Sorry i just idk where to post this.

My nono (grandpa) is dying. Only hours left now. Only just found out he was even in this state while visiting my sister for the first time in awhile. Had his wife give him a final message. Having a rough time.

Called my dad (not my nono's son) and he helped me with it but. Feeling guilty for not reaching out more. Would have liked to see him more over the years. He came into my life late because my mom didnt talk to him until i was in highschool. But he was very good to me. Got to see him one more time at my sisters wedding a few years ago at least. Plus his wife sent him my love one last time.

But loss is hard. And looking forward and not woulda coulda shouldaing is hard.

Had a good cry in the shower though. Cathartic. I dont cry much.

It feels weird to say but I hate them. I don't know if I Would describe them as painful, but they're definitely uncomfortable. It does not feel right in my chest or my throat. And I hate how irregular the rate at which I inhale/exhale air is when I try to do it slowly. And I can't breathe in/out for as long as I've been instructed to. Ok when I write all that out it kind of sounds like I have a medical problem. But to my knowledge my breathing is fine I passed the test with that thing doctors wear around their neck the stegosaur or whatevr

The reason I ask is because I'm autistic, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 18 so I never received any kind of assistance growing up. And every time I've used an NMDA antagonist drug, I've experienced amazing relief from all of my sensory issues.

I've never tried Ketamine, but I have used DXM and Nitrous Oxide, both of which are also NMDA antagonists. It's like they partially sever the connection between the mind and the body. Nitrous Oxide isn't very useful for this because it only lasts a couple minutes before you need to redose, but even on lowish doses of DXM I feel totally unencumbered.

My sensory issues tend to take up a lot of cognitive load when I'm out in public and interacting with strangers, resulting in social anxiety. My whole life I've been too focused on the feeling of wanting to crawl out of my own skin too much to put any effort into being social, making friends, or having fun.

But on NMDA antagonists that all just goes away and I finally feel free and clear headed in a way I had never imagined possible. They literally just make me feel free to be me. Has anyone else here experienced something similar? Is there any existing research on this?

So I am finally able to express insecurities about my body that I've held onto my whole life due to, you know, feeling like a singularly fucked up freak which unfortunately is a common experience for us autistics and neurodivergent folks. I've had some recent experiences that have me feeling pretty down about my body and I guess I want to write it down and get some validation from others that may share some of these experiences or have some guidance or information to understand myself better. Unfortunately, some of these "quirks" lead to some serious social avoidance behaviors and anxiety because I feel like I have no control over when my body seems to decide to just stop working properly. I just want to understand better why I, for example, can seemingly randomly lose my coordination and take an embarrassing tumble or knock over and break things; why I can overheat and start sweating profusely so easily; why my reflexes can be so reactive and I get jumpy or overreact, like having a gag reflex that can cause me to puke or spit up over nothing; why I can sometimes be very sensitive to pain or not feel it all; why I have IBS and other stomach issues that don't seem to correlate to any particular food or activity; why I have nerve pain in my legs and restless legs; why I can sometimes feel the constant urge to go to the bathroom or have embarrassing episodes of sexual dysfunction. I hope this post doesn't come across too much like a "woe is me" thing, just trying to understand myself better so I can stop feeling so insecure about something I can't control. How much of this is related to general executive dysfunction that is a hallmark of autism and ADHD? Does anyone else have similar experiences? Is it possible some of this is completely unrelated to neurodivergence? Do others also feel this way about their body?

And it’s hitting as hard as it probably could right now. Does anyone else wish they could just live life in a vacuum, their decisions completely unperceived

And somehow I always guess wrong

I feel like I get nothing emotionally out of socializing with people. Even when I'm around close friends and family, I basically feel nothing. This makes it so I don't even go out seeking social events anymore and have a lot of difficulty making friends. I know that I have to go outside and interact with people instead of staying in my bedroom 24/7 like some kind of hermit if I want to be a healthy and well adjusted adult, but I have no drive to do so. It's not even a social anxiety issue or a lack of social skills. When I am around others, they even tend to like me. I feel like some kind of sociopath for not being able to like them back though.

Does anyone else have this issue? Is there anything I can do about it? The past several years of my life since I stopped beating myself up my emotional state has been basically a flat line. I feel live I'm incapable of truly living as opposed to just continuing to exist.

I noticed a trend in some online interview show recently where hosts ask guests to bark like a dog. I really bristle at that, it would be tough to convince me you don't want to just laugh at me.

I went to Ren Faire for the first time recently, and had a hard time picking an outift to wear because I didn't want to stand out as no-fun, or as being enthusiastic but failing in execution. once I was there of course it was easy to see what an appropriate outfit is.

anyone had similar experiences/thoughts? I realized that I'm averse to being intentionally silly.

it feels like I've had to work hard in my life to not be unintentionally silly or weird (masking), so situations that ask "hey, be weird" leave me very guarded at first.

Part of the reason I have autism in my name is so comrades I expect to be able to do so will not try to dunk on me for normal autistic behavior like caring about accuracy in rhetoric.

Please don't take a defensive stance and attack me like I'm some federated user (not that you all aren't obnoxiously agressive with federated users who havent actually earned it anyway sometimes, ive called it out a few times recently) spouting liberal rhetoric.

This is an obvious subtweet so fuck it i'm just going to screenshot what im talking about

In this thread I was arguing with the federated lib elsewhere, which was easy to see. But these two users here @Kieselguhr@hexbear.net and @ElHexo@hexbear.net decided to compare me to liberal fact checkers (liberal fact checkers use differences that dont actually matter to try to spin things as false, this is not what was happening here, as I wasnt trying to spin Kieselguhr as false, merely give them advice, AND the difference actually is material). Which frankly is an insulting comparison to make towards an autistic comrade. Then ElHexo decided to tell me information I already knew but wasnt relevant to the correction I made.

Fact checking isnt inherently wrong and playing fast and loose with information in your rhetoric isnt lib shit. Don't give people holes to gotcha you with lmao. Caring about truth is supposed to be one of our values. We are materialists. The fact that they got upbeared over me for this dunk bothers me too, wish I could see upbears so I could correct everyone involved in that too. Please, as leftists, care about truth and dont give liberals opening to gotcha you with. The fact that you've let the bad faith actions of liberal fact checkers start to make you post-truth is not a good sign. Readjust your thinking.

Finally, you really shouldnt approach any fellow Hexbear doing this by assuming bad faith like this, but especially not one with autism in the username. I was trying to improve rhetoric, not prove you wrong. Coming at me aggressively was not an appropriate response. We really should have an official rule of assuming good faith from fellow Hexbears. Especially long standing ones like myself, and ones who are open about being neurodiverse on top of that.

I have pretty much given up on being social at all any more because of how much I seem to resist it, even though I WANT to go out and do things and make more friends and be consistent. But it's just so exhausting, I dissociate when I'm out and about unless I'm drunk, I get super anxious about what to talk about, etc etc. I've been going to punk and metal shows for like 20+ years but now I pretty much have resigned myself to the fact that I just am not gonna go anymore because I just disappoint myself again and again after I tell myself I wanna go, but then when it comes down to it I figure out a way to just avoid it. And that makes me sad.

I'm AuDHD, and currently exploring meds. Has anyone noticed an impoved ability to socialize/go out in public when medicated?

Excerpt:

I originally conceived of neuroqueer as a verb: neuroqueering as the practice of queering (subverting, defying, disrupting, liberating oneself from) neuronormativity and heteronormativity simultaneously. It was an extension of the way queer is used as a verb in Queer Theory; I was expanding the Queer Theory conceptualization of queering to encompass the queering of neurocognitive norms as well as gender norms––and, in the process, I was examining how socially-imposed neuronormativity and socially-imposed heteronormativity were entwined with one another, and how the queering of either of those two forms of normativity entwined with and blended into the queering of the other one.

I don't know if it's an ADHD thing for me or some undiagnosed Autism thing but, for part of my life I used to make lists to try and prevent procrastination spirals. And the lists would get too big and I would fail them as the backlog grew. It makes me very wary of planning to this day. Has anyone else dealt with this in such a context?

I don't even know how to start unpacking this, but I just need to vent about it. I am late self-diagnosed audhd afab, gen X who has learnt a lot of unhealthy hustle culture and looking busy brainworms over the years. Been down the burnout path a few times too before I realized my neurotype around 2020.

I am currently working in a client facing, but also laptop touching position where I am constantly "out of work". I am always on top of the things I should do, because I always do them right away or otherwise I know I would forget them. I have constant "impostor syndrome" and question myself on whether I am doing enough, because I always end up with all this downtime. The work has no set structure and we very much manage ourselves. I have secretly compared my calender to my coworkers and I tend to have more client appointments than most, yet for example this week I have just been bored out of my mind for days. And questioning if I am somehow doing this wrong.

I am having a remote day today and am just here posting. I don't know why I feel weird about it when rationally I know that I very much earn my wage and just do the work differently than others. I for example write very fast. And solve things very fast.

But my question remains, do neurotypicals just fake it? Or do they think they are busy all the time? I for one do a lot of remote work and at the office I introvert it. I am always about the work, not socializing much, so my worktime never goes to those things.

I eat at my desk while I work too, I tried the neurotypical style of taking breaks, but it just doesn't work for me mid-task. My breaks are the bus drives to clients houses or slacking in the morning pretending to be online in Teams.

But I am having to do a lot of pretending and I think that is the part that is draining me. I actually really like my work and am probably pretty good at it, but this keeping up appearances stuff is exhausting and causes all kinds of self doubt.

I did teaching previously and the daily structure in it with the shorter day was a lot easier to handle. But I can't find things to do for eight hours in my current work. And I know nobody works eight hours in the office, but why is the pretend so hard for me? I feel weird listening to audiobooks in my worktime and I want to stop feeling that way, but I think it's the autistic lawful good that makes me feel kind of bad about it.

Went to a beach with some friends and wasn't able to wash my feet off before getting in the car. The car had rubber mats and I just had to hover my feet above it but even that was miserable. I don't remember being so bothered by textures as a kid, it often feels like that symptom has gotten so much worse. The car ride was only 10 ish minutes but it felt like forever and I had to hold back tears for a good portion of it.

Now I am isolating myself from everyone and my girlfriend is bringing me food from the kitchen. Everyone other than my girlfriend thinks I have a headache. Idk what I'd do without her. The sourdough toast and stardew valley are making me feel better as well.

Idk how to end this I just needed to get it out yk?

It feels like such a weight off of my back to have a real, solid report, from a medical professional, telling me that I have ADHD. I had a standard neurodivergent burnout experience, where I was good in primary school but in secondary school as a teenager, found that I was not achieving my potential. I always felt like I should have been doing better than I was. But it was so hard for me to bring my attention to things I didn't care about. Grades and attendance started slipping and I made sloppy mistakes.

Things only got worse once I moved out for college. Now I had no one to remind to empty bins and clean my room, to provide a consistent schedule like my parents had. I was procrastinating on assignments, even ones I wanted to do, until the last possible second - I remember turning in an assignment literally less than 10 seconds before the deadline. Sitting down and writing an essay was a Herculean task in my head, and instead of addressing it, I would avoid it. I would lie on my bed or go to the gym or talk with my friends, because it physically felt like I couldn't start a new task. And the more important they were, the less I wanted to do them. I told myself that I was just bad at being an adult, I lacked discipline and was facing the consequences of my laziness. But I was never able to change anything about it.

Now I know, for sure, why I'm like this, and how to change. I also know that I'm just lazy, my brain just kinda sucks and is not built for the kind of work that I have to do. I know that I can get treatment and that there are other people like me. Its such a relief.

Occasionally once every couple months I'll have break down level paranoia where I believe even family and friends have a plot to kill me. It's not often but it's scary when it does happen. I used to abuse heavy stimulants, so I'm wondering if this is residual stimulant psychosis, ptsd, or bipolar with paranoia (I've had that thrown at me)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5081421

I've been calling it for years.

I believe it, honestly. The guy's clearly Autistic, always has been (I mean, of course). Him and the team at ILM. Probably PDA Autistic, like me.

Don't worry, I'm back on my anti-psychotic. I already feel much more balanced, albeit without as much energy. I went to therapy today and just told my therapist everything. Gotta say, she's a really good therapist. She had me fully think out why I don't like taking my ant-psychotic.

I've always struggled with understanding my feelings as someone on the spectrum. Schizoaffective makes this extra complicated, with lots of strong emotions but also mostly flat affect. Anti-psychotics dampen the emotions to the point it feels like I can't recognize them, because it seems like I can only recognize my emotions when they're extreme and overwhelming. She explained this to me by pointing out that I'm barely in touch with my physical needs like being hungry or needing to use the bathrom, so emotions So we're going to work on learning how to know how I'm feeling without being in the extremes. I think this will make it easier to stay on the meds from now on. Thank you all for the support last night, it really means a lot

I have schizophrenia, a condition that fights itself being treated. I do pretty well on the meds. I'm pretty happy on the meds. But I still want to just abandon them and go all the way into being an addict until death. Part of me just doesn't want to do well. No matter how solid the solid becomes, I feel this deep need for these massive good and bad swings. I don't just need the highs of the psychotic mania, I need the lows too. A part of me wants to eat my hand again.

I've gone about a week without my anti-psychotic. I'm kinda split on whether or not I should take it tonight. I know this may seem like too much, but please convince me to take my meds

I do and I hate myself for it. Often my thumbs are all bloody and fucked up looking because my anxiety is high. gah.

WHERE TO GET THE BOOK: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=F6B31A8DAFD6BD39A5986833E66293E6

PRIOR THREADS:

• Introduction
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Catch-up/Revival
• Chapter Four attempt one and Do-Over

In this chapter, Dr. Price discusses various ways of reframing and rethinking autism. Once the decision has been made to unmask, there comes the issue of what exactly that looks like. To even begin the work of rebuilding an identity that celebrates autism rather than hiding it as a source of shame, you must first reframe the way you perceive autism.

Step one is of course recognizing you're autistic and then discovering what that means. Step two is re-examining painful labels that are enforced by a society that devalues neurodivergent behaviors, stims, and ways of thinking. Recognizing that you are not cringe, you just been touched by the 'tism. Dr. Price provides a number of charts and exercises that help the reader reframe autistic tendencies as things that have value in and of themselves and that are a core part of an autistic person's identity. Reducing self-stigma is a key part of the process of reclaiming your identity. Regarding your "deficient" social graces as having some advantages -- being principled, being passionate, etc. -- can rebuild some of that eroded self-esteem that came from years of rejection and correction by people who insisted you conform to an arbitrary set of behaviors determined by random chance and trend over centuries of cultural construction.

He goes over ways to think about how your autistic traits have actually improved your life and helped define who you are. If I hadn't been an obsessive reader since the time I was a toddler I probably wouldn't be so good at writing. If I hadn't been obsessed with video games my entire life I'd probably not be so good at constructing fictional worlds and characters and dialogue. If I wasn't so focused on making people laugh as a defense mechanism and way to endear myself to them out of a desperation for someone, anyone, to accept and like me, I probably wouldn't be so goddamn funny

Celebrating special interests comes up. I love bugs, for instance, and got a lot of enthusiasm in the responses for my late-night bugposting when I was deep in the pits of depression. My new girlfriend shares my passion for cheesy romances between humans and nonhumans. Dr. Price tells the story of Clara, who was obsessed with Pete Burns. When she went to college she shelved that interest to be "normal" and it depressed her so much that she had to move back home. Once she was surrounded by her Pete Burns shit and Pete Burnsing it up with her online friends again the depression disappeared like a bad dream. The lesson is: embrace your special interests and draw life from them. Also, you can have more than one. In fact it's pretty common for ASD folks to go super hard on a few things to varying degrees over our lives. Just roll with it. Enjoy yourself. You're not a weirdo if you collect baseball cards, but somehow if the pieces of cardboard have pictures of Yu-Gi-Oh! on them you're a cringe failure (which you know is impossible since you have the Heart of the Cards). Fuck the haters.

Plunging these special interests can help you develop the key values identified in earlier chapters (remember that shit? I didn't lmao) to help you find key moments that illustrate these things in action. Dr. Price gives the example of confronting a drunken asshole trying to force himself on a young woman and getting between the two of them until the girl could get away. A frightening moment but one that showed his commitment to justice and protecting people who need help.

The chapter closes out with Dr. Price talking about the concept of having gratitude for your past self for doing what you needed to do in order to survive and protect yourself from a harsh world that usually misunderstood you. Those years weren't wasted. You did the best you could. You're uniquely you and through it all have remained as such and just need to re-awaken the parts you've hidden out of shame.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• Any passages that stuck out to you? Things you need explained? Things you want to expand upon?
• Any certified he literally me fr moments?
• If you'd care to share any of your values or moments or special interests or whatnot below and how they've given your life value, please do. Tell us about your pokeymans

As usual, tag post to follow in comment.

Almost all of my closest friends have been diagnosed as bipolar at some point over the past decade. They just kept on coming. I just tend to gravitate toward y’all. I’ve been assessed myself and don’t seem to have it, so idk what that’s about. I know being bipolar can be hard and has a lot of stigma attached, so I just wanted you to know you’ve got someone in your corner.

I broke down today in a public setting when someone deliberately attempted to annoy me because they enjoy my reactions when I get upset. My question is, how to deal with such things? Any hexbears who regularly deal with this or have suggestions on how to handle such situations? Am I just fucked with dealing with assholes?

I have to work with this person every day, and I can't wear headphones/ play music/ do things to block them out like I normally would. I just got this job but I'm already to the point where my mental health is being trashed after just a few weeks. Am I SOL? Anyone have anything that could help with this, even if it's suggestions on dealing with over stimulation in a work setting as someone with autism? I keep my ND a secret; no one knows I'm on the spectrum. ...am I overreacting?