upset in the first place (instead of a sign that their assumptions just sapped the last bit of energy out of you.) It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, upsetting me when I wasn't upset before, even if I was feeling great beforehand.
I wish neurotypical people could understand that not everyone expresses their emotions through tone, that sometimes it's a matter of energy being diverted from masking and into more crucial, pertinent tasks. Honestly, I wish I didn't have to mask at all, but I know that if I didn't I'd get a lot more comments and assumptions thrown at me. In the end, letting the mask slip results in punishment. Talking the way I naturally talk is punishment-worthy. That's a lesson that keeps getting reinforced every time I dare not put effort into masking and tone-modulation first and foremost.
Oooh and it's a double edged sword because people assume that your cheery mask voice is your default, so when it slips because you're tired, they assume that must mean something is really wrong because you are normally all cheery.
Nothing ruins my whole day but explaining things to me I already understand/speaking to me like I’m stupid will ruin our whole interaction or relationship if they keep doing it. If I don’t know something I’ll be the first to ask questions, seek out instructions and help, I hate feeling unable and will do what I need to to learn but if I’m doing a mundane task and you start telling me how to I’m instantly 100% over you.
tell me to do something i am either about to do or in the act of doing. also warning me about a very obvious danger or impediment.
We make a plan where you tell me Xyz, but don't mention other important factors to the plan. What I expect to happen doesn't happen. instant mood shift into anger mostly because I should have asked more questions and you should have planned better.
Someone existing in the same space as me can have nothing to do with me and I'll still find them distracting. Somehow they're sitting quietly by themselves talking but that chatter makes me want to turn my skin inside out it's so distracting.
Just experienced sensory overload again because I had some important tests at school and the most minor sensory annoyances (eating with my parents and grandma and having to tolerate fridge, cutlery noises and some light conversation) sent me into a painful shutdown (which caused my mom and grandma to speak with (EDIT: well to, I couldn't really speak with them) me, which didn't make it better).
In the end, I just forced myself to eat the food and ran(well stumbled) off to my dad (who left early to watch sports) and was alone with him and just sat with him for some time. Not long after, I just left to lay in bed in a fetal position fully covered by a blanket for ~1-3 hours and occasionally listened to some random music in my downloads (with minimum brightness since everything else was too painful).
I'm still in an emotionally vulnerable condition and wouldn't feel safe going out alone(or doing anything else alone for that matter). I did drive a car and did some risky stuff, I shouldn't do (don't drive in a psychological condition like this, you could kill someone). (EDIT: also, my motor abilities are really limited in sensory overload(how did I even survive the drive))
So sensory overload is in my opinion the most painful thing about autism. Or vulnerability when in distress. Other than that, I like my autistic traits.
Bold of the the mulleted human View-Master to assume there's only one thing.
I have severe adhd and had a “quick sand” moment at work. I made a mistake , tried to fix it but made another mistake by hitting the wrong button. Tried to fix that while the people grew impatient.
I couldn’t be mad because it was my mistake originally but now paperwork was completely fucked at that point and now I’m way overstimulated. So I said “fuck it” gave them the stuff for free ($3 worth of stuff. Yes that much stress and panic over three dollars.) and now I’m 27 short somehow.
I’m not a manger here so I don’t have the codes to fix this debacle now. But whatever they can fire me… I’m done worrying about that transaction.
It’s like quicksand, the more I try to fix it the deeper I got. So fuck it.
The most annoying part is I’ve been in management for 20 years before this job. I know I could figure it out. I was the paperwork genius for years. Without access to the various reports all I can do is hand this situation on to a manger. A manager who struggles with complex paperwork herself. Sucks bro.
Have a social plan that I agreed to months earlier
I never know until it happens.
Dropped a fork? Friend used the wrong punctuation mark in a text message? Accidentally thought about the wrong past event? Computer froze? Something didn't go exactly how I planned it in my head?
Could be anything. I guess it's always more than one thing, but my brain doesn't give me enough forewarning that I'm starting to feel crappy, so all these stupid minor things end up taking me by suprise. 😬
A cloudless, sunny day