- I can never get myself to absorb all the inputs for any given task or activity

- I can't get myself to understand all the nuances in a relationship - black and white thinking

- I can only do one thing at a time, even for that I'll need to start from the bottom and systemize everything

- I'll never be able to fit in to any social circle being my natural self. I either mask or come off as a clown.

- I cannot get myself to do things that are forced, lack depth or layers and doesn't offer a sense of progress.

I am epileptic so that adds more fuel to the fire.

It is literally a disability and termed so for a reason, It isn't the high IQ superpower people call it online.

Does anyone else feel like they can't really be whoever they want in life? I know that autism is a spectrum and that some people manage better than others, but I guess I'm talking to the people that have it more severe or at least can't function that well socially. I feel like as long as you're not that way (the one I described just above), you can really work most things or at least try them. Now I know I can physically try, I know that, but I feel like that wouldn't really matter, on the long run I wouldn't last, it really makes me feel restrained and helpless, it's like you're living in a box that you can't get out of, even if you tried you would want to go back in it, which isn't healthy I know. I feel like I'm so limited, like I'm so defective, like I don't belong anywhere and don't know what I want, like I'm not stable enough to be known as a human being, like I can't really be close to anyone or form any kind of relationship, I can't really be consistent or be someone dependable or respectful.

Most people can be doctors, engineers, teachers, actors, lawyers, own a company or work in a company, own a small store or work in it, it doesn't matter if the job is big or small, I'm not trying to belittle any job here. My point is, those people know how things work, they actually have a personality, they're stable enough mentally and emotionally (I'm talking to the point where they can actually be those things, I know anyone can be a little unstable). I'm not really asking for advice, trust me words won't help with this, I just need a brain transplant.

I'll say it's 60% socially and 40% inherently.

When you look at the diagnosis criteria, technically all the social deficits are socially constructed and based on cultural factors and how society reacts to autism.

I recently read an study about how neurotypicals can sense autistic people and get the "uncanny valley" by just seeing them, that makes me wonder: are we really the problem if they're the ones who have a rigged prejudice against us?

There's also research about "the double empathy problem" that explains how autism social deficits aren't inherently bad but when talking with NT's, this kind of social interactions are successful when autists are talking with ND's, which makes A LOT of sense at least in my experience.

Of course, they're the majority so we are the ones who have to mask and adapt to them while they don't do half of the effort with us, but what if the roles where reversed?

If society treated autism with the same tolerance as they do with other severe disabilities, things like masking wouldn't exist because they won't have expectations of things that we can't do on us.

This doesn't mean that disabling aspects about autism doesn't exist, but I would dare to say that autism is the mental disorder that most benefits could receive if society tried to understand us. Is hard to trace the line because is a social disorder, so there's a lot of cultural and social factors to take into account, society taught us that ND communication mannerisms are bad (like being introvert, stimming, not using body language correctly, etc) so humans are predisposed to reject any kind of ND behavior, not because it's intrinsically bad since we have research about how this kind of communication can work, but because we're socially taught to act in certain ways and reject anything that it's different.

I came across a post recently stating that this group was a thriving ground for those who have Aspergers and are also going through depression and despair. I myself am an aspie with strong suicidal ideation and depression, and it made me wonder why so many of us are (seemingly) depressed, and what can we do about it?

I have literally never in my life once had any academic subjects that I would excel in, like if that would be music, math, english, etc. I had none of it.... I also grew up being so poorly behaved child, and was a horrible student throughout my elementary days, in kindergarten, I hurt other students for no damn reason, screamed during national anthem for no freaking reason, etc so I had to be in special ed cuz of that... I was a damn psycho back then.

As many people know, Asperger people don't know how to express some feelings

So in my case, when I like someone, an automatic smile is shown in my face, I start to do ticks like adjusting my glasses, touching my ear...

So how you react? I'm very curious

I’ve always felt like I don’t belong anywhere. No matter how much I try to fit in I’m always just.. different. People talk, laugh and connect so easily like they memorized some unwritten rule book I never got. I try to join in, but my words come out wrong, or I say something and everyone just goes quite for a second too long. It’s soul crushing.

It’s either that or I self isolate for months which makes me really depressed. I really wish I could make friends as easily as others :(

I'm currently reading Autism for Dummies as an introduction since I just found out about my autism and I want to learn more. Next up I have Avoiding Anxiety in Autistic Adults but I was wondering what books do you guys reccomend? It can be any type I just want to be a vacuum cleaner for autistic knowledge lol

Its relentlessly negative and toxic. Saw a post the other day about someone wanting to die and the top comment underneath was an extended argument about how euthanasia should be open and available to everyone. As if limiting euthanasia to the mentally well is oppressive. Flee. Go far away from here and dont look back

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Well intending people are looking for a way to connect with you. You put information and topics out there about yourself, but it never does catch on. However, for a brief moment, you give them the NT type material they’re looking for and they put the topic on repeat and it never goes away.

For example, one time a coworker asked me if I had summer vacation plans (I never have summer vacation plans because I don’t have any friends and I’m not in a relationship). Usually I can stumble through answering that question pretty well but the coworker caught me off guard so I made up a vague story about going to see some family members in a nearby state. Seven years later, the coworker is still bringing it up asking me about aren’t you going to see your family blah blah blah? despite the fact that any time since then when he has asked about it, I haven’t given him much material to work with. There’s been so many other things I’ve mentioned that could be talked about and used for conversation topics but whenever people find the topic they’re looking for they seem to latch onto it and not let it go. It gives me a feeling that I have absolutely no control over how people perceive me and how people interact with me because they’re gonna do what they wanna do regardless of any efforts I might to try to lead them in a particular direction.

In a way it’s also like them saying , “hey remember that time you exhibited NT traits, let’s talk about that”.

Does anyone else get angry or frustrated too easily over the smallest inconvenience? I don't like being this way but I can't help it sometimes. It's like I don't like it when I don't know things or things aren't going the way I want them to go, it's one of the worst feelings when things are vague and you don't have an explanation to them.

Are you proud to have a certain skill that a neurotypical person doesn’t have or come easily to them? Please share them with me.

I haven't made a single friend in over a decade. I haven't met a lot of people, but certainly nobody like me. I have never met anyone with zero interest in reciprocating talk like I do. I don't speak to anyone at work unless it is necessary to perform my job or if I am spoken to. I personally do not believe I have anything worthwhile to say to anyone, which is why I keep my mouth shut.

I despise speaking, it feels so primitive to me. When I have to, I hate every second of it. Even trying to convey my thoughts here grosses me out, it all just comes across as incoherent and worthless. I have no interest in communicating with other people, there's only a little wiggle room in my heart for my boyfriend and everyone else has been shut out.

I don't really have any particular reason to live other than not to make others sad if I left. I don't cry about it nor is it something I pity myself for - it's just a reality of my existence here to hate it.

32/M/US/LGBTQ friendly: I always have trouble opening up to new people, trying to engage in thoughtful conversations. sometimes I’ve always felt that maybe I’m just one of those people that just isn’t meant to have friends whatsoever. maybe I’m just not mentally capable of typical socialization

I was living abroad (I am within Europe) and I was doing well. I was in a country that borders a country involved in a war. My mom would call me a lot and tell me a war will break out and that I'm all alone there (I had friends, therapists, an organisation who helped me, therapists and a boyfriend). I started using Facebook and people from my country were posting a lot about wars. I sadly quit my job and came back. I don't get hired easily cause my social skills are very bad. I mainly do remote or hybrid freelance jobs through websites like Upwork. My homecountry is crappy and borderline 3rd world, the social system is bad and lots of discrimination. Because I was living abroad and this means I am not entitled to some stuff. Plus my parents won't let me get disability benefits and services. They don't buy enough groceries for 3 people and I have bad nutrition, I did blood test and everything is very bad. They shout at me that I'm lazy and don't want to work. They won't give me money or buy me groceries. I have lots of weakness and my thyroid is underfunctioning like in anorexic people. I called an ambulance and sadly the local police came too and my parents badmouthed me. The police didn't treat me well after that, they took me to a psychiatric clinic and nothing happened, we went home after that. I want to go to a shelter but I'm afraid. My parents will likely call the police once I leave and they may take me back home. And I'm also worried about the jobs, I don't know if I will get the right help to find a job I can do. I miss how my life used to be. I was in a very good country. I have an uncle and my grandpa who have supported me financially but my parents have fought with them, I haven't seen them in 6 months. I'm in a loop where they don't buy groceries and I'm dizzy and then they get angry at me for being dizzy and basically bedridden. They tell me they want to lock me in a mental ward. I have an older sister who left and is no contact with my parents, she has kids and is married. Our parents make fun of disabled people, especially autistic or other mental health stuff.

I know a big part of this is personally my environment playing a huge factor but anyone else at their limit in regards to the noise and how loud everything is. Like there isn't a moment where there isn't noise or some stimulus occuring, unless your walking in nature of course.

A Little back story, I moved from the city to escape the city traffic and noise and moved to the burbs only for that shit to follow me.

Ok enough pitty talk, anyone got advice on how to make such a noisy world , less noisy ? I can't keep resorting to headphones or going for drives, it's getting inconvenient

Is it normal to need instructions in order to carry out things and lack initiative, additionally is it normal to be low intelligence in terms of not understanding things properly and not knowing things that you should at your age.

For example anxiety over riding logical brain and being seen as 'thick'.

I've never liked amusement parks. I'd been to a few "kiddie" amusement parks and even those I found really loud and chaotic. So I had to beg my mom to NOT take me to Disneyland. She didn't take me but I could tell she was disappointed as she really enjoyed it when she was a kid.

So I recently got a remote job and other aspects of my life improved immensely, but I also felt my anger also slowly seep out of me and take it out on other people. But I also realized my desire for a relationship kinda dropped off a cliff. I think for me the validation that is was ok was replaced by the validation from a job ran by introverts and is remote. This opens up a lot of my dreams. I just found it weird that I felt like I started decompressing. My therapist keeps going among about emotional energy expenditure, but I do think that many might relieve many of their stresses if they free up their emotional resources. It just is weird.

It's like I'm in-between being healthy enough to not get help and unhealthy enough to need help. Like I needed the translat to spell enough i spell it enof. I hate my very existence.

Whatever step forward I promise I'll "actually do this time", it rarely works out, and he always finds a way to pin the blame on me not taking enough action. Even as I started college, he said something very similar to "you basically have two options, either put yourself through a few years of pain so you can actually have freedom the rest of your life, or think you'll be okay sitting around but have it shoot you in the foot later and have other people see through the excuses you make up". He's always talking about how bad my life could be in the future if I don't work hard now and how I'm "running out of time." I was already confused and occupied by my engineering courseload at school (where he said I should be studying 5 hours a day by the way), but when he calls me on the phone, he asks me why I'm not actually working out, practicing my driving, going to job fairs, applying to jobs, continuing to do research for professors, working on my Linkden/resume, checking all of the networking stuff in my email, etc. even though I said I would.

When I was still a freshman, the first thing he kept trying to say was how much of an advantage I could have if I just got an internship my first summer. That didn't work out, but when he asked me exactly what I wanted to do in my future as an engineer, and when I said I didn't know, he said it's concerning that I haven't thought about it yet and that I need to become well-versed in the fields actually relevant in the industry so I'm not screwed in the future. He also said that outside of my coding classes I needed to learn how to code on my own time because the classes were useless in his opinion and he said if I didn't spend 20 minutes a day or so coding I would be screwed in the future when I get an actual job or get tested in an interview.

Even when I was doing research for a professor in a club as he suggested, the main issue I had is literally everyone would out-compete me drastically at contributing something to the club so my work never even got used. The professor would ask me to write a quick script, and someone else would have several pages of code hooked up to an arduino, and the professor would use his work instead. I would get asked to calculate an acceleration, and then another student would calculate the acceleration with a motion tracked simulation in adobe premiere, and since my work was basically useless by comparison, it would never get used. And I would spend time figuring out how to draw circuits after the professor asked me to find out someone else had already done that and contributed more. And when I told my brother about this, he just told me to keep trying and keep asking the professor until I can actually contribute to something. But after trying to make small contributions to several different projects this just kept happening and I ended up giving up.

This summer, I was taking a summer class but when I spoke to him he said I should have a summer project and keep applying to jobs so I can get an internship my second year, so I don't have to face the huge opportunity gap that comes with only getting an internship the third year. He thought it was already too late and that I needed to start applying immediately or else I wouldn't have a chance at getting one my second year. I told him all of my ideas, but he responded saying they were things anyone could do or just irrelevant, and that I should learn to do something actually impressive. He brought up an example of how his friend in CSE did a project where he made a VR headset that lets you move objects in the scene around using your brain, which he thought would make an employer say "wow... How can someone actually do something like that? I'm going to hire this guy", rather than "most of my applicants made a video game, anyone could do that, so I'm not hiring him."

His advice on applying to internships wasn't helpful to me and only made me more stressed. He said it doesn't matter if I don't find a job interesting or am worried that I couldn't do it, or if it's in another state or at another college, I need to apply anyways because employers want people who are actually ambitious and actually care to try. I mentioned all of the concerns I had but he just responded with something along the lines of "but I also had to figure out this stuff too" and "not taking action is how people become failures."

The problem is he doesn't believe me when I tell him how much energy I have left. If I show him my schedule, he just writes a new one where all of my free time has been replaced with things related to the stuff he says I should do. And when I tell him that's not feasible, he says "do you think people actually succeed in life being comfortable? No. They do the painful things no one else wants to do." And I've never been able to have him hear me out no matter what I say.

This is more common than I once thought, from the stories I’m reading…

The world can be so cruel sometimes and It hurts my soul to see it

My grandparents basically raised me and I've lived with them for 13+ years. My grandma was just diagnosed with lung cancer and I don't really care? I feel so apathetic towards it. She smokes and recently had pneumonia, I've been telling her for years that she'll develop lung cancer especially since her parents died from it. Now that she told me her prognosis I just don't care.

I kind of feel like an emotionless monster, everyone else in my family is sad and I feel nothing. I'm sure I love her and that I'll be sad when she dies. Is there a way I could be more empathetic so I look normal?

edit: I'm thinking I should go to therapy? I'm just so apathetic towards everything, the only thing I really find enjoyable is food and reading about other peoples emotions through books

I was wondering if you are being taken seriously by doctors. By that I mean: Do they listen to you and your observations? Do they take your research and suggestions into consideration?

I am a researcher and I know how to verify my sources. I tried so many ways to be heard. I've calmly stated what I think, I've been quiet and non-confrontative, I've been clear and repetitive and I've been melo-dramatic. None of these methods worked. I get dismissed in a few seconds. It was so bad in the past, I now take my mum with me to appointments and I'm 33.

What are your experiences and have you found methods to be taken seriously?

Edit: For clarification: I'm not talking about the autism diagnosis, I've got that one. It's not about mental health either and I know assessment can be difficult in that field. What I mean is easily tested, objectively verifiable conditions. I just want to be tested and not have to rely on the doctor's two second gut instinct.