A nice pressed blue suit is really off putting to me.

I think it's similar to why come people are put off by clowns? Like they're wearing a mask and are hiding something.

Paranoid, huh!

As an AuDHD person, the college dropout story is relatable to me, except for the YouTube career success. I grew up in a madhouse during my traumatic childhood, and going to college free from my backwards, overprotective, overly strict parents was essentially like falling off a cliff. I was already burnt out during my last year of high school, and I was too excited with the freedom and ended up wasting time playing video games and skipping classes regularly because I had little energy to function as an adult. I still struggle with burnout to this day due to being an overworked IT contractor for years.

I've been occasionally visiting online communities for autistic people and been finding some of the things they talk about relatable. I know there are autistic posters on here so I'd like to ask you some questions.

1. What are some of the signs of autism?

2. How to tell the difference between autism and just being an introvert?

3. Is there any reason to seek autism diagnosis as an adult?

I watched a couple of videos of a girl with autism talking about some aspects of how she experienced it. One topic she discussed and gave an example of was what I think is called echolalia. I don't know but, for as long as I could remember, even up to today, I have always enjoyed repeating lines of dialogue or noises I have found funny. Not necessarily immediately but, often when I feel the situation feels appropriate, though most other people won't understand that since they cannot read my mind to get the context I'm referring to. Basically these repeated noises or lines can be triggered by responding to some sort of stimulus, like the topic of a conversation. This has got me thinking about whether this is a symptom of autism.

For example, yesterday when I was preparing some food to take for lunch on my day trip, I heard a typical news story about the American’s blowing hot air about returning to the moon. Now of course that story begins with a reference to the original Apollo program, including Kennedy’s Rice University speech. In middle school, during the 50 year anniversary of the program, this commercial played nonstop of the clip from the Rice speech where Kennedy says the word “moon.” At the time, I thought the way he said the word in his New England accent was funny so I repeated the word as an exaggerated “moo.” When I heard the context of the news story, I started to say “moo” in reference to the Rice speech. This then runs into a stream of monologue that I've gone through before, all of which I find funny but, to a stranger would seem quite unusual.

Then another time today, when two people near me were talking about cars and mentioned a jeep, that triggered the specific memory of a one-off character on an episode of MASH I saw 12 years ago. It was the way the guy on TV said the word jeep that made me copy and remember the sound. Then my mind went to remembering the rest of the dialogue. All during that moment, I lightly held back the urge to say the words I found most funny out loud because I knew that would make me look unusual to most observers.

I can do this when talking to people or more often, when I'm talking to myself, even in the vicinity of others. I know this probably makes me unusual in their opinions of me but, part of me just doesn't care since I know from life experience most of them would still ignore me if I acted the way they wanted me to be. In those cases, I usually chalk it up to acting like a jokester to get attention but these videos made me reconsider that a bit.

For additional context, I had some college officials at the child autism center suggest I get evaluated but, I was turned off by the runaround with trying to find local adult resources for this issue (I love stress and procrastination). The same thing was suggested by my high school guidance counselor after a rough year where I reverted to taking my ADHD meds to improve my grades, though my mother felt insulted at the suggestion given to her by the evaluators that she just dropped it there and never explored it further.

I don't know. I've heard that autism can vary from person to person but, I guess one thing that keeps me doubting every time my suspicions bubble up is comparing myself to my college roommate, who was diagnosed during the time I lived with her. She showed symptoms that I don't have and that has reassured me in saying that I do not have autism.

So I guess I'll ask if these instances I've described above sound like symptoms of autism? There are plenty of other times I've acted like this in everyday life but, I wanted to provide a couple of concrete examples of what I'm talking about so I provided the most recent examples I could remember.

Also, does repeating certain words you latch onto occasionally during a time of stress constitute a symptom, because now that I'm thinking about it, I've been conscious of doing that for at least 15 years or so. The word or phrase tends to change every couple of years.

I appreciate your input on all of this. I'm so isolated all the time that I never get to compare notes with peers.

Edit: I just thought of another example right now. When I hear a certain type of doorbell sound, that gives me the strong urge to say the phrase "quorum call." That one again comes from when I was a teenage lib and watched C-Span on occasion. I don't know the exact thought process but, that's a thing for me and I try not to say it out loud in front of strangers.

Is anybody here familiar with this thing?

I'm talking to a psychiatrist to get assessed for ADHD, but in order to start treatment, if necessary, I'll first have to do this neuropsychological assessment called the WEIS test. It's expensive as shit, more than 2k, but seems to be the only way for me to get any kind of treatment. I can either pay that amount or wait 8-10 months to get it through my health insurance.

I did some digging and apparently it's this assessment of intelligence that can only be applied by qualified professionals. It frankly sounds like I'm about to get my brainpan measured. Have any of you taken this exam? Is it as stupid as it sounds? Has it helped you receive and/or validate a diagnosis?

Honestly it fucking sucks to me, having to jump through all these hoops just to have somebody listen to me and say "you have/don't have ADHD".

I get a three-month supply of Vyvanse\Lisdexamfetamine, and starting with my previous resupply, shortages were finally impacting me personally. My doctor (who I've come to believe is a shithead) wasn't much help (and continues to be no help). Instead of calling around to every tom-dick-and-harry pharmaceutical establishment, I signed up for mail-order meds through my insurance, which I only learned was available to me on my last resupply.

Anyway, on the last resupply it took me almost three weeks to get things sorted and delivered, so I was out for almost a month. This resuply wasn't any different. I get perscribed the generic, the mail-order pharmacy sends me a message that only says "We have an issue with your perscription, we've sent a message to your doctor." A few days later, I contact the doctors office after no updates to see why the pharmacy contacted them, only to be met with "Nobody contacted us. We have nothing." (rude, and not helpful) So I call the pharmacy and they help me sort things out on their end (nice, and very helpful). They also tell me the contact information they have for my doctors office, and confirm they used those numbers to contact them. They confirmed they faxed and left a voice mail. The women I was working with on the phone told me "I've never seen the namebrand be out of stock here. The generic is out of stock all the time. Its $30 more for the namebrand." ($40 instead of $10).

I call back the doctors office, I don't bother interigating them about loosing a fax, or not responding to the pharmacy because they've done this before and my doctor told me last time, straight up, "it's not really my job to hunt around and find where its available". This was in response to a message from the pharmacy inquring for alternatives. I get it, you're not going to call other pharmacies, but you didn't even reply (in both instances now), to the message to see if the name brand was in stock or what the fuck ever. (This, among other reasons, is why he's a shit head and I need to find a new one). I get them to fill for the name brand and I finally get a shipping notification.

Well now the Post Office fucked up my delivery. I know from the first resuply using mail-order that I have to sign for it when it arrives. So I left from work early to be at the house to sign for my shit, but a mail truck never arrived. The status update changed to "Awaiting delivery - expect delivery next business day" so I waited a day, then before they closed that day I went to the Post Office to see if they had it (which is what I had to do last time). This time, they had nothing... They said someone would look for it at the main post office in town and call me back (the guy was nice, took my info, called that office, gave them my number). I get no call back at all.

So today, after getting zero sleep for a bunch of compound reasons (some being related to lack of medication and stress over lack of medication), I camped out in the post office parking lot until it opened (worked out to be an hour wait based on all the other morning shit and how it ligned up with them opening). They had my shit, it was sitting on a shelf they use to hold the "Adult Signature Required" packages, and no one loaded it into the truck.

END RANT

So anyway, now I'm wondering if it would be easier to just get a P.O. Box at the post office explicitly for having my medication delivered there. I didn't think to ask it while I was there, but I imagine that gets me around the "Adult Signature Requierd" step, since I have to go there to get anyway. I also figure, since this is going to get fucked up for me every 3 months, and I have to go to the post office anyway, they can put my shit in the P.O. Box instead of somewhere in their warehouse.

This can't be just a me thing right? Is there a way to optimize this outside of the reality that I might have to fuck around every 3 months with figuring out whats in stock? (that should be easier thanks to the mail-order place just having a vastly larger inventory).

I'd be loosing my shit right now, but I'm on my medication, so I'm feeling a lot better.

Every screening and official diagnostic I've taken has me scoring max ADHD points and every time someone describes a symptom I'm left confused that other people don't have them.

Will my personality change? I feel like being a disorganized disheveled loud interrupter is most of my personality at this point idk.

I've never done any stimulants beyond drinking a million coffees per day so i have some anxiety about this

I watched the video linked above yesterday morning, and it really blew my mind. I'm still processing it and would love to discuss it with you all.

It's 08m04s, no music, sound effects, startles, or sponsor shit, just a late-diagnosed woman discussing a revelation she had about communication differences.

She explains it better than I will, but to give you the overview, she thinks that allistics prioritize the parts of the communication process this way:

1. feelings
2. social context
3. information exchange

and autistics instead do

1. information exchange
2. social context
3. feelings

The way she explains it (and the examples she gives) makes so much sense to me. Idk yet how to incorporate that new understanding into my attempts to communicate with allistics, but wow, yeah, this extremely simple difference blew my mind and seems obvious in retrospect.

I feel like I have been pacing and doomscrolling for hours. I think I've burned through like 20 sticks of incense just to watch the smoke. I NEED to do something but there is nothing I want to do.

Normally when it gets this bad I just smoke but I'm out of weed and that probabky isn't a healthy coping mechanism anyway.

They laid off almost everyone at my old job on a few Monday's back. I was already trying to get off pot and booze because they were frankly killing me. I had started Wellbutrin but it was still the 2 week period where that stuff kicks in. When I got told that I was going to be let go I had a really bad mental breakdown. I have PTSD from having an utter shit childhood and really bad episodic MDD. I could not focus and was crying in public which has not happened in a while. I also might have been hearing voices but they are not there anymore. I ended up in a partial hospitalization program under recommendation of my therapist and while it sounded scary it has turned my life around in only 3 days of going.

Next step is they are going to be putting me on Abilify to even out the spikes I have been having. While the Wellbutrin is handling some of my ADHD I want to see if I can change it to 300mg to see if it squashes it along with my MDD episodes that its handling now. The psychologist says I should not be scared of the Abilify even tho I kind of am. She says it will even out the spikes and dips I have been having. Those are what are causing me to cry. I read on the internet too it should be helpful with my autism spectrum issues.

I have been white knuckling it alone for so long that seeing some light on the horizon makes me want to cry with joy. I just hope some of the bridges I have burned can be built back up again because I have left a trail of fire behind me. I am really hoping to figure out this whole vegan thing that I have been so hardcore in hating now that I am not consumed by thoughts of death.

Lastly, I dont know if any of you have had some experiences with Abilifiy if you do I would like to hear about them bad or good. Thank you for reading this my friends, and if you think there is no hope out there remember that other humans have beat what you have and you dont have to go at it alone.

I know it’s a at best a useless mindset, as nothing will make me somehow magically get a new chance at those years. But it’s still a strong feeling and it’s still there.

I’m doing my best to push through it, I’m out there talking to people, but there’s usually a point where we are sharing personal anecdotes and I just feel my stomach tightening, as I barely have any of those. I have no experiences which means I have no identity which means I am uninteresting.

bit of a warning but this is a very sad, pathetic and hopeless post. If you're easily made sad you might wanna sit this one out.

avpd is my own personal hell. Its destroying/destroyed my life. I have 2 "friends" I hardly talk to. Dropped out of college. No real prospects. I was born privileged and have just wasted it. I'm a failure. A husk of a person. I've never been on a single date. I'm just sitting here spinning my wheels. And the wheels aren't really spinning anymore. I'm so desperately lonely, but I just... can't. I don't even know how I'd meet people, if I could step out. I'm so lonely, and sad and FUCK being a social creature. What a cruel joke. A social creature that has a fucking personality disorder so they avoid socializing. WHAT THE FUCK. And this shit's permanent. Its who I am. Sure I can "cope" better but I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING COPE I WANT TO BE NORMAL WTF. I WANT TO BE LOVED AND LOVE PEOPLE AND I JUST CAN'T. ITS TOO DAMN HARD.

I believe that the Vyvanse shortage is being taken care of and I did get (only) 10 Vyvanse capsules that were Generic, but no Brand, from what I could tell.

The problem is that I might have to switch psychiatrists and ADHD meds to get one that isn't in shortage, from Vyvanse to something else, maybe Adderall.

How is Adderall?

Is it still in shortage or has anyone noticed that it's doing better in terms of supply?

If not, then I may have to switch to an obscure ADHD med. Or get a lower dosage of the one I'm getting. Or maybe a slightly higher dosage. Whatever works. My current psychiatrist is currently too, err, stingy with what they dispense.

Any advice?

Tips? Tricks? Stuff I should know?

I'm currently doing my own research, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

we will spend literally years trying to hyper-optimize the tiny amount of space we have (use our willpower to force ourselves to do things), before we spend resources to get more space (more energy to do things) by getting a bigger drive (or fixing the issues that make us not want to do things)

sure we have to organize our storage sometimes, but if we have to do it a lot or an excessive amount, something is very wrong

btw the reason we do this is because actually fixing issues costs societal resources and we prefer to shift blame on random disabled people rather than support them and take a small profit hit (see: we don't get bigger drives because it costs money)

just wanted to let everyone know that i do read everything, react IRL, and upbear. my social anxiety and ADHD has crawled even into my posting/commenting online which i was immune to when younger. i was wild in early forums and chatrooms

also not sure how long is too long to reply. things move slower in the lemmyverse but i'm so afraid of a reply being too "stale"

whats everyone else think about reply/comment protocol real or imagined?

Listen up fuckers, cause none of this applies to anybody on this site specifically and I'm just bitching.

I don't have to accomodate neurotypicals who say horseshit like "I don't want to keep a tone tag reference sheet open to have a conversation though", that has officially stopped being a me problem. Similarly, if your response to that is "Communication is a two-way street, so a communication issue is often also a two-way thing", that doesn't sound like I have to accomodate YOUR misunderstanding of MY words, however you have decided to read them. If you decide even in spite of tone tags that I'm being an asshole, frankly get fucked and go decide someone else's emotional state for them. Hell, even if I didn't use tone tags, I shouldn't be required to fucking defend myself from your literal spurious accusations. I've had enough of your disingenuous assertions.

I'm pretty understanding about misreads, just ask me what I meant instead of fucking assuming the absolute worst in people all the time, and also do not go around expecting neurodiverse people to accomodate whatever YOU read into their words all the time. Your fucking problem. It's not their job to sort out your preconceptions and accept whatever emotions you decide for them, which was the point of what I was saying anyway. Ableist shit.

This type of thing has become pretty traumatic over the course of like ten of exactly this type of bullshit, so I don't have the will to cause problems and fight about it but I'm also not willing to constantly cede ground for free to neurotypical expectations.

Definitely check this out.

I'm interested in their repository of data for Autistic people.

Thoughts on the interview?

Listen to it for an hour while you're doing other things.

I hear that this has been tried before but it didn't really land because finding viable substitutes for particular terms can be difficult. I'm fascinated by language though and I wanted to take a shot at this myself.

Just a disclaimer that I'm not trying to drag anyone over using any of these terms and I'm not going to pretend that I'm some paragon of anti-ableism myself - I have work to do on this front, you probably do too and if we all work together we can make some positive change and establish better habits and a more supportive culture in our communities.

Here's a list of words that are more socially acceptable in their ableism and some suggestions for alternatives:

Crazy, Stupid, Dumb, Moronic, Idiotic

[In the sense that something is incorrect or bad]

Silly, foolish, absurd, ridiculous, laughable, nonsense/nonsensical, illogical, incomprehensible, inscrutable, irrational, contradictory, hypocritical, self-defeating, naive, ill-conceived, inane, asinine, counterproductive, unbelievable,

Crazy, Mad

[In the sense of letting loose or being enthusiastic]

Going wild, getting stuck into something, in a frenzy, on a rampage, being engrossed, head over heels, obsessed.

Psychotic, Psychopath, Psycho

[In the sense that something is cruel]

Vicious, bloodthirsty, monstrous, horrific, sadistic, heartless, brutal, ruthless, horrendous, reprehensible, despicable, depraved.

Crippled

Hamstrung, moribund, incapacitated, impaired, ineffective/ineffectual, hog-tied (lol).

What are some other ableist words that are pretty commonplace even amongst the left that you've heard?

Are there terms that I have overlooked or any ones that you use yourself that you'd like to replace?

Check it out.

Highly recommended podcast, though a bit liberal.

Hosts are well-worth it and have their radical moments.

@ashinadash@hexbear.net

Are you involved in an org? Why/Why not?

If you are, what's it like for you as a neurodivergent person? Do you feel like you have a niche or otherwise fit in?

(while this is inspired by meta events this isnt a meta post its just feelings im having about it right now. Im going to have to vageuly explain that without being too specific though).

When you have like, wholesome motives for something, and someone imposes untoward motives for the thing. That sucks a lot!

Ive always had trouble with people like... imposing thoughts when only I own and control my brain. My mom used to like, accuse me of being selfish for things like, say, when our adult cousins came over to help with some work on the house, and I sat in my room relaxing because it was the weekend, and she started yelling at me that Im supposed to ask to help. And my problem was she was accusing me of being actively negligent by not doing so when it was more that my brain never even thought of that in the first place. I wasnt being malicious because its not like I thought of it and proactivly ignored it. I just didnt think of it.

And now today I had warm family emotions towards an image and shared it with others, and they impsosed sexual motives towards me that I didnt have. And that really upset me because my feelings about the image werent about that at all.

I just wish people wouldnt assume like that.