I don't know how to explain. But this video clicks a few pieces together for me.

Maybe it will help another autistic person "fit in" better.

If someone thinks that autists have trouble communicating, they just need to see us talk to each other!

(Also, I often identified as an alien as a kid.)

[cw: cptsd? meltdowns/shutdowns]

i'm wondering about people's experiences with having meltdowns or shutdowns in their dreams. is this common? how do you deal with it if you get this?

i often have stress dreams rehashing themes from a period in my life when i experienced a very high frequency of shutdowns due to life circumstances, and was wondering if this is common as perhaps a delayed (potentially ptsd) reaction/processing thing. i thought it was interesting that, at least recently, there have been increasing numbers of meltdown dreams where i feel completely overwhelmed by sensory and emotional stimuli, causing me to enter uncontrollable rages, typical meltdown urge to self injure (e.g. head banging), et cetera. this is despite both of the facts that in the past i barely, if ever, experienced meltdowns, as well as that at the moment i live a calmer, comparatively stress-free life with very infrequent meltdowns or shutdowns.

there is probably a link between past shutdowns causing delayed processing as dream meltdowns perhaps? at the time of the shutdowns i feel like they probably happened as a result of external pressure not permitting meltdowns maybe.

i suppose i'm just looking to see if anybody has experienced anything similar/to vent a little haha. i don't really know what to do about it. my dream lucidity isn't regularly that high atm. it would be nice if anybody has figured out a way to deal with it other than the regular ptsd dreams rescripting advice (hasn't really worked)/sleep health. the regular night terrors are genuinely becoming exhausting at this point and not looking forward to a life of this ngl. does it get better with time?

I was diagnosed 7 years ago as autistic, though I didnt realise at the time it was a diagnosis, I was informed a few years later that what I thought was a specialists opinion was actually a formal diagnosis. But due to family history, my adhd was addressed first. They were supposed to refer me to autism specialist after the adhd stuff but due to mistakes I got discharged and it took a few years and a few phone calls to correct the mistake. So I knew I have adhd, I understood I was a bit autistic. Fast forward to this week, I got a call after my assessment, and I score extremely high for autism. I was a bit surprised by that, as I function mostly quite well in my day to day despite some things maybe being a little harder for me than other people. My specialist explained that an ability to function does not measure someones level of autism. So now I guess im very autistic.

Its bittersweet. Its helpful to know and im being given resources and access to groups for coping and one that helps you stay in work - which is the important one for me as before my current job where my manager has been very patient and understanding, I have always had a lot of problems with employment. Im still not quite processing it fully, but Ive felt some hints inside myself that this does also make me feel a bit sad, but I probably wont be sure of that until later on one night when I cant get to sleep due to delayed processing.

Groups like this and others have been a big help throughout my diagnoses journey, and alongside reading about autism research and speaking with people in these groups, ive learnt a lot about myself and ways to manage my daily life and lessen the impact of everything.

I still feel like a bit of an imposter when seeking help, as I am very high functioning, and can pass as quite intelligent in most settings, and working at a job where I often encounter low functioning and even non verbal poung people, its hard to feel like I deserve to ask for help in the first place.

I feel like it's a bit of a long shot. I could see how certain things like being depressed could contribute to being withdrawn and lead to a lack of social skills.

I feel like my sister was misdiagnosed because I tend to be the voice of compassion when we talk about issues related to people with autism.

And of course there's a correlation between having autism and being trans.

A thing only exists if I know it exists. I experience good days and bad days but I do the best I can to keep moving forward despite this flaw. I don't have any wisdom to share but I hope y'all have a nice day 😊

Hi ppl,

I am really new to the idea of being autism and since it becomes clearer to me to understand what this means to my life today and in the past, i am feeling a lot more stressed which leads to shutdown over shutdown.

Oft course I can name some triggers like public transport without ANC or some situations at work where I need to talk to customer I really dislike. Those were things I ever hated.

Thankfully I built up a collective working environment and being my own boss , which means that I can change at least everything in my working day pretty easy. BUT it is really hard for me to unterstand what is good for me and what is not good, cause this was nothing I ever learned in my life before. It was more often like "eat that frog, life is hard!". I now try to reduce stressful activity and find more time for me and try to guess my needings but struggling in figure out what is not good for me. I dont feel it in the Moment it happens but shutting down a few hours or days later.

How did you isolate triggers and how do you handle them, if they are not that easy to cancel or you dont want to lose sbd? What do you do in a shutdown situation when you cant escape easily?

I can actually vibe quite bigly and be very animated/engaged, but at the end of the day, I am an introvert, and a certain amount of mental recharge time is absolutely 100% required or my mind will stop working right.

What I mean by that is, if I am continuously exposed to the presence of "incompatible" human beings (the "compatible" ones seem to be a subset of people with ADHD / ASD / mood disorders), I will literally start showing symptoms similar to dementia, I will progressively lose my ability to speak and understand language, I will eventually start having (boring) hallucinations, etc. All of this is reversible if I am subsequently left the fuck alone, though the cognitive effects can persist for weeks or months after a bad episode.

In part because I do tech work which requires keeping a lot of information in mind at once, the above issue renders me unable to work during acute burnout, and unable to predict when or how much I'll be able to work during chronic (but not acute) burnout.

Because of this, I am (by some definitions) homeless, don't control my living environment, don't even fully control my diet for various reasons, etc. I'm actually writing this post as a tangent from looking up diabetes warning signs and discovering I have a number, all consistent with each other, all of which slowly got worse at the same rate over the last 5 years of chronic burnout. This is a result of not being able to control my diet or my exercise level (wayyy too fatigued from overstim most of the time).

But it's all, 100% of it, a carryover effect of not being able to get enough solitude that my mind can self-regulate sufficiently to be able to do paying work on a regular basis.

I lost my home a few years into the burnout and wound up bouncing thru a series of friends. Every single household had human factors that drove me into burnout. It's people who don't know how be still, who are always Doing Something even if they are sitting still - I can never stop perceiving them or being "on guard" in a house with them. It grinds me right down to the bone and then some. Anyway it was just dumb luck of the draw - some percentage of the population I can live with just fine. 3 years into this phase I ended up in an area that's very sprawly, did get a car for a while but not one I'd trust to take more than 10 or 15 miles, you should have seen this deathtrap, it was like a sitcom car, and anyway it died last year. So, I can't just walk to town and work at McDonald's or whatever. Camping options (uninhabited woods) exist but camping in them is illegal (which I've done on a couple desperate occasions).

I'm not entirely sure why I'm even posting this, other than to say I made a friend diagnosed with ASD a few years back who has a very similar symptom profile to me, but who is even more sensitive than me, and trapped like this with her own family. I know y'all are out there. You're valid. I know you're trying even if you've been so goddamn tired your eyeballs could melt for a month, 6 months, a year, 3 years.

I don't know about you, but I literally just need to be left the fuck alone and I will be fine, and able to pull myself out of the hole in 6-12 months. But that's the problem, this is America, nobody gets that kind of runway unless they're rich (or young and middle class with nice and/or indulgent family).

I don't need to be alone, but with 4 alcoholics having a rager in the rest of the house.

I don't need to be alone, but with occasional random people in and out of the house.

I don't need to be alone, but for only 24 total hours each week in irregular intervals.

I need to be able to access solitude / the company only of people who don't fixate my attention with their human presence, whenever I need, for as long as I need. Period.

Anyway, I'm legit thankful to live in a society where this is even fucking possible. I'm in North America and I know how to tickle computers. I've been on my ass for a literal decade, but if anybody can finagle a way back from it, it's me.

There are a lot of people who started off like I did - lower middle class with bright parents - and who ended up like I did, who beat themselves up relentlessly over it. I went to support groups and I saw how bad they hurt. Fortunately I don't have that problem, but I like to keep myself from developing it by doing shit like meditating, and watching videos of South Asian metalworking factories where dudes pour molten steel into molds while barefoot, and don't wait for the dust to settle in the lead oxide ball mill tumbler before opening the door and taking in a nice big lungful.

Eh, that's probably enough for now. I see you and love you, obligate introverts.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/13715105

Idk how to embed audio to Lemmy but imagine it playing on the background lol

Lazlo bayne - I'm no superman

I think that this video has helped me develop some insight on how to spot high-masking autism, not just among women. I found a lot of the material covered in the video relatable even though I am male. Maybe that has something to do with our elevated rejection of established gender roles as a whole. Regardless, I like how rather than listing concrete signs, he gave a list of patterns that would be common to masking autistic women (I believe all genders, really) in a manner that could still be easily noticed. This also helped me understand that the cause of some autistic traits are not fundamental, but rather a result of masking. 🤯

Aside from the signs of masking autism, the ending hit me emotionally. He validates something that no one has really validated for me. I've been told my entire life that I was too much, not enough, or purposely trying to violate rules and norms out of some moral or character failing. It's like I wanted to be careless/offensive or a loser. However, when he covered how much effort we put into masking and that it takes a lot of energy to do, I felt a validation I don't remember ever experiencing. It's like someone said, "I believe you're doing your best."

He also elaborates on the impact of when we tell someone that we're autistic or have difficulties in certain areas and they invalidate it by saying that we're not autistic or that we function normally. He then posits that when we unmask, we need others to validate that experience. I think that statement was not only directed at us, but others that have autistic people in their lives. I plan on using that to guide who I continue to allow in my life. If I need to mask or am invalidated by someone when I unmask, then they're not a good fit for me, so I will interact with them less.

[post is about autism diagnostic in germany, so is the language]

Moin ihr lieben,

ich bin gerade auf der Suche nach einer ASS Diagnostik für Erwachsene in Deutschland. Den Wunsch das in und um Hamburg herum zu finden habe ich schon aufgegeben, da die Wartelisten bis minimum 2025 geschlossen sind. Meine Idee war dann, dass ich meinen Suchbereich ausweite und hoffe auf diesem Weg Anregungen zu bekommen, wo es Ambulanzen oder Kliniken gibt, die vielleicht etwas weniger Wartezeit haben. Ich bin ohne Frage gewillt auch dafür quer durchs Land zu fahren.

Viele Grüße

I'm really needing new headphones to drown out the noise when I'm out on Public transit or just at home during panic attacks.

Very small requirements for anybody that has some they enjoy.

Bluetooth and works with android devices (preferably without a app aka natively). Has good noise cancelling and can block out most sounds but doesn't have horrible ringing in them (I'm using from the super cheap kinda noise cancelling?) doesn't have to be good with music but preferred though.

In ear or over idc about that

Has to be under 100.

If anybody has recommendations it would be awesome.

Fyi new to Lemmy so forgive me if I don't do some proper "etiquette". Also autism :p

Occasionally I have these days where I don't feel like doing work or chores. So I'm thinking, why not just enjoy myself, do something that interests me?

But then I don't find any motivation to do anything really. Not even the things I normally enjoy very much.

Typically I would then waste time browsing or watching videos, but that seems to make it worse. How to snap out of this?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16132498

How was this show made

Why can't I just be normal. Why do I have to be so zoned in. Why does my attention never go beyond my own skin.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/13942739

Sometimes I look back on my life and wonder exactly how much of my life and current personality is purely due to the autism.

How does this play for you ? I identify as spectrum, what used to be Asperger's, and have to work really hard to get to visual phantasia, but I can. Also worked hard to remove aural phantasia? via meditation because of negative self talk. Do you see 'aphant' as a useful designation? Thoughts, Ideas?

from the puzzle solving and maths questions to answering of questions

I fell asleep from the mental exhaustion after I got home