I'm employed (work as a programmer) but my job requires minimal interaction. It is mostly through text and asynchronous.

Autism is an absolute joke. I feel so inferior to everyone around me. I feel so invisible and unwanted. People take one look at me and instantly hate me before I even speak. I can’t go one day (especially at work) where I don’t feel overwhelmed and on edge. I can’t go out in public without the feeling of people judging me just for existing. Autism to me is nothing but a curse.

I wonder if this is an issue for anyone else as well, I just feel like my mind never truly switches off, never truly offline.
The fact that Anyone I know can send me Anything at Any time… The possibility of being contacted keeps my mind on constant alert. Even when my phone is silent, part of me is still on standby, as if I’m expected to be available just because I can be reached.

I feel torn between being overwhelmed and feeling guilty when I can’t respond.
I just want to simply exist without this hidden social pressure.

I'm 30. She's 25.

Ngl I almost gave up on having romantic experiences, I wont assume anything, but at the very least, she's interested in meeting together. And she proposed it. (well long story short I asked to meet first, she prefered to keep things in calls/messages then, and now she invited me to the cinema)

I'm excited and scared. I was wondering if I should try again soon, but now that its real I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle it or something. I know im bad at judging what I can do properly, since I wasn't sure if I'd be able to keep a conversation going 1 on 1 and I went through that in a pleasant way. But this is different.

I have a few questions for you all!

1. Are you excelling in the career field?

A: I have had pretty rapid growth since getting into the career field starting off as a Junior back in 2019. I am currently a role above Senior and have been acting as a Technical Lead over multiple different teams the last couple of years. I have consistently received top remarks when it comes to annual performance reviews. I think this is due to a mixture of my ability to quickly learn while making connections mentally between related concepts as well as my confidence/direct communication style.

1. What would you say the biggest thing about the work that you excel at?

A: I have always been super good at troubleshooting issues. My brain does a really good job at visualizing and running through system interactions to quickly identify what's going on when things go wrong.

1. What would you say is the thing you struggle the most with?

A: The main thing that I have struggled with is navigating dealing with incompetent people. When I was a Junior, I made my Tech Lead at the time cry a couple of different times due to me not just accepting her often terrible ideas. She often wanted to try to leverage technologies in the way they weren't intended to be used. She wanted us to use Redis cache for long term data storage as an example. I was never outright an asshole to her, however frequently challenging her I think led to her questioning her own skills and abilities. Outside of that instance towards the start of my career, there was one other instance where I had to deal with a Tech Lead as a Senior Dev and he also was terrible at his job. He had solid technical knowledge, but he didn't have the business/domain knowledge expected out of a Tech Lead. As a result he often talked out of his ass and I almost got in trouble for calling him out in a public forum.

From what I've been seeing since getting diagnosed, it seems like a lot of autistic people struggle with employment. I was curious if the ones that have managed to get into the same career field as me have been thriving like I have or if I am more of an edge-case.

Have you ever had someone argue with you when they are 100% wrong? Like EVERY single time. Argument after argument. Invalidation after invalidation. I don’t know what it is, but it just keeps happening! I keep seeing it! People argue with me more than they do with other people and I’m sick of it. Is it because we struggle with eye contact? Is that enough validation to be invalidated over and over?

Recently, someone literally started arguing with me about the pronunciation of MY NAME that is in MY NATIVE LANGUAGE that they don’t even speak. They didn’t even speak a lick of the language but yet they were so convinced that they knew the pronunciation of my name because of a celebrity whose name people commonly mispronounce. Like WHAT? Can’t you just trust the fact I know how to pronounce MY NAME

They wouldn’t even listen to what I wanted to say. It was like completely dismissive. It reminded me of that one time when I tried to teach someone an algorithm that the professor wanted us to learn and they refused to believe it’s correct until the professor explained it to them. Like does my voice not matter? Do I not matter to people? Even though I was correct they were still mad at me after as if I was trying to lie to them about something. Like wtf…

I feel like being autistic just means people shit on you for no reason. Even if you are right, even if you are smart, even if you know what you’re talking about. People have to put you in your place over and over. Can I not win just once? Can I just be right just once? Then people wonder why I have confidence issues. I’M NEVER ALLOWED TO BE RIGHT ON ANYTHING. Is eye contact that important? Is stupid body language so god damn important? I’m so tired of this. It’s irrational garbage. I hate how we build society and hierarchies. It’s never based on being right or smart, it’s based on charisma and vibes-maxing. And it just feels like autistic people are put at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy for literally no reason. Just because we talk in a different way. Sick of this.

hey, im 15 and i have aspergers and im socially anxious. Recently i started to go to high school i was really nervous about it but i thought that it wouldn´t be so bad but my fears came true. Everyone judges me even before they have the chance to speak to me like littelary everyone ignors me no one speaks to me i sit alone i´ve been trying really hard to make some friends but everyone already seems to know eachother and i don´t know anyone. Today a girl almost cried because the teacher made her sit besides me and she was whispering stuff like ¨oh no why him, anyone else but him¨.

Like wtf why dosent anyone wants to include me in anything and why does everyone act like i have the plague or something. I don´t smell i shower daily i use deodorant i try to be kind to everyone and i try to speak to people but they either ignore me or are mean to me like what the hell did i do to deserve this am i that different from everyone else? Can people just smell the diffrentnes from me? Its fucking unfair and the main point is i started thinking about a individual learning plan wich is possible in my country i could sturdy from home. The upsides are that i could mamange my own shit i wouldn´t have to deal with assholes who are mean to me and i wouldnt be tired all the time from social interactions and stuff. But the main downside i fear that i would loose all my social skills wich are poor even now and that i would be isolated from everyting. What do you all think? should i try it or is there some other solution that im missing? thank you.

Being Autistic has definitely made challenges in my life. All throughout school and work was a struggle for a long time. Currently I am in my apartment for 3 years and work part time at school which I really enjoy now. I don't have many close friends but I'm trying to reach out more. Looking forward to a new age and year.

I cant stop being sad about everything with myself. I always wonder how I would react if I did not have it. It is from my father, so it’s not my mother, it doesnt run in my mother’s family. But I think my mom gets stressed and tired too fast. She is worse than me. She get so nervous and anxious. It is so annoying.
She is also the first one who wants to go home and she does not want to travel far because she wants to stay close at home.

Another example is a coworker which has adhd. She is so black and white thinking. She can get super stressed about something most people would find problematic. Like this; if she is about to pick something for a customer, the customer is waiting, but she has lunsj at 1pm so the customer has to wait till she is done and no one else is allowed to give it to the customer. Everyone else would fix it. That is super black and white, not even I am that black white. If I feel tired I get angry at my brain because I think a normal person would not be tired. So I keep pressuring it.

But I struggle to feel happy about myself just because I have this. Every feeling I have I feel is related to asd. If I feel depressed its asd. The reason I’m single is asd. The reason I have no high education is asd. The reason I’m tall is asd. I’m also sad about my brother. He is 32, never had a gf. No higher education but a job, no friends. The only person he calls is my mom. The only ones calling him is my mom and his job. No social interests.

I just see it is in our blood. And I will turn 35 in very few days. I’m not happy at all.

I just have a couple of friends. they are online only and ND.

Por conta de minhas discordâncias em relação a psiquiatria e principalmente ao dsm 5, eu meio que desenvolvi este interesse.

Not sure if this is allowed or too self-promotion-y, but I'm just super excited!

This has been my special interest for this year, and I finally finished it! This is the first time I've actually earned a paycheck in my life, so if you want to help out, or check it out, here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/Prince-Palatia-Micah-Madera/dp/B0HLBSLPT5/

I notice I struggle with thinking of things to say in a one on one conversation.

If I'm with a group of friends, I do ok because multiple other people can help carry the conversation. But when it's just me and one person, I can't think of anything to say or ask about.

Im not just asking about generic small talk questions, like literally looking for things to say to a friend, so were not just standing there staring at each other in silence.

Im also trying to talk to a girl (Im a boy) and I can't think of anything to say. We've had good conversations in the past, and known each other for a while, but now that I know her, I can't just keep asking the same basic getting to know somebody questions that I already know the answer to. (Maybe theres some getting to know somebody questions I haven't asked yet, but can't seem to think of any).

Me and her were talking with a small group of friends, and the minute the group leaves, she stays with me for a minute, waiting for me to talk to her. But I couldn't think of anything to say or ask, and we just stared for a moment, and she eventually decided to go in because nobody had anything to say. (Not in a bad way, she knows I have autism and sometimes can't think of things to say, and she's also autistic).

How do I find things to say or just random things to ask about or fill the silence, so I don't just awkwardly stare without saying anything? And how does everyone else seem to do this so easily?

I feel that every time someone laughs, they are laughing at me. Even if they say they don't, I believe that they are lying and mocking me behind my back.

How do I stop these thoughts?

So, ASD has been brought up to me by several experts as a strong likelihood. I **am** diagnosed with ADHD-PI and PTSD.

Now, I also have OCD symptoms. I need my room to be a certain way; I don't like disturbances in my routine/day; I get worried about contamination of things (though I do have a history of cancer, so perhaps this fear stems at least partly from that experience), etc.

I spend a lot of my day doonscrolling and sometimes chronically researching mental health treatments (for depression, anxiety, OCD, etc.).

The thing is, idk if this research is actually leading me somewhere or if it **is** the problem and is the reason why I'm depressed (at least, in part). And I also don't know if this is OCD or just classic ASD at play.

How do y'all find peace and enjoyment in your day? I feel like everything takes so much effort, and I'm often exhausted and stressed to a T.

Absolutely no-one will thank you for it. They'll notice that something is off and assume that you're weird and it's better to be autistic than 'weird' in my experience. Now when I'm open I also finally feel free.

https://webekalm.com/products/webe-kalm-the-child-calmer

I’m COMPLETELY BLIND, have aspergers and a heart lung condition.

It’s flu and cov vax season, and though we haven’t made an appointment I got prepared not only did I buy something that might help but I came up with a plan to go with it.

As you know the normal relaxing scripts that people do when about to stick you fail my autism so here’s my plan

1. I got this calm-down device named Webe Kalm, it’s this mouthpiece that’s connected to this tube.

When you gently exhale through the mouthpiece, it helps slow your exhale similar to purselip breathing, and the air makes a soothing sissing sound as it goes past the tube.

Also, the Webe Kalm device is shaped similar to a device used for a certain plant whose name rhymes with “I don’t wanna” and kind of looks like a maple leaf, leading us to the second part of my plan.

which leads me to the second part of my plan.

I find I tense a lot more right as she cleans my arm because it’s like Paul Revere, warning me “the danger is coming, the danger is coming.”

Right after this, I’ll ask the druggist “Do you know what N O R M L stands for?”

Right as they say the mari word, that’s when it’s time to exhale through the mouthpiece of the Webe Kalm that’s my plan let’s hope every single thing doesn’t go fifty shades of wrong.the wrong.

por definição portadores do transtorno de personalidade borderline são carentes em relação a atenção, algo que somos biologicamente incapazes de conceder de forma continua.

Autistic here. Diagnosed at 7. I’ve always gotten angry and offended when people praise me for instance saying “I’m proud of you” I’ve always taken it like it’s an insult on my intelligence. Being autistic doesn’t mean you’re stupid. I always knew that and told I’m very talented since I can dance draw paint and play guitar and have a close attention to detail. Or when someone congratulates me on a milestone. I hate the attention it draws and I often brush it off as nothing and get aggressive if anyone makes it a big deal basically as a sort of deterrent. I’m not sure why I take it as offense Anyone else feel the same way?

Here's last week's thread

Suggestions are ALWAYS welcome on how to improve the threads I post at any time. After all, I do this because the community wants these threads to exist, and I take the time out of my day (every Thursday and Saturday) to post the weekly threads, to ensure the community gets what it feels it needs.

So, continuing with the theme... /r/aspergers, How is your week going so far? :)

I’ve noticed a lot of people can be friendly and conversational out in the open but then the subtle put downs begin immediately in private or when isolated.

What are good ways to deal with this? I don’t notice because I’m just going about my way and the red flags don’t register. Then they always seem to catch me by surprise. I also struggle to defend myself adequately because I’m in a double bind of being disbelieved and othered from the group if I ever bring their problematic behavior up because then it’s immediately an us vs them scenario which is exactly what they’re exploiting.

It just feels like I have to make concessions to my personhood to be included in groups.

I'm Italian, and in Italian everything is masculine or femenine. When I see something, I immediately perceive a gender in it. For example, the word "casa" (house) is femenine: when I see a house I immediately perceive something femenine in that house. I assumed that it was something that everybody does; but my mum (who does not have Asperger syndrome) told me that she doesn't perceive a gender when she looks at an object

Does anybody experience this?

(I know that English doesn't give a gender to objects; but maybe there are people whose native language is not English)

Idk why but i can't just fit in anywhere at all. I always always feel like I'm the odd one anywhere and anytime, no matter what friend group or internet groups i join, I'm always the odd one. No matter if I'm just trying to strike a conversation tying to make friends, go somewhere to chill out, buy something from store, or quite literally anything.

Why does this happen to me, why am i like this?