#adults and autism

[aimlesspoet]

a bottom-tier autistic experience is being told throughout your entire childhood that you are just an overthinker when it comes to social situations and later finding out that your friends did, in fact, hate being around you and tried to communicate that through weird little hints

[neurodivergenttales]

The ‘you’re mature for your age’ to sleeping with a bed full of plushies in your mid twenties pipeline is real

[adhdxxsdiary]

[cafeblossomss]

the most helpful thing i have ever seen from neurodivergent internet spaces is “THERE ARE OTHER TIMES OF DAY TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH”. this has genuinely saved me from executive dysfunction spirals so many times.

[crazycatsiren]

No no you don't understand! I want to watch this show/movie, read this book, listen to this podcast, etc.! But I must be in the right mindset and the exact head space to begin, or I just can't!

[autismwithoutpremium]

Just a thought

[maxillo]

shoutout to autistic people who have memory issues and can't remember many things about your special interests. you don't need to be able to remember things for the interests to be valid or important to you! if you enjoy them that's what matters

[theoraekensnotsosecretlover]

Ah yes, the autistic experience of being more mature than your peers as a child/teen, and then less mature as an adult. The window of opportunity to relate is... not there

[itsaspectrumcomic]

Autism is a disability. Sometimes it disables me.

[beenovel]

Anyway last week my professor told the class "coworkers will put up with poor technical skills but they won't put up with weird" and after class I just went and sat in my car and cried bc how am I supposed to survive if I still don't seem "normal" even though I've been doing behavioral therapy since first grade but masking hurts so goddamn bad that I'm only doing two classes a week rn but I'm still falling apart and barely functioning every day and barely getting my work turned in bc i come home from class and collapse for days at a time and its just not fair, its not fair, why do other people get to be the normal, why do jobs get to be easy for other people, why are 66% of autistics unemployed/underemployed its not FAIR

[simplymisty]

do you guys ever get annoyed that like. we have bodily needs.

like, sure, I don't mind eating a lil snack or drinking something tasty, BUT it annoys me that I have to do that in order to live.

like, I can't have little treats all the time, no, I have to eat regular meals, because otherwise the body will get upset. and most of the times, the body will also get upset if you eat something in particular, because it's dramatic like that

I like sweet fizzy drinks, but I gotta drink way more than I would like to in order to stay hydrated. and best way to do so is to drink water & that does NOT spark joy, the flavor usually is off, boring and annoying. not to mention if you drink enough, you gotta go to the bathroom so often, such an annoyance

like. do you guys get me.

[jax-likes-snax]

I hate how oddly sexualized breasts are, and how oddly sexualized bedrooms are, and I hate how anything not inherently sexual gets sexualized, it was hot outside and me and my boyfriend were watching his friend repair his truck at my house and I had a shirt off and only my binder on since yk it was hot out, and the other guys also had their shirts off and it was considered fine, but when me and my boyfriend went to go relax in the ac in my room I changed from my binder to a sports bra cause my ribs hurt and kept a shirt off cause I was still sweating a lot and really hot, and my mom came in complaining about how I need to wear a shirt and how it's weird to wear only a bra in a bedroom with your significant other even though she knows I'm ace and she thinks it's weird since he isn't ace and I have breasts and bedrooms are sexualized, why is it okay to not have a shirt as one assigned gender and not the other, why are certain environments more sexualized than others, it makes no sense especially since we weren't doing anything sexual, neither me nor him made it weird, but my mom was making a huge deal out of having tits in a bedroom

maybe it's cause I'm autistic or maybe cause I'm asexual but I think the oversexualization of literally everything is weird

[evangelifloss]

Thinking about a certain scene in Dungeon Meshi that completely encapsulates the Autistic experience of making friends as an adult and how hard it is to try and navigate it without ending up getting hurt.

Like IDK about y'all, but this is a common problem ALOT of Autistic Adults face when trying to make friends with other people, because unlike children who aren't good at keeping their opinions to themselves, Adults ARE. In society, we're even encouraged to "keep the peace" "be polite" and etc, which commonly leads to awful scenarios as shown above when Laois finds out his buddy has come to resent who Laois is without actually telling him. All too often the friends that we love to hang out with, people that we're so happy to spend time with, don't feel the same way and in many cases, come to blame us for our social cues or lack thereof.

And when/if we do eventually find out how our friend feels, Dungeon Meshi hits us with another painful panel of how that usually ends up playing out.

It's hard for Adults with Autism to make friends, and even harder to maintain them because alot of the ways Neurotypicals tell other Neurotypicals that they don't like a certain behavior is by quietly disengaging. Whether that involves having one sentence answers, going quiet, or having a certain tone in their voice, all those things signal annoyance or disapproval, but for the Neurodivergents, those subtle cues are completely missed.

And yet when we inevitably discover we DID do something, it is natural to ask "well why didn't you tell me?" because in our minds, it should've been the next step in the equation. However for the Neurotypicals, that's NOT something to bring up. Its important to be SUBTLE about the issue at hand and rely on signals to tell the other person. Blame is placed on us for not noticing the "obvious" signs of disapproval rather than the idea of talking it out as such things are uncomfortable and harder to do. Alot of the time what ends up happening is resentment due to the idea that it was "obvious" and the fact one didn't notice indicates a deliberate ignorance rather than a complete unawareness. It ends up calling into question our quality as a person and our sincerity. We get called "fake" or "malicious" or even "stupid" for failing social cues rather than questioning the decision to be indirect and vague.

For a manga about exploring the dungeon, it seems that the artist would rather explore very real and prevalent dynamics in society with the adventuring premise as a backdrop. I felt VERY seen in these panels, and many others, because it happens so suddenly and dare I say it, plainly. There's no dramatic build-up or spectacle made and in essence, it just Happens.

I think that's what makes the scene hit even harder. It seemingly comes out of nowhere for Laois, like how it always comes out of nowhere for alot of people, and it's never a dramatic twist either. It's always mundane and hurtful. A sudden unforeseen bump in the road that ends up calling into question one's entire friendship with someone and consequent other friendships. It asks "what if other friends feel the same. What if the people that I really like actually hate me and I don't know it?" Or at least that's what I came away with after reading the chapter. I've been where Laois was and the only reason I'm not there now is because I lost the naivete I had and doubt everyone else's sincerity.

[aquilacalvitium]

The Autistic Food Shopᵀᴹ where everything is clearly and obviously labelled, music is never playing and the layout of the shop never changes.

The lights are always very low and all food stocked is like Lidl's in the sense that all their food is their own recipe which is NEVER CHANGED.

[donnieisaprettyboy]

I feel like something I don’t see talked about very often in terms of autism is emotional regulation from the perspective of autistic people

you always hear about how hard it is for parents of autistic children but never how hard it is for the autistic individual

like yes I know getting so angry I feel like I need to scream and kick and cry because I can’t remember where I put my phone is an overreaction to the situation, but all I can feel in my entire body is anger. and maybe it’s because all day I was around people and loud noises and losing something was just the breaking point, I was already overstimulated but this is what made me feel like my entire world was falling apart.

it’s hard to understand how to regulate your own emotions when you’re autistic and overwhelmed and it’s so often this physical pain in your chest like what the fuck do I do with all that.

[autismwithoutpremium]

This pains me lol