Tell us that you discovered you were autistic as an adult without directly telling us that. Imply it by sharing personal experiences.
I’m not diagnosed, only lately suspecting, but well, one experience that stuck with me, was on a communications training at my workplace, which is an IT company, so the participants were a whole sack of nerds.
The trainer gave us instructions to stand in a line next to each other, she’d read forms of communication and we should take a step forward, if we did not like that form of communcation.
So, “e-mail” → 3 people take a step forward,
“phone call” → 7 people take a step forward etc…At the end of it, I turned around to see where the others ended up and realized I had walked almost twice as far as everyone else. And I felt like I was rather conservative about it, too…
"I don’t like communicating through e-mails, phone calls, video calls, group calls, group video calls, and I feel awkward in a group chat like Slack. I dread group meetings, I get nervous one-on-one in the open office and during private conversations in a separate room. I can’t hold a presentation for a group, or for a single person. I also get anxious when writing replies to text messages and end up with a wall of text, I then have to spend up to an hour editing it down to not sound insane, seriously considering every single sentence and whether I can comfortably leave that information out. Oh, and snail mail and fax are ridiculous. “Talking it out over lunch” makes me distracted as I worry about eating incorrectly.
But I am comfortable posting anonymously on a forum…?"
lol thats a good one 😆
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Ok, so this is an autistic thing too? I thought it was just my training from lab work seeping into real life.
It could be both or that your innate desire to be efficient lead you to that position
My whole life, I have lived by adhering to rules and protocols. Nearly everything I do is based on a decision flow chart that follows internal protocols I have developed throughout my life that I consciously think about when making decisions and then, of course, lessons learned after the event. When I’m alone, I explain these processes out loud to my imaginary audience.
There are only 2 areas in which I do not do this: art and sex. For some reason, in those two areas, I just disconnect and go with feeling. It’s like I’m not even thinking. However, everything else is a consciously thought out process.
I once told a coworker when discussing a creative process, “that works for you, but I think in bullet points and black & white.”
When work is slow and stable I’m bored out of my fuckin mind but when shit hits the fan and I’ve got minimal staffing I can cover 4 stations at once faster than most people could cover 1
omg! Before I was discovered as autistic, I got got put on buspar for anxiety per my complaints. It worked so well, that I had no desire to do anything. I told the doc that I needed to come off of it because I needed anxiety to keep me motivated to accomplish tasks. Really, I just needed the stimulation. 😆
When someone pointed out that I had made the same meal for dinner for most of my meals every week, for 4 months.
What meal was it?
Beef Casserole. Easier than most things because you just chop everything and then put it in the slow cooker. Little effort required. I kept doing it because new recipes stressed me out too much.
Honestly look into an Instant Pot. Put everything in it, ready in 15-20min of pressure cooking. Can be set to keep warm if you’re not going to eat straight away.
Thanks for the idea, I’ll have to give this a go
I knew this would happen
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Well I’ve been eating the same breakfast and lunch meals for years. It’s just that this instance was the one that made me start looking into Autism.
I don’t understand why people with autistic kids describe their kids needs as special. These needs are all completely normal. There must be some misunderstanding.
…oh
lmaoooooo 😂
I’ve heard so many accounts of parents learning they were autistic because their kids were discovered to be autistic.
Yeap that’d be me. We always joked about it growing up, but once I took my son to his first screening I was a bit freaked out.
Just reorganized my collection of 18092 PDF files by renaming them based on 12-word criteria pattern. Which is funny, since the number of files corresponds with the majority of the registration number of USCSS Nostromo.
All done by hand.
Lazy Saturday. Depending on the timezone, also Friday and Sunday.
Can you tell more about the pattern?
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I have 3 projects at work, a project a home, plus chores, and a routine for feeding the animals and keeping the house clean, which I can’t adhere to, so lump them in as chores, and I have to talk with friends regularly about twice a week, assuming I’m not overwhelmed and sit in dead silence, and the projects at work overwhelm me, so the project at home suffers, which overwhelms me, so chores don’t get done, and that overwhelms me, and I talk to friends, but they can tell I’m overwhelmed and they ask me what’s wrong, which overwhelms me, so I sit in front of YouTube and get high.
I just started on my meds a week ago. Here’s hoping.
what meds did you start? i started Strattera just over a week ago, and this is a whole new world.
Strattera, actually! I’m on 18mg along with Lexapro. Been on it a week as well. Haven’t felt much different yet, tbh. Gonna give it some time.
Woah! I’m on 40mg and tend to be really sensitive to these types of drugs, so it hit me like a wall. I’m starting to even out, but my ability to stay focused on something is nuts. I worked on a freaking puzzle this week! WTH? Even my siblings have made multiple unprompted comments about my focus and calmness. And, I’m starting to fall asleep unaided and without laying in bed for 2+ hours. It’s super weird. I hope they work out for you! 😀
Buddy, you’re living the gold standard that I’m striving for. Thank you, hopefully there’s light at the end of this tunnel for me!
Well, my Willy Wonka not working so good, so it’s not perfect. I’m gonna ride it out for a month to see what happens. I see the psych in the first half of next month, and will let them know to see if there are any remedies. But aside from that, it’s been amazing! Let me know if it starts working for you.
I hear you. My lead singer doesn’t want to perform much either, and my wife’s meds keep the venue closed, anyway. I’m out of euphemisms, but, hey, such is life.
I like to recite grammar rules or language facts to myself when I’m feeling stressed out, almost like a form of meditation.
I got super excited when I discovered we had a whole department at work dedicated to maintaining all the back end customer/vendor/product data in our systems.
Now I’m in it, and I love it so much.
In the last few years I started to describe myself as an introvert-extrovert with a social battery.
Behold my bewilderment when I found out it’s masked auDHD.
I recently found out that it’s not common to always buy the same brand of generic food types like apple juice, fish fingers, cereal,…
Wait…people are just changing up brands haphazardly when they go shopping? Do they investigate the brand and make a rational choice beforehand, or are they 1700s trans-Atlantic risk-takers just upheaving their entire lives on a whim?
get this right, it genuinely shocked me too. some people just… look at the product, and then go “i’ll buy that!” and then they buy it. they are not even making a conscious choice when doing this. their brain intuitively tells them “yes, this one” and they don’t have to think it out.
more often than not, the product that wins is the product with the better or “flashy” packaging and style. that’s one reason why they spend all that money on advertising and branding. to me, it’s sooo strange. why would you not read up on your choice beforehand, or at least investigate each packet to check for food aversions, find out which one is the best $/unit value, etc? why should the packet the food is in, have any substantial bearing on your choice of purchase? (there are edge cases where the packet matters, i know)
to answer your question, yeah there is a lot of risk-takers out there!😱
I’ll get what’s cheapest. Apple juice is apple juice. If it’s bad apple juice, I’ll remember.
ahh you must watch out for the “[fruit] juice” vs “[fruit] juice drink” meme
on the packet somewhere, it will specify, for the example of your case, “apple juice”, or “apple juice drink”
anything that is a “juice drink” is just not the good stuff. a “juice drink” can have basically anything they want in there, with some 0.0001% real fruit to cover themselves legally. always look out for “juice” on it’s own, that’s the 100% real stuff
i say this because i got bitten by buying the cheapest apple “juice” once, to find out it was a “juice drink”, i.e not apple juice.
Oh. Everything I get is definitely not real juice. lol
oh god it’s not just “some people” are influenced, it’s “most people” are influenced?? 💀
it’s no wonder that “influencer” is a job title, yikes!
also, this line made me laugh:
Instead, the autistic shopper focuses on what really matters: ingredients, price, and the necessity of even owning the product. Time and again they select the best product for their needs regardless of how it is displayed.
when they spell out the reasons like this, it’s very funny because it’s written like we’re specimens in a zoo (imagine the david attenborough voice), and that we’re all acting strangely. no, we’re the ones acting rational, you’re the strange ones!
that’s a nice article. glad to see my reasoning validated. thank you for sharing ❤️
I’m happy you enjoyed it. We have a lot to be proud of. You’re welcome!
Define “late”
It’s a loose definition, but to give a definite definition with ambition of decision: after childhood, so 18+ years old. It doesn’t really matter though.
Whenever I get stressed I find something to alphabetize.
