Just realized that I don't enjoy talking to people whatsoever. Whether it's online or IRL I just don't like doing it. Even talking chatbots doesn't do anything for me. Is this an aspergers thing?

I (25 M) am trying to learn how to bike or ride an e-scooter...

Which one do u think is the easiest?

My only [limited] experience was with bikes, when i was a kid. And I always struggled with maintaining balance once the training wheels(/stabilisers) were taken off. So, i just gave up then, because it wasn't necessary then. But unfortunately now, i need to use at least one of these options to commute btwn work and home.

What should my expectations be? (Like, in terms of amount of time required to learn, and ...)

Is it smth that u can learn urself? Or does it require actual training (like needing classes or etc.)??

Hey lol in case anyone can't figure this out from the context I'm a woman, being honest I'm doing fairly well, I have two great aspie male friends and I'm doing ok in uni, but when I meet a woman without AS I'm always envious because they can have female friends and date guys. I only had a female acquaintance at uni, but she hangs out with other classmates outside uni and is dry to my texts, so I think, she isn't very interested in my company... Even when I try my best to be another woman's friend, she always prefers other women to be best friends with.

No guy has ever been interested in me, but my friend's little sister is 16 and has had like 4 boyfriends, when I'm 18 and all I have received is bullying from everyone because of my condition. Now I am too afraid to even be in a store when a group of guys my age is there as well, because I assume they will want to make fun of me. I have almost cried because I had to see the aforementioned girl today.

And whenever I talk about this problem I get, from women without AS, "girl friend groups have so much drama anyways", "you need to decenter men they're not worth it", "you're probably not a girls' girl", all said by women who obviously have girl friend groups and bfs.

I blame everything on being ugly although the truth is that I'm fundamentally unlikeable as a person which is why everyone prefers literally anyone else's company over mine but I'd rather not be aware of that.

How do I learn to be OK with the fact I'll never have female friends or date?

There's a video going around that says AI removes the executive function tax for ADHD. That's true as far as it goes, and I know AI is a divisive topic in ND spaces right now, but that framing still treats AI like a productivity tool, something that helps you finish tasks faster, and that isn't what happened to me.

I'll just say what I believe: AI is going to give neurodivergent people a serious competitive advantage over allistics, not because we're better, but because the tool happens to match how a lot of us already think.

My brain doesn't move in straight lines. It jumps between leadership, psychology, operations, autism, ADHD, systems thinking, whatever else is in reach, looking for the same pattern underneath all of it, and when I find one I start building a framework around it. That's always been how I work, and the limits have always been there too, things like working memory, losing the thread, and the energy it takes to explain the steps my brain skipped because it had already connected them somewhere in the background.

AI doesn't have those particular limits. It follows every rabbit hole, holds the context I'd lose on my own, and never needs me to shorten the runway or get to the conclusion before I've built enough context for the conclusion to make sense. I've used it to dig through months of journal entries, pressure-test theories about my own mind, and put names to things I could feel but couldn't define, and none of that was it doing my thinking for me.

It was giving my thinking somewhere to go.

A lot of people use AI to get answers, and that's fine, but if your brain already wanders across domains hunting for structure, this thing can actually keep up with you, and that's where the multiplier comes from. I'm not saying our brains are better. I'm saying the tool fits some thinking styles better than others, and it fits a lot of ours perfectly.

The minds that got treated as deficits in a linear world might be unusually well suited to whatever comes next.

So what are you actually using it for? What's the use case you never would have predicted before you started?

I recently received my grad thesis grade after putting my heart and soul into the research and writing process. The grade is still good but not as good as I expected and the criticism of one of the reviewers is honestly a bit soul-crushing, lol. Before, I had the chance of actually becoming valedictorian ... that chance is gone now.

Anyway, research was, like, THE single only thing I thought I was good at since I suck at EVERYTHING else, even the most mundane things neurotypicals do without having to think twice. I suck at practical life, at motor skills, at friendships and romantic relationships. I suck at being a woman and being human in general.

I just want ONE thing in my life I'm actually talented at to make up for all my deficits.

I'm officially a loser now. How does one live life knowing the suck at everything they do and will always have to fight 3x as hard to be even semi-functioning?

Hello all. I am curious if anyone out there has any advice on how to make some close friends. For context I am a highly extraverted female aspie. My issue is when I meet people that pop up on my autistic radar they tend to have introverted type hobbies- watching anime/ shows, gaming, whilst I prefer going out regularly, gym, dining, fashion, girl talk. Then there's the issue that female people tend not to like me as I am an aspie, therefor very direct and I do a lot of banter and shock humour. This tends to lend well to my male friendships but it turns into love confessions and I end up again with no friends that I can unmask around, and I end up losing whole social circles based off of these one sided loves as bros before hos. How can I find the female or outgoing aspies or ADHD folks? I've also done the thing of taking up nerdy type hobbies to befriend NDs but I don't enjoy those hobbies, and the friendships continue to be centred around that.

For several years now, I haven’t been able to stop picking at the skin around my nails, consciously and unconsciously causing myself wounds—I think as a way to self-regulate. I do it so often that on my thumb—the finger I pick at the most—I’ve lost sensation in the outer layers of skin, working from the outside in; in other words, I practically don’t feel any pain until I’m bleeding. I really need help controlling this; I don’t know if anyone has any tips or suggestions on how to at least reduce it. Thank you very much for reading

I’ve been talking to this girl for about a month and a half. In person, our connection is pretty dang strong and even if we do have misunderstandings we can talk thru them in person. She lives one town over so I only see her once a week on the weekends usually. We text a lot because of this, but over text we cannot read each others tone and this leads to us over dissecting each others words and a lot of misunderstandings. Does anyone have a solution for this? She doesn’t want to go all day without texting. I don’t want to give up on us but it’s happening so often, I don’t know what to do.

I’ve noticed a lot of subs start to crack down on anyone who wants to vent and honestly I think it’s stupid. I even see it in the Rant and Trueoffmychest sub. Like “off my chest” literally means to vent lol so I don’t get why they’re gaslighting. They say it’s cause most vents are toxic and maybe so. I mean I know there are incels out there who say harmful stuff but from what I see they’re in the minority so I don’t get why punish everyone for what a couple assholes do. “It’s just the internet. Who cares. Go outside”. Some people already have a shitty real life and the internet is an escape. And if they can’t even feel heard on there then damn. And some people also don’t have health insurance or money for therapy . I feel like people who say get therapy are privileged. Idk man, I just think the whole thing is dumb. A lot of people with autism are tone policed in real life so it’s frustrating when it’s on the internet too.

Is the best for this to just have a neutral look and only smile if something is genuinely amusing or funny.

I am alright at holding conversations. How do I seem more energetic though? Naturally I am a bit low energy.

For instance the fact I'm a redditor like all these online strangers I see making these posts and comments that I never see IRL and how these people to me feel like just faceless people on my screen but from their POV and to my POV to an extent I am just like them.

Like it feels kinda good to feel part of this crowd. Like I feel like this world is very alien to me and I'm all alone in many ways but then when I find I'm with many people in many ways it feels good.

Like those times I make comments that sound very reddit-esque like a link to another sub I feel like I'm a powerful cog in a powerful machine.

Tldr: suddenly aware I'm ND and feeling like a weirdo doomed to failure. Has anyone here felt like that and overcome it?

This is a bit of a vent, so sorry if it's long and tangential. I just wanted to get it off my chest.

All my life I've been told I'm difficult, direct, stubborn, contrary, strong-willed. So much so that nursery staff had my parents investigated for child abuse when I was 3yr old child because they thought it could explain my behaviour. They also had me tested for everything under the sun: autism, ADHD, and came up with zilch. Just "gifted" and badly behaved. They put the bad behaviour down to boredom.

I was bored. And intentionally disobedient. But also disorganised. Messy. Impulsive. Misunderstood: I follow my own internal logic because things feel wrong if I don't. As a kid, that involved walking in a step pattern that kept expanding until my brain could no longer compute it and I'd have to start over. As an adult, it's not as extreme as that but I occasionally get intrusive thoughts, and need certain things to be a certain way. From everything I've heard about symmetry OCD, it sounds like that.

I got called weird a lot as a teenager and never understood why. I didn't really care, either. The people calling me that weren't people I found particularly interesting. I thought they were just being mean. I didn't think I was actually different. I thought they were stupid.

But now, as an adult, after getting fired for talking about a political issue online (that I have a master's degree related to, and that affects my family, I wasn't talking about it randomly), I wonder why I do these things. Why I feel compelled to post so much about an issue I can tell people don't want to hear about. Why I do it anyway? To the point I lose my job? Why I always had difficulty getting on with my bosses? Why I've had such intense interests and felt the need to share them (music, writing, etc.)? Why I make such strange life choices: taking a job in a warzone; marrying someone without ever dating them first; moving to a new country where I had to learn an entirely new language just because higher education is free there? And why, suddenly, after turning 30, are people out of nowhere telling me I'm autistic?? My parents, who are divorced now, recently told me indepently of each other that they've always thought so. One of my best friends who just found out he is told me in no uncertain terms that he thinks I am too. A random guy I met on Tinder mentioned my autism in passing like ofc I'm aware of it. I immediately said I don't have autism and he politely stopped talking, but even if I didn't have unusually strong pattern recognition, I'd have to be an idiot not to listen to what everyone is telling me.

My sister is diagnosed with autism. My mum is obviously AuDHD. And when I went through the list of all the close friends I just invited to my daughter's first bday party, I realised every single one is neurodivergent: autism, ADHD, OCD, BPD, or some combination thereof. I think at this point, I know I'm on the spectrum. Maybe all the spectrums.

I don't like it. I've never identified with anything I've ever heard about autism. I've never felt like I'm masking. I didn't think I felt any less comfortable than anyone else in social situations. I thought it was pretty normal to listen to the same songs on repeat or press my fingers together really hard under the table when I'm feeling uncomfortable. Doesn't everyone stim? And if neurodivergence isn't completely normal, how are there 20+ people coming to this bday party ALL with neurodivergence? What are we diverging from exactly? How did I find so many of us??

But suddenly it feels like everyone outside this bubble is seeing me as "other". Suddenly, I'm feeling like the weirdo I've been told I am my whole life. I'm suffering from my unusual life choices: lost my job, lived in protected housing to escape a violent man, proceeded with a pregnancy despite these circumstances as I just assumed life will get better again some day. But what if it won't because of who I am? I started to hate myself. Hate how long winded my writing is. Hate that I keep posting about the same issue on my social media. Hate the wasted potential, the first-class degrees with nothing to show for it. I've started to doubt that I can actually get my life back on track because clearly doing "unusual" things that sometimes backfire is just... Me. And now I'm looking at my mother, who is somehow in poverty despite have run multiple successful businesses, and despite being highly qualified in the 50+ totally different things she got interested in at some point or other in her life (speaking of which, she told me just last week she became a qualified phlebotomist, cos why not?), and I feel like I'm staring at my own fate. Am I, too, destined to be alone and struggling with a million useless talents - or even useful talents - that I'm too chaotic to capitalise on? Is this AuDHD?

I'm not sure what I want to achieve with this post. I suppose I'm just wondering if anyone has felt similarly and if there's any hope. Is seeking a diagnose remotely beneficial or has it made you feel worse? Did anyone whose neurodivergence felt like a curse overcome that feeling?

Like they think that just because they’re guilty of doing something then everyone else is also guilty of doing the same thing

I often try to meet new people, or start conversations with people I already know, but the conversation will fizzle out usually after exchanging a few basic words. I'm interested in keeping conversations going, simply because this is how connections are made, and I'm interested in connecting with people. The conversation is just a tool, one that I struggle to use. Who else struggles with what to say?

Oh my god.

I was seeing this guy for over a year. He came on to me, and I fell in love with the amazing person that he is. He doesn’t want a relationship and runs when he senses someone loving him. I stayed with him casually because I was in love, and we were both happy.
He started to change after dealing with stress at work, and after I got jealous a couple of times.
I apologized, and he told me that there was nobody else.
He started to get distant after that, texting less, and not wanting to spend time with me. I was confused and felt rejected, but he said he just couldn’t deal with much.
I barely see or talk to him now. He responds to some texts, ignores others, and never initiates anything. He says he isn’t abandoning me, but it has been about 6 months of no real contact.
I am distraught, yet I still tell him how much he means to me. I really don’t understand what is happening or if he is coming back.
I just needed some guidance as I love my AuDHD guy very much.

Personally, my mental images are fully dynamic and naturally play out like a movie.

For example, when I'm lying in bed after watching a horror movie, my fear doesn't just stay a still picture. It starts with a ghost standing in the corner with messy hair, then stepping toward my bed, opening her mouth wide completely unbothered by me tossing and turning in terror and finally reaching out to choke me.

Another example, when I try to recall where I put something, my mind replays me carrying it from Scene A to Scene B, complete with vivid details of my hand and foot movements.

So I’m curious, when you're not intentionally forcing a scene, are the images in your mind dynamic too?

I started wondering about this because my nt friend's imagination of ghosts is completely static, which blew my mind.

If I sound like a robot, English isn't my native language, or someone gave me a heart who knows <3 

Unisex restrooms. Don't mean to be dramatic but I literally don't know what I would do without them. They are the only place in the entire building where I am not constantly stressed over the annoying loud radio, endless overhead lighting, and other random loud and abrupt noises.

I can actually be a peace... ALONE, even if it is only for a moment. I can decompress, I can turn off all the lights and be in complete darkness. Without them, I don't think I could last a week working here. I'm so excited to eventually quit.

Here's some unusual things about me:

• Eye contact: I have a hard time making eye contact with people. Especially strangers but even with family I don't really know how so I just avoid it a lot of times.
• Special interests: I'm only interested in a few things and like to learn them.
• High emotions and sensitive to music or sounds: With intense music I need to bob my head or something. But a lot of times I just freeze up around strangers.
• Structure and routines: I like to have structure and routine in a lot of things or almost everything. I break almost everything down and like to systematically look at it. Maybe I'm doing it way more compared to other people.

Some questions I have:

• Can I get a diagnosis online, and is it free or cheap with insurance in the US?
• What should I tell my doctor or mental health person to allow them to properly diagnose me?

I want to get diagnosed with autism or aspergers so family or people will go easy on me. Sometimes right now they're too hard for me and force me to do things, or do things in a certain way that I don't feel comfortable with.

I need to do things my own way like a disabled person. If I'm allowed to do this, I feel like I can do anything and reach my full potential in my own way.

Can you help me please? Thank you.

Just an idea for a debate that I would like to have here.

Throughout my life, I’ve met a lot of other autistic people, and I’ve been active in reading posts here and in the autism subreddit. While anecdotal personal experiences and Reddit posts aren’t very representative samples of how autistic people think, one thing that’s stuck out to me is how resentful and angry a lot of autistic people are.

It is understandable how a lot of autistic people have gotten to the point of resenting neurotypicals and internalizing deep insecurities, a lifetime of social exclusion, weird looks, bullying, and a myriad of other things will hurt someone. However, it is frustrating how seemingly few people are accepting of themselves and the world around them.

Just because you have autism doesn’t mean your life is over, or that you’re locked out of doing this, that, or the other with your life. It doesn’t mean you’ll never have friends, or that you’ll never have a successful relationship. So many people pigeonhole themselves into these self destructive self fulfilling prophecies, and constantly mope about it. It really does not give autistic people a good reputation considering people I’ve met have said they feel wary around autistic people because those they’ve met before have constantly wallowed in self pity and defeatism. Autistic people can and have achieved everything neurotypical people have, and it’s time for a lot of people to accept that and work on self betterment.

In a similar vein, autistic people need to accept the world around them. It’s just a fact that autism puts delays on the social skills of a lot of us, and that as a consequence, neurotypical people and even other autistic people will perceive that as social maladjustment, creepiness, or weirdness. We need to find or create spaces where we are accepted and feel comfortable, because as long as the vast, vast majority of the population is neurotypical, society will be built for the neurotypical. I don’t think that needs extreme changing or “justice”, either. I don’t want people to patronize me, walk on eggshells around me, or feel obligated to a special social commitment to me because I’m autistic. That’s just another humiliating social stigma which causes you to be treated like an other. On top of that, walking on eggshells and shaping the social structure of your circles around singular “special” individuals is mentally draining, and I don’t want to be the source of a mental drain on others.

Overall, I think it would do us and others a lot of good to accept the world, bodies, and minds we live in. The wallowing, hatred, and resentment will never resolve any issues we have.

Clinically diagnosed and I forget I have it most of the time, but then there are those days where I'm much more aware of how different I am from the people around me.

Hygiene; I needed to take a photo of a book just now and I couldn't find a surface that wasn't cluttered or dusty in a whole 3-bedroom apartment. I haven't showered in 2 days.

Company; I'm always alone. Always, unless I'm working. The people around me have friends and family.

Awkwardness; the people at work have rapport with each other. Best I can do is not to embarrass myself and act convincingly normal. I'm constantly analysing their faces to check how they receive the things I'm saying and whether I seem off and confusing to them.

Posture; I see my reflection on a glass while I'm walking and I walk with my shoulders forward and my legs are tense, like a weirdo.

I overthink like a mf; I so wish I could switch this off. I can't just do a simple thing. I have to complicate it somehow and often miss the forest for the trees.

The only reason I forget I have Asperger's is because I mask so much. If people saw what I'm like when I'm not around them, they'd get creeped the hell out. Some still do. If someone I know came into my home just now and saw the filth I live in, they'd never look at me the same way, let alone if they somehow found out how rare it is for me to talk to anyone outside of work.

I have Asperger's. I have the living hell out of Asperger's, no pun intended.

I am in the UK and I have been talking to someone in the USA for about a month, there was no intention of a romantic thing coming from our initial connection or from our conversations in general. I have ASD and ADHD, she has ASD. We have been getting into a lot more flirtatious messaging and even had phone calls with occasional video calls. It’s difficult to do it all the time due to time zones and work commitments, but text all the time and and wake up to a million messages to each other as well, which has been really nice.

However, these past few days, she has said she has brain fog and is drained. I have only been diagnosed within the past year, my experience with dealing with my own diagnosis has been difficult to comprehend in itself and I have never been in a relationship with anyone who has been neurodivergent. I also have never started a romance at such a long distance where I can’t come and check up on her, nor her me. I know I am overreacting in my head and like I always do, it has been playing on my mind way too much. I try not to let it get to me and not tell myself that she has lost interest, but it isn’t impossible either.

I am keeping my messages to a minimum to not overwhelm her and just to drop a message here or there just to say that I hope she is being kind to herself and I did let her know that she doesn’t need to respond, just know I am here when she feels comfortable to. I know how it feels to be overwhelmed or burnt out and then anxiety builds up because I have a million messages to respond to. Now I am in a position where I am trying to keep to my word and help her recover, but my brain is saying that she is no longer interested and I am falling into a spiral. I have been in an abusive relationship prior to this and it stopped me from thinking I could get attached like this again, where she was physically and mentally abusive, as well as deceitful and ended it by humiliating me.

Sometimes old wounds remain scarred. I feel I am going to fuck it up if I question her and she is genuinely overwhelmed, or I am being pulled along, she isn’t genuinely interested and I am being made a mug of.

If you have been in a similar situation, in a long distance relationship or just feel like you can provide something, please reply to this.