Talking with my therapist recently, I commented that AuDHD feels like it should have its own diagnostic code/definition and she agreed. It feels like ADHD and autism are too limiting to diagnose both and just call it a day. AuDHD, or whatever we should call it, presents unique challenges in diagnosis and treatment which are distinct from people with one or the other.

I have a related issue with being called neurodivergent. We have alternative, complex neurological pathways above and beyond what neurotypical (aka neurolimited) people experience. We are the innovators, problem solvers, and crisis managers that are vital to human society.

Any thoughts? Also, what should we call it? Extra spicy? Complex Neurological Processing (CNP)?

Like I mean overly strong. Like I got sent home in the first grade for telling all the other kids that Santa wasn't real (spoiler alert). I just felt that it was dishonest to tell the other kids a lie. I always had my own views on what was good and what was bad. I guess I was very judgmental when I had no reason to be. I have always had these unshakeable morals that I seem to have developed from nowhere. Is it just a me thing or did anyone else have the same thing?

**TW** Self harm

Basically I am now in my 30s, I have autism, ADHD, I am exhausted and in pain 90% of the time and have a long list of other health issues that fall under the umbrella of autonomic dysfunction. I also have immense difficulty focusing and learning new things to the point of it feeling like my brain just stops working sometimes.

I have had around 20 jobs in my life and have only been able to maintain one for roughly 4 years because it was work from home. I have been to school for multiple things but I failed the first time around and I cannot pursue the other thing due to my health. I did quite well at my last job initially, far surpassing most of my colleagues, but would put in the bare minimum of work near the end due to endless burnout.

Sometimes I will randomly become ambitious and gaslight myself into thinking that I can do anything, so I stupidly tried applying somewhere else because my salary was pitiful. I ended up getting the job miraculously, but they ended up not being at all accommodating of my health issues and I lost that job within a few months. So I am now unemployed and I lost the one work environment that worked for me.

I love cooking, I used to love drawing and gaming, but doing both of those things now causes me physical pain, and I have lost motivation to do them. I find most things incredibly boring and almost nothing stimulates me anymore, conversation drains me beyond belief, going into an office for a day requires that I take the next day off to recover, otherwise my nervous system gets stuck in fight or flight and I become very ill. I don't have the 'gifted' form of autism where I am good with numbers or math, in fact I have a math learning disability that has barred me from pursuing the few things that I actually wanted to.

Most of my time is consumed by 'resting' even though I barely do anything. I force myself to go to the gym every two days, but it makes my pain even worse. I do it anyways because I am always in pain regardless. I look normal, so everyone treats me normally even though I am disabled, so people just assume that I am a weird misanthrope because I dont go out to bars, go for walks and other things that normal people do.

My health and my cognitive abilities have steadily declined year over year and so have my spirits. My ambitions do not align with my abilities and it is incredibly demoralizing. It feels like no matter how hard I try, I will always be held back by my health, even when I do everything right and take care of myself.

I am not suicidal, but I was several years ago and I remember coming to terms as young as 6 years old that I would likely not live a long life. I guess I've stuck around this long because I was curious if things would change, and I don't want to traumatize my family.

I guess I'm just curious, but how do people live like this and lead a long life? I am in my early 30s and am exhausted simply from doing the bare minimum of existing, how am I supposed to build a career and the rest of that?

-A friend who is very tired

Every week I have a new favorite song and I start calling it just my song of the week instead of favorite song. I was wondering if anyone else has this and what’s it this week?

(As a fellow German) this week Mine is “Sommernostalgie” by indica.

So yeah, I'm 47, 2 years ago formally diagnosed with ADHD and during that process it was recommended that I seek the second diagnosis for Autism. Sat on that information for quite a while, have engaged someone for 2nd process and she is pretty convinced already that I am likely L2 Autistic, just based on what she has observed and what I have told her.

In the last 2 years, my life has improved in some ways but gotten worse in many others. Treatment for ADHD seems to have amplified my Autistic traits, and I have been told straight-up that I have changed for the worse. My friends have drifted away, relationships with some family members are strained. I thought this process would be healing, but now I feel more misunderstood and lonely than ever. I feel very disillusioned and wonder if I should have just stayed with the old path of suffering instead of the new one. At least people liked me then 😔

Edit: Sorry for the "pity me" post. Today was really tough, dealing with the deterioration of relationships.

I feel like people get really annoyed for "young people wearing headphones" overall, but it's increasing getting more acceptable to listen to something while performing manual labour, which is cool. But still people always assume if you have headphones you are paying less attention and are less productive.

For me that's not really the case. When I don't have headphones and get really bored, my brain will just start increasingly disassociate and do the work on autopilot, while centering most of my consciousness on some entertainment inside my head, so headphone in one ear is, i would say is, 50% focus on entertainment 50% on work, no headphones are like 80% of energy spent on entertainment and increasing, it gets to a point eventually where i genuinely start looking and feeling slightly schizophrenic or manic (mouthing words, reacting to internal dialogue externally, confusion and the like).

Even if im not feeling bored, if i enjoy the work, my brain still will play music, or generate some though experiment. As for my focus on work it's genuinely not really a difference, whether the music im listening to is playing from headphones, or gets generated in my head. Obviously sometimes you are doing something that temporarily needs all attention, but thats not most of the time.

It's just really interesting perspective on life, that people generally seem to not share, I'm wondering whether somebody here feels similarly.

We often come here when we struggle and I do struggle, but I also wanted to share something good with you. Do you have something good to share, too?

---

After diagnosis, I was looking back for finding out what I really enjoy. What is my special interest? Do I even have one? What did I like doing as a kid?

My parents told me I've been drawing a lot, especially in overwhelming situations. I still liked it later but the hobby has been vanishing for a while. So I tried painting and drawing again. Drawing exploded when I started drawing my emotion. Some weeks, it was the only accessible thing, because I have a little sketchbook and pencil right next to my bed. Very often, it was the only thing cutting through my confusion and the only thing I could "talk" to.

Then I found an online art buddy here on reddit ... and that gave me my idea: I was participating in an online selfhelp plattform for neurodivergents, but somehow, the prospect of talking about energy management forever wasn't appealing to me. So I wrote a note on the platform telling them I wanted to do more creative things and asking specifically for AuDHD creative people to meet.

I was very lucky and found a really nice group. First we were meeting in cafes (... I had been avoiding those for MONTHS but for my art meetup, I got up and went there ... ) but it got too noisy for us, so now we just meet in our flats. We meet every second week, tell each other what we planned to do (but I try to keep plans out of this creative space for me, I want it to be a space of play), then we draw in silence, then we show each other the pictures and talk about those. And usually, that's when more talks spin off, because now we're all calm and regulated :)

For me, this AuDHD+Art combination is absolutely brilliant. I wouldn't have been satisified with only one of those. If you have any hobby or interest (or a dead hobby), I found indulging into shared-interest-based socializing a lifeline when the talky socializing is too hard. I guess it also attracts other neurodivergents rather automatically.

I can explore my neurodivergent identity and have some sense of belonging. Interest-based socializing is usually still assessible even when I have low capacity. When one person of us is very low on capacity, we switch to online. It's extremely low pressure ... and of course great regulation.

And I can explore art, which I call my native language (someone on Reddit wrote they feel that visuals are their first language and words their second, I took over from there). I really feel at home in art, I can express myself in art, understand myself, I can create a sensory experience and change the sensory atmosphere of a room. I can create order and clarity. I have agency while also being extremely receptive and sensitive. When I understood my connection to art, it gave me a lot of confidence.

Last but not least, I wanted to thank this community. I was sharing my picture here way back in May and everbody was so interested and nice. My story will continue offline but I'm really greatful that there is this online space welcoming me even when I cannot walk away from bed. Thank you.

I have learned to generally never ask for any clarification because of that. My dad recently started to frame me as 'unreliable, unwilling and unthankful' behind my back. For context: I'm chronically ill and housebound and were looking for a new doctor right now, one who specializes in my illness. We all try different ways and sometimes we just chat up on what we've been doing. So it's kind of a first for me that I'm putting my, let's call it 'medical destiny' into other people's hands. Obviously that comes with a lot of questions. Why should I call that place, what did they tell you on the phone? How did you find them? Etc.

I swear I've tried 1000 different approaches to not upset people when asking these questions and it just doesn't seem to work. I have a question and am immediately framed as manipulative and unthankful. And I'm not asking in an unkind way as well. Always trying to deescalate before things escalate to begin with.

And their reaction always makes me wonder: don't that want answers before they do something? Like, if somebody tells them to call somewhere, don't they want to know who they're calling and why they're calling them?

And then everyone always says I'm wasting their time, not realizing that yelling at me takes 10 times longer than just answering the question. And then I'm called dumb and that I lack empathy.... how do I lack empathy? Cause I ask questions? Omfg.

Is there anyone who knows how to handle this? I'm kind of losing my mind.

Edit: Should have mentioned, I'm late-diagnosed ADHD and late self-diagnosed autistic, coming out of a massive multi-year burnout, and onboard the 'who tf actually am I and how do I make my life easier' exploration train

Does anyone else recognise they are actively masking in the moment, but physically can't stop? Almost like an out of body experience? If so, any advice?

I've noticed myself doing this a lot recently. I will go into a conversation with intentions, e.g., how to explain myself in a doctor's appointment or work meeting, or therapy session, how to handle myself in a social situation, and then I will just do the absolute opposite of what I said and mask whilst 'watching' it and internally telling myself to stop?

Sometimes I notice masking on reflection, or even immediately after the situation ended; but this 'noticing in the moment' thing is so disconcerting

Example:

• Situation: Doctor's appointment
• Intention ahead of time: Don't play down symptoms; if dismissed, reiterate symptoms and their gravity; don't smile the whole time and use positive body language as your 'i'm a good person' shield as it just makes the doc think you're okay despite the words you are using
• Reality: I smile and present myself as being fine; I don't emphasise the pain enough; I say 'okay' when dismissed... all while 'watching' the situation like 'girl, wtf are you doing'

It's so weird, like it feels I am doing these things against my will in the moment. I am sure there are 10000 more instances when I don't even notice I'm masking and I act like this. But it is really disconcerting when I have these almost out of body experiences of watching myself do things I don't want to do, like someone else is pulling the strings!

Should I maybe see this as an improvement? Starting to notice my needs, even if I can't yet action them? I guess it's better than not noticing at all, lol

I work as a producer or in the production department in the film industry and I’m good at what I do. Every project I am on people are always impressed with the care and quality I put in. I have many short films which are doing well and getting into all the right festivals. Yet I’m struggling more than ever to keep my head above ground.
It’s so hard working in an industry where so many jobs are down to who you know and networking. As much as I try to extend my network I always hate having to try and instantly sell myself to people, especially when I can tell straight away that they don’t like me. Then there’s the performative nature of it - should I have to mask and try to act in a way that people may be more likely to warm to? I’m a nice person, I’m considerate and funny, but it feels like I get dismissed so easily and then feel like I have to try extra hard in impressing people which is probably just making it worse.
I don’t mean to be rude. I like to ask lots of questions so I can understand the bigger picture of things.
After a very quiet start to the year for work I had an incredibly busy summer of back to back projects and nothing since. The issue is I don’t know anyone else to reach out to, or production companies to try and get in with. When I have no work I end up incredibly anxious and feel like I could have autistic burn out.
Working in film is all I’ve ever wanted to do and I know it is hard for the whole UK industry at the moment but I don’t know how much more rejection I can take. Financially I don’t know how much longer I can try and give it a shot before giving up.

I’m already so nervous and nauseated. Last time I went “away” in 2024 my legs physically wouldn’t let me go out the front door and I would just collapse and melt down.

I unfortunately get side effects from anxiety medications so I don’t want to take them, especially since I’m staying away for a wedding.

I know I just need to “get through it” but it seems impossible.

For context i have tomorrow a important and very hard math-exam and i need to lock in to learn. For that reason i took unretardet methylphenidate one 10mg dose at 14pm and one at 16 pm. And instead of studying i started task-hopping so bad, omg started researching random gaming accessories im interested in, cooked a full meal enough for a family (meal prep for me) from scratch, installed and setup a whole parametric EQ, then startet going on reddit (i am on reddit once a few months). I am Fuming. They should help me focus and not make me adhd harder. I am so fucked.

I need to vent because I'm struggling badly it has hit me harder than almost anything I can remember.

I'm a 29 year old, For the last decade I was a NEET with no job experience and no formal studies beyond high school, spending most of my time in my room on the internet, and constantly immersed in gaming. The only upside is that during that time through years of playing video games, reading books, watching Youtube videos and livestreams, browsing forums, and talking to people online The downside is that I spent years barely talking to other people in real life, my real-world social muscles atrophied badly and my social life basically never developed.

For the past two weeks, I've been waking up every day with intense regret, anxiety, dread, and constant "what if" thoughts. What if I had handled that conversation differently? What if I had been warmer? What if I had communicated better? What if I hadn't let my anxiety get in the way? The hardest part is not just losing the business but also losing an unique friendship and opportunity. My mind keeps replaying memories and imagining alternate timelines where things worked out differently. I know its quite common for people who have ADHD and Autism to feel completely separated from the world. Like you're a monster or that you don't fit in.

I most likely have Autism, ADHD and social anxiety. I've felt out of place my entire life and I feel alone constantly.

The friends I used to have back when I was in school have mostly left. I had reunited with them at least two of those friends back in 2022, but after a falling out things, just felt kind of bleak, and nothing ever reconnected ever since, and I've tried coming on here to get friends. But most of them have really since fallen back, or just never really lasted more than 1 or 2 days, and it sucks, because I want to build longer friendships, but they just don't happen as much.

So I want to try to find some genuine friends (preferably female ones) who are out there and see if they're open-minded to wanting to talk about certain fun hobbies like video games, they play or maybe even an inside hobby that they like to do while they're in their room or something like that and hopefully we could be able to build some type of connection.

I finaly feel like I have a solid understanding of what it’s like for me to have ADHD and autism, I don’t usually talk about it at all but it’s not something I live to hate about myself but more so I embrace it and learn to live without worrying about it and focusing on what I want to do most.

Now from what I have looked into, adhd causes shorter attention spans, and requires more stimulating needs, meaning focusing on one thing that isn’t pumping enough dopamine makes me lose energy fast, but autism is almost the opposite, with hyper fixation on specific tasks and routines, which I still see but here’s the thing:

I usually hyper fixate on one thing for almost bursts of attention, before getting bored of it suddenly, however with enough willpower I feel I can get back into it again but usually with highly stimulating hobbies and interests it’s more successful, i mean I’m literally procrastinating doing homework right now.

However a strength that comes with this combination is that it gives me a better work ethic, as I usually don’t make the same mistake twice at work as if I hyperfixate on doing that task better, but mainly with practical tasks, which has definitely helped motivate me to improve at skateboarding, but less with chores as if I’m working, it takes so much focus to get class work done and revision and I’m hyper-fixated on playing games sometimes I have to install my own software blockers to stop my fixated self from procrastinating.

But yeah this isn’t a sympathy post, I know so many people draw the shorter straw when it comes down to mental conditions, I feel privileged to know this isn’t all I have to deal with, I’ve been learning psychology so I’ve learned about some of the most impactful mental conditions and always think how little my problems are in comparison.

But as an ending note, my main motivation is to not let it draw me back, by not limiting the choices I make due to my brain, because letting it hold me back will stop me from pushing myself forward,

just thought this would be an interesting non-scientific case study on what I deal with and what i feel relates to the mix of both conditions and again, don’t feel compelled to pity me I just feel it’s interesting how these two relatively opposing brain needs, to create a pretty unique mix in brain function. Anyway I should probably do homework now :P

Getting back into the workforce and looking to the future?

Convincing myself to get back in the workforce? And look into the future

I want to work but I just can’t convince myself, been a few months since I’ve worked and I can’t see myself doing it for more than a few months before quitting.
I use to have no problem working, I enjoyed it it brought me stability.

at 24 with all the Absolutly terrible treatment and toxic work environments I’ve had to push myself so hard in to the point of severe burn out I just can’t think of working.
Even if it is a healthy place Idk if I can do it, I think about being in a work setting and I can’t really grasp that idea anymore without feeling weak and exhausted.

Also just don’t see a future anymore, I don’t allow myself to daydream about many things I want to do, due to my severe memory problems that will limit me heavily to entry level jobs, plus my brain fog, plus adhd and dyslexia that is all exacerbated by all the trauma and disappointment I’ve constantly faced in the last 5 years.

A example of how messed up I am, I am not sad or even really depressed I think, just stuck in limbo.
I can’t cry, I have enough energy to do things but not really try, my dyslexia has gotten 3x worse, multiple times I’m trying to type something on the computer and end up typing the last thing I was thinking of instead.
This happens multiple times a day and is totally new, my spelling is also gone down heavily.
Another example is today I was getting cereal and I grabbed a cup, looked and payed attention as I poured the cereal into the cup, put the cereal away then turned and realized what I did.

Now I’ll say a lot of this problem is due to me sleeping in for hours, I doom scroll now to which is something I’ve never done till a few months ago.
My brain feels mushy at times and I’m just done.
I am starting to consider maybe I’ll just be homeless and that kind of seems comforting.
I live with my parents and use to have steady decent work and did just as well as others but not now.
idk what I’ll do now or when my parents go considering my ability mixed with my current mindset.

I’m also currently going to school to be a mechanic and can’t bring myself to really pay attention, I try and it just doesn’t stick do to memory issues + the forced disinterest.
So I’m drastically behind and can’t bring myself to study or catch up.
I want to go into some sort of social working in a few years but that requires degrees! Fantastic! More hell, more burnout, more waisted time taking up my life I’m already very unhappy with.

I loved the world and I use to feel the earth breathing and was just a happy go lucky person even if bad things happened but now I just go in the woods and lay on the ground but I can’t zone out, I’m just stuck in my skull if that makes sense? And I have felt detached for the last 1 3/4 years.

This world isn’t built or tolerating for someone with all this, the places that are will not provide me enough money or at least be on a level I’d be ok with, I’ve worked and struggled to hard to lower my expectations for a job/career.

I do go to therapy, my home life is very stable, I have solid friends and I do do the things I love

Thanks in advance lovely people and hope your day is well🙂

I have been thinking about making this post for days, but I generally do not post online, and I have not been sure how to structure it. My apologies in advance if this gets excessively wordy.

TL;DR: diagnosed as ADHD, but something about my burnout, dissociation, and other presenting symptoms does not make sense to me, and I want to know if what I am experiencing is relatable to anyone here.

Background

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD when I really did not think I had it. Being diagnosed and beginning treatment was incredibly helpful for me, and it felt like I finally got some air after an adult life of drowning. The past couple years, however, I have been experiencing what I would ordinarily describe as DP/DR or just general dissociation, but lately I have been beginning to wonder if what I am experiencing is related to undiagnosed autism, as it feels like some things are not adding up if all I have is ADHD. I would love to hear from you whether any of this is relatable.

Some Disclaimers

The goal of this post is not to receive a diagnosis, but to get some clarity as to whether I am even on the right track by hearing from others whether they have similar experiences. I also recognize that autism is a spectrum and not some binary trait. It is precisely for these reasons that I wish to hear from others as to whether any of the below is relatable to those in this community, especially the things that I have not read or heard about in other resources related to AuDHD.

My Experience: The Present

I wake up in the morning and there are already 3-4 things going on in my mind at once. For about 2 months, I woke up with the same 5-10 seconds of a DCI drum corps show section looping in my head, and on top of that is some song I heard a few days prior, and then one or two conversations I had recently that I cannot get out of my mind. I am bilingual having acquired Japanese in adulthood, so there is a constant barrage of memes and media that fills my mind at all times.

I often have thoughts to do things that are productive, creative, or otherwise would likely be good things for me to do, but it feels like those thoughts are drowned out by all the other noise in my brain. What's more, it feels as though the motor of thought is spinning, but whatever cognitive clutch is required to turn thought into action is totally worn out, rendering all manner of thought completely unactionable.

Just about every social engagement feels like a massive burden, despite me recognizing in my head that I ought not to isolate and that I don't even necessarily dislike the people that I am to socialize with. At the same time, being around most other people makes me feel like some alien, and the people around me that are most notably neurotypical are especially difficult for me to understand. A friend or someone from church will try to share some kind of advice with me, and it genuinely feels like they're giving advice that's for some different specification of human being, so much so that it feels impossible to seriously consider anything they're saying to me.

I remember a point in time in which I had more emotions, but now I feel like I am an empty shell of my former self. It may be a strange or incredibly specific example, but in Kingdom Hearts terms, I feel like a Nobody, the shell of a person after the heart has separated from the body. Nobodies do not have hearts, but they do have memories, and therefore continue to act in ways that they remember themselves acting in the past while not actually acting from a real heart. That is how I have felt for about a couple years now.

I am experiencing burnout unlike anything I have experienced before. Everything is incredibly exhausting, especially if it feels like it demands any executive function to accomplish. I have lived on my own in Japan a couple times, and for the most part I think I did well living in a smaller space, but now that I have my own apartment in the US, it feels impossible for me to keep up with all the cleaning, organizing, or whatever else I'm convinced I'm technically supposed to be doing, and it's exhausting even thinking about the fact that I'm not accomplishing any of it.

I do not really know who I am anymore some days. There have been some days lately where I look in the mirror and do not recognize myself. I feel like I used to have some kind of framework for understanding who I am and how I fit in the world around me, but it feels like such a framework no longer exists, or is at least in shambles.

I have a very difficult time transitioning to different environments and keeping up with habits, relationships, etc., and I have been bouncing back and forth between the US and Japan for the past 4-5 years or so. It feels like I constantly and making new connections, which in a sense is thrilling but also incredibly burdensome. I have no idea how to invest in or maintain past relationships while also doing the same with present ones, and I honestly have no basis for knowing which relationships I actually value anymore. I often end up just assigning lower value to more recent relationships and more value to past ones, even if some of those past relationships feel inactive relative to more recent ones.

I think all the time now about others' sense of experience in life. A lot of the time I wonder what causes people to post things online like comments or videos. Are people just really that passionate, and I lack the passion to do such things? Was I like that back when I had more emotions? Are people just really confident? I have no idea. Thinking about it is somehow both fascinating and terrifying.

I am currently prescribed a low dose of Adderall, and I find it very helpful for managing the brain fog/noise. It almost seems to have a backwards effect on me though, where I am normally inattentive ADHD, but taking Adderall makes me feel like I turn into a hyperactive ADHD type. I become significantly more talkative, louder at times, and on good days I can sort of short-term hyperfocus on certain things.

The Past: Childhood and Adolescence

When I meet people diagnosed with autism and/or those who very strongly present as autistic, or when I read/hear about how autism often presents, it reminds me a lot of how I was as a child. I am an identical twin, and my brother and I were incredibly obsessive. Maybe this is more normal for children than I understand, but we would go through seasons of obsessing over Pokémon, then Yu-Gi-Oh!, then Duel Masters, then Sonic the Hedgehog, then Kingdom Hearts, then Legend of Zelda, Megaman, etc. until it all looped back and the cycle would start again. We would also discuss such obsessions at school as though other people knew about them, even though it seemed most people our age had little to no familiarity with most of the things that we were interested in and they certainly were not as obsessed. We were also both incredibly quiet and shy, sometimes to the point of crying if we had to speak to a stranger. It's hard to tell if it was because of a love for order/patterns or if I just felt left out, but my mother reminds me often of a time when I cried because there was no napkin in my school lunchbox.

In adolescence, we were still very quiet, but were considered academically gifted and simply "good kids." I remember not being very interested in what it seemed most kids my age were interested in, except maybe romance, although my idea of what romance ought to be was quite grand and probably seemed delusional to the girls I tried to date at that time. There was always tension in my romantic relationships, and I think much of it came from having ideas of what relationships were meant to be that did not match with reality (this could very well just be said of a neurotypical adolescent, I admit). This was true up until very recently when I started dating my current girlfriend, who makes me feel like I'm a normal person in a world where interactions with other people often make me feel like an alien.

I used to listen to music that I considered beautiful in high school, like Adagio for Strings, Air on a G String, etc., and I could just cry to the music and it was wonderful. I also experienced stronger emotions in relationships, where the highs felt incredibly high and the lows incredibly low. I was like that up until my 4th year of high school, where for seemingly no reason I started losing my emotions and experienced strong cognitive decline. I did not know the terms "dissociation" or "depersonalization/derealization," at the time, but I would experience something I called "graying out," where it felt like my sense of existence got so far separated from my physical body that I would just leave reality momentarily and then come back. Even when I came back though, it was like trying to move a marionette from a few feet away in a body of water.

My then girlfriend suggested I might be depressed, and after starting therapy, I was eventually diagnosed as having high anxiety with some level of depression and thus prescribed Sertraline (Zoloft). From there, my emotions started to return, and with it any sense of morals, beliefs, my long and short-term memory, and a drive to actually accomplish things in my life. I stayed on Sertraline for years, believing it to be necessary for me to function and possess the closest thing to a normal emotional range that I could have.

My brother and I also always had really long '80s hair up until that same period of time, just because we were so obsessed with '80s metal, but then after I started cutting my hair shorter, for some reason I started learning how to tie every kind of necktie knot, and I started wearing dress shirts with vests and ties every single day to school. It wasn't really for attention as much as it brought me some kind of comfort, and whenever I felt anxious or overstimulated in class, I would re-tie my necktie knot over and over again.

Wrapping Up

I can tell this post is a mess. I can feel my train of thought running away from me, and I am sure I did not include everything in here I wanted to include. Thank you for reading to the end.

If anything that I shared seems relatable or similar to your own experiences, I would love to hear about it. Thank you.

For the last few months, I’ve struggled a lot with waking up. my body decides to stop sleeping between 9 and 11 am, but instead of being able to wake up all the way, I spend about 2 hours not asleep and not really awake. I’ve learned to not try to do anything during this period. (no texts, no calls, no driving or big decisions)

I keep hoping that if I get more sleep this will stop, but even with sleep meds, I don’t usually get more than 7-8 hours each night.

Is This common for our people or is it just me?

Today I got invited out to lunch by some girls in my math class, I didn’t mean to become a part of their table they all just flock around me. I do help them out sometimes and maybe that’s why they like me??

I’m just a little scared they’re being fake nice and they’re going to bully me or something at lunch. They’re all relatively popular and I’m just kind of seen as the weird autistic girl and I don’t know what this means for me.

Part of me wants to take a chance and go and another part feels like it will be bad but I tend to be inherently pessimistic and self isolating.

M19.
I have lost all my friends, achievements and every glimpse of confidence in my life. Dropped out of school last year, started using substances to cope, later on that graduated to gambling.
To cope with depression and not being stimulated, I self-sabotage and fuck up every job opportunity and relationship I have. Simply masked for too long and broke down. Prescribed stimulants make me autistic, I can think on them but not integrate. I work at a shitty startup making less than minimum wage part time.
I am trapped in this weird limbo where I know everything that I have to do & fix but also simultaneously there’s a devilish figure on my shoulder that will make me indulge in so much misery and hedonism to just satisfy my cravings/even feel the slightest sense of happiness. This gives me suicidal thoughts, every day, it’s exhausting.

My family and acquaintances are not that educated on this. I am diagnosed, but no truly believes me. Everyone praises me for my “original” style of thinking but doesn’t want to help me with my mental illnesses.

My struggle is invisible and I’ve led people to believe I’m someone else. I’m a fuck up.

Do you guys have any idea how to make highschool more okay? I am so exhausted after a schoolday. When I'm out of school, I have no motivation to do anything related to school. When there is a period with a lot of projects or tests I get more anxious and start doing compulsions. Any advice helps. It can be small stuff, like just little things in your daily routine.

I do like school for the structure, laughs and the interesting stuff. So it's not all bad!

I'm a 41/m who has just been diagnosed as Level 1 autism and ADHD, not sure what type.

The only thing I've done recently is to become a bit down and realize the injustice, for lack of a better term, regarding my upbringing, socializing, and education. Professors not understanding why I'm so rigid, according to them, or that I needed more time to really understand the subject matter that non-NDV individuals didn't struggle with as much.
I feel like I have been left behind, albeit it has given me the time to learn and socialize in ways that are more comfortable for me. I'm talking with my therapist about it and I'm also looking for resources on occasion and trying not to read about it constantly.

I thought the diagnosis would bring change that was clarifying in a happy way. While it was clarifying, it was saddening, such as with dad not understanding my behavior, which is a long story I won't talk about here, to the opportunities I feel that I have lost due to not being understood.

In times when you first learned of your diagnoses, what did you do? What helped you? What didn't help you?

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Hello, everyone!

I’m a 41F diagnosed with ADHD who has recently become aware that I am most likely autistic as well.

Dating hasn’t been great, and I was out of that scene for a long time while in a relationship that wasn’t good for me. Over the last year I have started dating again.

Due to the fact that I have had difficulty finding the connections that I am looking for, would it be more helpful if I was attempting to find a neurodivergent partner?

I have mixed thoughts on this. I think it might be easier to have a better connection, but I have noticed that our society often places additional executive functioning tasks on women within relationships, which can be exhausting. I already have a deficit in those, would I need to do executive functioning for 2 if in a relationship with a man who has ADHD, autism, or both? Or does this tend to balance out in a relationship?

At the moment I have just been dating and searching for the right vibes whether neurodivergent or not.

What are your thoughts/experiences?

I’m 21F and have never been in a real relationship.

I won’t go into the ins and outs of my past “relationships”, but to summarise:
- Guy 1 - I’ve been kind of seeing this guy. We’ve been on a few dates and I stayed with him for a few days. I know he has been using hinge, and after telling me that he doesn’t want a relationship, he changed his hinge to state that he was.
- Guy 2 - There is another guy that I’ve been friends with for a while but haven’t seen much recently. We’ve both been kind of flirty with each other in the past on-and-off, and recently started messaging each other again after a couple of months of not speaking much.
- Guy 3 - My friend set me up with her boyfriend’s friend. He stayed with me for weeks at a time whilst we were talking, but he ultimately ended things because he didn’t love me and couldn’t see that changing. I undoubtedly felt limerance towards him, and found the ending of this relationship very difficult

Guy 3 is currently living with my friend and her bf while he finds somewhere to live here. I met up with her yesterday and she told me all the things he’s been saying about me. She said she didn’t think we actually liked each other, and she said that a girlfriend he had a few months ago noticed me viewing her story.
Also yesterday, Guy 1 started following a girl I’ve been worried about on his private account. I’m not owed exclusivity at all, but it still hurts.
And to put salt in the wound, Guy 2 posted a picture of him and his ex hanging out, and made up an excuse of why he can’t come to the plans we’d made to hang out anymore.

It feels like everything is crashing down on me. I’m filled with this intense sadness and sense of dread, and nothing has been able to make me feel better. I haven’t been able to stop crying. Does anyone know how to deal with RSD with limerance? I really don’t know what to do. :(

Hello,

I first want to apologise if I make no sense but I’m just unloading what’s in my head… I just want to ask if people are dealing with the same things and what they did to help…

Everyday my head is so loud… it’s like everything I think, daydream and say happens all at once in a small space that can’t contain it… if I really focus and try to stop all that noise it’s like there’s a very loud breathing in my head that drives me crazy…

There is very little time in my life where my mind switches to things I don’t like to think about like people I love dying and me having to read their memories at their funerals…

I catastrophise every single situation even if it’s something so simple and it always leads to me panicking over situations that won’t even happen…

If someone around me has an ever so slightly different expression around me my mind thinks immediately that I’m the reason they’re upset and that I’ve angered them in such a dreadful way where in reality they are just a little tired…

If there’s conflict near me even a little verbal angry dispute I freeze and panic completely…

I’m easily convinced by other people’s feelings for example two people I knew had a dispute and now I can only see one of them as such a dreadful being and if I even see someone with the same name as them I freak out scared….

I’m sure there’s parts I’ve missed but this is at the very least the daily things on in my head… and I can’t quiet it down at all…..

I’m on ADHD medication but the 2 I’ve used do nothing to stop the noise or at the very least quiet it down a bit… only maybe a little more focus…

Is anyone else’s lives like this and have ways of dealing with it?

Sorry again if it makes no sense…