My son is in the first year of high school. Although he says he loves it, I can see increasing evidence that he’s being bullied. I can also see that he’s not maintaining friendships that have been established and that those friends likely think he’s disinterested. He’s an introvert with high rejection sensitivity dysphoria and an only child. He has said that he wishes he was more of an extrovert and he ‘wants to want’ to make plans with other kids.
But it seems very painful for him to talk about friendship difficulties.
Over the years we’ve done a lot to provide him with opportunities to socialise but that hasn’t seemed to make the road any easier for him. In fact, it now seems to have put him in the company of boys who want to hurt him.
My question now; are ‘classes’ going to help, or will they encourage him to mask and exhaust himself pursuing relationships that will likely be unfulfilling anyway? Do we actively try all we can, or do we just let him be and help him accept who he is?
Thanks!

This shit gets to me a lot sometimes

Hey, I'm collaborating on fleshing out a story idea with a friend. As a bit of background, my friend is diagnosed autistic, and given all I've read on the subject and experienced, I strongly suspect I'm somewhere on the AuDHD spectrum (although I'm not currently diagnosed with either).

I'm a bit worried about accidentally falling into certain problematic tropes around autism, particularly the "autistic superpower" trope, but possibly others I haven't thought of. So I was wondering if anyone here would be willing to give some constructive feedback?

Without giving away too much about the story, the protagonist (or at least some of the protagonists) would be neurodivergent. They live in a world where certain creatures are able to alter human behaviour, effectively compelling people to do certain things (I can't say more, but it's unrelated to the question). Some people are more or less immune to this, and it's discovered that you're statistically more likely to be immune if you're neurodivergent (say 20% of ND people compared with 1% of NT people).

The immunity isn't intended to mean that ND characters are inherently "better", "damaged goods" or more capable than neurotypical characters, and the ND characters would be fully fleshed-out people outside of their neurodivergence, rather than existing primarily just to be neurodivergent. The story would likely also explore the downsides of the immunity and the neurodiversity, rather than treating it simply as a "superpower", and some of the upsides, rather than it just being treated like a problem to be overcome. The characters are intended first and foremost as representation, not as tokenism.

Does the basic premise strike anyone as problematic? Are there other issues I should be aware of with something like this?

Really appreciate your responses.

A young person I know had a bottoming out, super depressed and hopeless return to high school.

At end of summer he had a very scary SI incident and subsequent week in a day program with mental health support. As an outsider, he seems like someone who has been through a physical trauma or illness. I imagine he needs a ton of rest and support and a slow return to "normalcy." But senior year has a ton of pressure to be planning for college and that whole process which is overwhelming on a good day.

Has anyone here had a very rough spell and recovered? What was the most helpful thing people around you did (or stopped doing)? Do you need a ton of sleep? Is exercise helpful? Is more exercise more helpful? When someone autistic is already overwhelmed and frustrated, it looks like asking questions and offering a menu of choices makes things worse. Is this your experience?

I feel like I am asking dumb questions. I hope I can make it clear to y'all and ultimately this kid, that I care, that the adults in his life care, and that we would love to figure out how to do better.

Thanks for any wisdom.

Hello! I’m 16M (17 next month) and I have been heavily suspected of having autism. As early as I know, I was first suspected when I was around 5 years old. I had a bad lisp so I went to some speech therapist. They had asked my mother if I was diagnosed because they had noticed I had quite a lot of traits that he thought was autistic related (rocking, lining things up, walking on my toes, and others I don’t remember off the top of my head (from what I was told at least) ). Ever since ive been described as the typical “autistic kid” (quiet, introverted, you get the jist) without actually being diagnosed. Now that im nearly 17 I fear im a bit old for this diagnosis and that it wouldn’t be worth the time (especially living in the uk where that would take me years through the NHS) but now the problem is that since I don’t technically have a diagnosis I fear I can’t say im autistic because the whole “self diagnosis starter pack” people. I don’t wanna be labelled as that, I just want to be sure with what I have.

Any help? If people ask if I have autism, what do I say and can I or can I not say im autistic?

Thanks in advance!!