For me, it's not necessarily the work itself. It's everything that comes with it: being around people all day, interpreting social cues, attending meetings, switching between tasks, office politics, small talk, dealing with ambiguity, and constantly having to think about how I'm coming across.

Sometimes it feels like I'm spending energy not just doing the job, but also trying to operate in an environment that wasn't really designed for how my brain works.

I often hear people say "everyone is tired after work", but I'm not sure it's the same thing. By the end of the week I can feel completely depleted and need a significant amount of alone time to recover.

Do other autistic people experience this? Has it improved with age, remote working, different careers, or workplace adjustments?

Interested to hear others' experiences.

The educational assistants at my child's school are about to strike. It's a ridiculous situation with the government refusing reasonable wage increases and I 100% support their right to strike.

But because my child requires an assistant to be at school, she and all the other kids in this boat will not be allowed to go. The calls went out today. Hundreds of parents of disabled kids were just informed their kids are not allowed to be at school and denied their right to an education.

There's nothing I can do, but I'm just so angry.

Hi everyone.

I’m a 26-year-old autistic guy, and I’m writing this here because I feel like this is one of the few places where people might actually understand the specific kind of isolation I’m dealing with.

I want to start by saying that I know I am privileged in many ways. I have a family that absolutely adores me. They support me, they care for me, and I love them deeply. I never take their love for granted. But lately, I’ve realized a hard truth: family love is beautiful and foundational, but it simply cannot replace the warmth, intimacy, and partnership of romantic love. There is a specific void in my heart that family simply can't fill.

Whenever I try to express this longing for a romantic partner, people are always so quick to throw the same tired cliché at me: "You need to love yourself first," or "You need to learn how to be alone and enjoy your own company."

Let me stop that right there. I do love myself. I am incredibly independent. I don’t sit in my room waiting for life to happen to me. I take myself out on walks. I go to concerts alone and immerse myself in the music. I go to the cinema by myself to watch the movies I’m interested in. I have learned how to navigate this world solo, and I do enjoy my own company.

But there comes a point where doing absolutely everything by yourself stops feeling like an empowering act of independence, and just starts feeling incredibly lonely. The solitude begins to weigh a ton. Loving yourself doesn't magically erase the biological and emotional human need for connection.

Being autistic in a neurotypical world is exhausting. The masking, the misunderstandings, the sensory overload... it takes a toll. When I am having a crisis, a meltdown, or just experiencing severe burnout, my mind immediately wanders to how comforting it would be to have a girlfriend. I think about how incredibly healing it would be to just have her wrap her arms around me, giving me a deep, grounding hug that makes the overwhelming noise of the outside world finally go quiet.

I don't want a relationship for superficial reasons. I crave the profound, quiet moments. I want to go on peaceful walks with her where we don't even have to talk if we don't want to. I want us to write handwritten letters to each other, pouring our deepest thoughts, feelings, and special interests onto paper. I want to share new experiences, see new places, and navigate this chaotic life side by side with someone who sees me for exactly who I am and chooses me anyway.

I’m posting this because I just needed a safe space to get this off my chest. Please, I am asking gently: I do not need any criticism, harsh judgments, or unsolicited "tough love" advice right now. I know who I am and I know my worth. I just wanted to be vulnerable for a moment and admit that the loneliness hurts, and that I long for a safe harbor in the form of a partner.

Thank you for reading.

I mean it's a common symptom in autistics and I have it too, but I never understood why exactly that was. Does anyone know why we feel so uncomfortable making eye contact?

For example, when I sear a steak I want it to be perfect, so I research a lot before I do so. When I play a game I want to be committed to be good at it. When I hear music being played in supermarkets I find it awfully irritating because 1. The music is bad, 2. I would rather listen to music on my own. If I were to listen to a piece, I would also try my hardest to seek out the best recordings and best performances(I'm talking about classical music). I would also obsess over choosing the best subtitles for anime, because I want the best possible translations.

I feel this strong drive for depth, precision, and quality in almost everything I engage with. Does anyone else experience this kind of thing?

I'm autistic and was diagnosed as a child around like 6 or so, I don't know if it has to do with my autism but I absolutely HATE and despise phone calls or calls of any type, I prefer texting so much more and often refuse to awnser video calls or phone calls because I just hate them so much,

Is anyone else the same way as me? I've never met someone similar to me in this matter!

Everything’s fine now, but I was on the train last week. It was peak time in the afternoon and I was reading my book.
A group of three girls get on the train squealing so loudly it was making me very anxious and over stimulated. I had my noise cancelling headphone in my bag but they were sitting behind me and it was very loud. So, I tried to be brave and ask them to please stop.
When I did this they started screaming even louder.
I probably would have made it home fine if they didn’t then pull my hair.
I turned around immediately and the girl who probably did it feigns shock and goes “it wasn’t me I swear”.
This all led to me to have a little mini meltdown and start crying.i probably would have been fine but had a mega meltdown the day before.
Then one of her friends sees me crying and is like “dude she’s crying! You’re a hijabi you should know better.” In a very joking way mind you. THIS DID NOT HELP MY SITUATION. I couldn’t move either because there was someone sitting next to me.
Then they started saying stuff about me being white a crying which I thought was weird. They also started playing really loud rap music on their speakers.
I was just trying not to cry but a nice lady came and helped me she gave me some tissues and told the train driver what happened.
I don’t know if it’s the way I look or something but this is the second incident in the last like 4 months.
A few months ago a train worker told some kids not to ride their scooters across the tracks so they called her fat and started saying a lot of really misogynistic stuff to her.
When they seemed to be done me and my friend went to check on her and they came back. Then they called us slurs and said we all look transgender and laughed in my friends face when she said she’s a girl. Which was weird because there is nothing wrong with being transgender and also they were dressed with coloured hair and alternative clothing.
They told me I look like I want to be a dude and can’t make up my mind and we’re generally very rude.
Ever since I’ve been scared of alternative looking teenage girls with coloured hair. Which is a problem because I’m an alternative teenage girl in art school.

Anyways please be nice to people in public because if this is what’s happened to me recently I can’t imagine how many crazy people are out there doing worse to others.

Prosopagnosia = face blindness.

For those lucky enough not to have this symptom, it basically means that I don’t recognize anyone. If I do, it’s because of their hair, clothes, or some odd trait that only they have. If you shaved my mom’s head, hid her tattoos and put her in a lineup, I don’t think I could pick her out. It’s bad.

I currently work in customer service, and obviously, the prosopagnosia isn’t helping matters. Regulars expect me to recognize them, and I can’t do it for the life of me.

But for some godforsaken reason, there is this ONE GUY who I can recognize. And he looks PERFECTLY NORMAL. There’s a million guys that come in every day that, to me, look exactly like him, but I can ALWAYS pick this guy out. He always gets something age-restricted, so I have to ID him, which just confirms it.

It’s so weird. I don’t know why my lifelong disability has decided that this guy is okay to remember. Returning to my earlier hypothetical, I think I could recognize him if he was shaved and put in a lineup.

Has anyone else had something like this happen?

Teachers always used to point this out to me that I was distracted or needed to pay attention. Sometimes closing the blinds so I wouldn’t get distracted by what was outside. I don’t know why that bothered teachers so much. Looking out the window didn’t prevent me from still learning. If anything it made it easier to focus. Rather than looking at 20 people in a room in front of me all shifting and moving. Just always used to drive me crazy like if you want me to physically look at you I’ll look at you but don’t act like I’m not absorbing still jeeezus.

I'd like to see how autistic people's taste differs (I am also autistic)

If you could get rid of just one trait associated with being autistic, what would it be and why?

For me it’s PDA. It’s caused me more suffering than anything else by far.

It doesn’t matter if the task comes from someone else or if it’s something I actually want to do myself. The moment it turns into a “should,” my body refuses before my mind even gets a say. I’ve had this since childhood. I remember waking up and knowing, before I even opened my eyes, that I couldn’t go to school that day. It wasn’t a decision, it was just a fact my body had already settled on. It came with huge fights at home and a whole day of shame afterward, and none of that was ever enough to override it.

As an adult it’s cost me entire chunks of my career. I’m a software engineer and I end up changing jobs often because of this. For the first couple of months somewhere new I can usually still work, because there’s enough to learn and figure out that it doesn’t feel like pure execution yet. But once the novelty wears off, my ability to work just disappears. I’ve gone through repeated cycles of burnout, I’m in one right now actually, three months unable to work. What sets it off isn’t the workload or having to socialize, it’s specifically being handed someone else’s code or vision and having to execute it instead of building my own. The two times in my life I actually felt alive at work were when I was doing R&D with real autonomy. Both times, the moment a manager changed and that autonomy disappeared, the burnout started within months.

It shows up in smaller, weirder ways too. I’ve sat in a chair for half an hour just trying to make myself get up and walk my dog, and it’s not because I don’t want to see him, it’s that “I need to go now” already got flagged as a demand somewhere in my head.

Anxiety doesn’t really feel like the root of it for me either, more like something that shows up after, once I’m already stuck.

What about you? What’s the trait that’s given you the hardest time, and how does it actually show up day to day?

I have one and only one tattoo for now it's 3 flowers one for my sister, one for my mother and one is mine. All are the month flowers of each of our birth months. Does anyone have tattoos and how was the experience for you? I was scared but mostly it was just weird because of the glove on my skin of the artist😅. Also weird nerdy funny idea for a tattoo: 4-LOM from the Lego Star wars games. He's a droid that can open almost all doors

So I recently learned that remembering small details ("facts") about a person can be considered "stalker-behavior" 😞

I thought I was being considerate by showing interest, and had to look it up on Google (see attached image).

Life has too many "unwritten rules," and I just want to crawl into a hole and be by myself forever.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I was asking them for what I thought were impersonal facts about themselves. Yes, I am apparently that socially inept.

My partner hasn't drunk anything hot since I accidentally broke it 2 days ago, he keeps saying its alright but I feel really bad as he wont drink hot drinks out of any other cup, any help on finding a replacement would be greatly appreciated

I can’t make any connections with anyone ever. I just can’t relate to them at all. I always say the wrong thing I’m always weird. I’m not even smart or very good at one thing. I can never focus onto anything and I’m extremely addiction prone. What the fuck is the point of anything.

I like to consider myself a pretty decent cook. I have no real issues with eating what is presented to me and can enjoy disparate varieties of food. That being said, ever since I was about 13 or 14, all I've wanted to eat was a cheeseburger. It's truly the best food and can rarely be messed up. That being said, fast food is horrific for you and im already a touch overweight. Buying ground beef for home cooking is impossible because it's 3 million dollars a pound and also horse.

What can I do to simultaneously boost my burger-intake while not growing laterally and draining my wallet? Turkey doesn't taste the same, store bought is expensive, frozen patties hold the same issues as fast food and store bought combined, and I do not have the willpower to just make it a sometimes food. How do I manage this incredibly frustrating aspect of my diagnosis?

26M here, I was diagnosed as a toddler. Lived a pretty normal childhood. Didn't know much was different about me. It hit around 12 or 13. Everyone suddenly grew up, gained maturity, entered social circles, and I was left in the dust. I did have some friends in childhood, but as soon as I hit those pre teen years, I ended up incredibly isolated for close to a decade. No friends in high school, no romantic experiences. Nothing. At all.

I didn't understand what was going on. I knew I had autism but nobody gives you a manual to deal with this.

Graduated high school and got accepted to University. Struggled, almost quit a few times. ADHD interfered with my studying. Tourettes made me embarrassed to be around people. Still no friends.

Then, after never having a single romantic thought my entire life, one day when I was 22, something woke up inside me. I wanted to experience the things everyone else experienced 5 to 10 years before me.

Got on tinder, tried some dates. I remember the first one was terrifying. Went on quite a few, zero relationships came out of it but gained a few friendships that lasted a couple months.

January 2024 - I met a guy, quickly fell in love, and experienced all those experiences most people had a decade before me.

Heartbreak occurred 4 months later. It just didn't work. However, I learned lessons, but it was tough.

Then, it happened. I met a new guy, went on a first date, and something felt very good. We started meeting a few times a week, and we fell in love and quickly became boyfriends.

Fast forward to now, we've been together 2 and a half years, are engaged and living together.

Moral of story: when it feels hopeless, there is always still hope.

I struggle with so much other stuff still. Impulsive actions, money issues, only a few friends still. Occasional meltdowns. But I am working through it.

After a life of social hell, I found someone who loves me and wants me for who I am. And its amazing.

I still suffer with depression sometimes. But I keep going.

You can do it.

Never give up.

Ever.

Loneliness damaged me badly, and its a work in progress but I am healing, over time.

I'm an AuDHD man of 30 years and I can't stand that song. It's the most unnecessary song in the English language. Not because of the song itself per se, but because when people unpredictably sing it so loudly and obnoxiously at restaurants, events or whatever. That's what I hate most about it.

Ordered by weight :>

I wish I could’ve had my brain cybernetically augmented so that my autism could be suppressed and I could interact normally and know exactly what to say and do in situations. Kind of like having a Cyberbrain in Ghost in the Shell, but more like Togusa and Chief Aramaki, who still has an organic bodies, but have modified brains.

Believe me, I hate having it. It’s not a superpower, it’s miserable.

I love my partner so much that just thinking about him makes me cry. He's genuinely the best thing that's ever happened to me. I've never felt so loved, safe, and comfortable with anyone before. Every time he tells me he loves me, affectionately calls me "my soul," or comforts me when I'm upset, I just start sobbing uncontrollably. Not because I'm sad, but because I feel so overwhelmed with love and happiness that I don't even know what to do with all these feelings

I just wanted to tell someone how much I love my partner, he's the best

How long do you people stim for? I stim for like what feels like 5 minutes rocking back and forth or pacing. How long do you do it?

Recently, my significant other and I were talking with their co-parent during a child exchange. The conversation started about our oldest daughter, who has undiagnosed ADHD, dyslexia, and bedwetting issues, and discussing getting her evaluated for ADHD and seeing a urologist.

The conversation then shifted to the co-parent's job. She's a paraprofessional at the middle school in our kids district and works with special education students.
She began telling us about an autistic student she works with, using his actual first name throughout the conversation, which immediately made me uncomfortable. She described him as someone who stims, gets overstimulated easily, is a "jumper," and can be disruptive in general education classes. She said she thinks he should be in a resource classroom instead, which is understandable. It normal to disagree with a placement and she’s entitled to that opinion.

What bothered me was how she described handling him.
She said that when he gets overstimulated and tells staff that they or the class is being too loud or asks them to calm down, she responds by telling him that he frustrates her too and pointing out how his behaviors distract other students.
She also said that sometimes she'll stand by his desk and mimic him by jumping around, flailing, or yelling the way he does. While telling these stories, she was laughing, and her partner was laughing along with her.

For context, my biological son and bonus daughter both receive special education services for ADHD and dyslexia, but they're in general education classes. This isn't about comparing them to this child. What bothered me was hearing an adult describe what sounded like mocking or antagonizing a disabled child and then laughing about it.

If this had been a random school employee telling me this story, I would report it. The problem is that this person is my significant other's co-parent. If a complaint were made, it would probably be obvious where it came from and could seriously damage the co-parenting relationship.

Am I overreacting, or does this sound inappropriate to others as well? And if you were in my position, would you report it, address it directly, or leave it alone because of the family dynamics involved?

Over the years, I have gradually realized that I may be better off without friendships. The more I think about friendships, the more unnecessary they seem to become. Maintaining friendships requires time, energy, emotional investment, and a degree of social engagement that I don’t have and I don’t necessarily feel that the lack of friendships represents a deficiency in my life.

So to what extent do you need social relationships/friendships?

Hello everyone !

I have a new roommate this year. Issue is, I spend 95% of my free time inside the room but she does as well... And she is very noisy, but it's not something I can 'blame' her for = i. e. she chews SO LOUDLY (and I swear she spends all her time eating); she speaks on the phone for a good half-hour on daily basis and her voice is really loud as well; she moves on her chair and it makes noise, etc...

Not only does it bother me when I need to work, but it also causes physical pain when I'm trying to relax. Since I can't ask her to stop eating or phoning or existing, I'm looking to find my own solution and I'm trying to find noise-cancelling headphones.

I'm a bit worried because my ears are very sensitive. I already own a pair of noise-cancelling earphones, but they're so awkward to use without music on (I dislike their feeling) + they cause me physical pain if I wear them for over an hour.

I'm looking for headphones which don't require music to work, as I'm seeking silence. They would ideally block out all kinds of noises like chewing but also talking... I don't have a big budget so I guess I can't have too many requirements, therefore my main need is headphones which work without music.

Anyone has recs before these noises drive me crazy ? Thank you !