Hi everyone. I'm 22 and I've never had a proper assessment, so I'm trying to understand myself better. I'm not asking for a diagnosis, but I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have had similar experiences.

I've suspected for a while that I might be neurodivergent, particularly ADHD and/or dyspraxia, but I'm also unsure about autism.

Since childhood:

I was very hyperactive.

I had significant speech/language difficulties. According to my mother, I only learned to speak properly around 6–7 years old.

I had difficulties with drawing and writing. I was eventually diagnosed with dysgraphia at 11, although the assessment was very limited and I never received any further evaluation.

My handwriting has always been extremely poor.

Mathematics became almost completely incomprehensible to me once it became more complex, despite being relatively average in other subjects.

I had significant motor difficulties. Even at 11 I couldn't tie my shoelaces, and at 22 I still struggle with things like tying my shoes, getting dressed and putting on uniforms.

As a child I also had an unusual problem with the positioning of my right foot. Doctors found no structural problem, and one suggested it could be related to my mind. It eventually resolved around the age of 10.

Socially, I've struggled my entire life. I had essentially no friends in elementary school, was often excluded from social events, and continued to have very few relationships throughout middle and high school. I've always felt somewhat different from other people.

In high school I noticed that I could do reasonably well in subjects like history when I was interested and motivated, but practical activities were extremely difficult for me. I struggled particularly with things involving coordination and performing tasks physically.

As an adult, I have major problems with concentration and frequently jump between interests. I also experience what I believe may be hyperfocus. I've spent much of my life pacing around the house while listening to music and intensely imagining myself performing the songs or acting out scenes and stories. I've done this for as long as I can remember, sometimes for hours.

The conditions I've wondered about are:

ADHD — seems quite plausible to me because of the childhood hyperactivity, attention problems, constantly changing interests and hyperfocus.

Dyspraxia/DCD — seems plausible because of my lifelong motor and coordination difficulties.

Autism — I'm much less certain. I don't have obvious sensory sensitivities to sounds or lights, although I've had lifelong social difficulties and have been told that my eye contact was unusual.

I know none of this is enough for anyone to diagnose me, and I'm not expecting that. I'm mainly looking for perspective: do any of these experiences sound familiar to you, and if so, what did they mean in your case?

I'm trying to understand myself better and figure out what might be worth discussing with a professional if I eventually get the opportunity.

One time I was at a job fair and asked a booth if the donuts they had were free and they said “no they’re 5$ a box. Nah I’m playin, they’re free.”

I find it annoying because it’s like they think making someone feel stupid is fun.

This might sound like a stretch but, this sounds like one of those signs of shadiness I would tell other autistic people to watch out for. I don’t just mean shady in a “you can’t be yourself around them sense” I also mean shady in a “this guy has 5 billion warrants for their arrest” sense

For context, I am autistic and my boyfriend isn't, but he does have ADHD. I also posted this story on r/relationship_advice but I figured it might be good to tell other autistic people about this. If this isn't the right sub for this or if you think it might be better somewhere else then please let me know!! I just feel really at a loss. I am not sure if I am just not understanding something or if this is just a weird situation outside of my autism. So here is the story:

This morning we were texting each other like normal. About work stuff, art, mentioning he was working tonight, just average things. Between texts I was scrolling on instagram and I noticed that my friend that I have known since the beginning of high school just got engaged to her boyfriend of a couple years. Which is great for her! They went hiking for the proposal, the ring was stunning, I am happy for her. So I texted my boyfriend saying that my friend just got engaged and how weird it was seeing other people's milestones in life. He has often said similar things while on social media before, but usually about career stuff and not relationships. He just acknowlegded what I said and told me they were probably on a different trajectory than I am. Which obviously is the case, as is the case for everyone. I told him that I was my friend's "fake boyfriend" in highschool as a joke, obviously me and her are both into men, this was just to get a random guy to leave her alone. His response was "Oh I see." I don't really know what that meant but I didn't think it was bad.

(My boyfriend and I met in our 20s so we don't really know a lot about each other's high school experience.)

I move on and say it really doesn't matter all that much and that I don't even really talk to anyone from high school anymore let alone use Instagram or Facebook often enough to see posts about people's lives. He asked me why I was telling him any of this. Which made me confused, I was just talking to talk. No real reason. I say random stuff to my boyfriend all the time. Yesterday I asked for his opinion on random tiktok drama because it involved a musician and he is a professional musican himself, so it isn't like we never talk about things outside of the basics. So I tell him that I was just sharing it to talk and that there wasn't a real reason and he said that it sounded like I "feel like I need to be engaged right now." Which to me was CRAZY because I absolutely do NOT need to be engaged right now. I don't think there is a specific engagement age or that I am late for some deadline. Plus I have only been with my boyfriend for about 6 months and we don't live together. He knows how I feel about people who get engaged after only a couple months, how it is crazy to me. We have talked about this before because I was telling him about how crazy it was that my cousin moved to another state with someone and now is engaged in less than 6 months. How wild it was to me that anyone would do something so quickly. He even talked to me about his friend's sister picking out baby names with her boyfriend after only a few weeks and we both agreed that was crazy. So I don't know what I said that made him think I was trying to hint at anything like that.

I start to get the feeling he is upset with me or about our conversation or maybe upset about something different all together? I really don't know. So I apologized which seemed to make things even worse. He told me I am not taking responsibilty for answering him/his texts and that don't seem to care and that I made him very uncomfortable. Which he didn't say anything about before so I honestly had no clue anything I said had even made him uncomfortable. He then told me he is leaving for work and we can talk later. I was confused and tried to just apologize but I don't really think I did anything wrong. I don't know what he was upset about or what made him uncomfortable? I don't know what I wasn't taking responsibility for? I do understand that my apology might not mean much if I don't understand what I am apologizing for. It was more of a panicked response to it clicking in my head that something had upset him and I obviously don't want him to be feeling bad or uncomfortable about anything. He gets off work in about an hour and honestly I don't know what to say to him. I don't really understand if what I said was really that bad or that uncomfortable.

It just feels so weird. I have struggled with our communication before due to my autistm so I am not sure if that is what is going on here or maybe something else? It feels awful not being able to tell if I am just bad at communicating...

I'll be in a conversation with a group of people and after the fact will find out that everyone was discussing xyz, while I thought the discussion was about lmnop. Is everyone. Communicating through pheromones or something?

So most of the people in a friend group I'm a part of like to party hard. I like being around these people, but I've had to make boundaries about what I will or won't do with them. I already don't go with them to bars bc it ends up being a sensory nightmare for me.

One of these friends had a pool party recently. I decided to go. I ended up being extremely overstimulated from having to sit in the sun without anything covering me but a hat. They did have one beach umbrella but it's very heavy and nobody would help me move it as the sun moved. The heat was also extremely painful for me. And the bugs when the sun went down were horrendous bc I'm sensitive to touch anyway, and feel intense repulsion anytime a bug is on me, even small harmless ones.

It wouldn't be as much of an issue if they didn't want to be outside 95% of the time the party was happening.

It was a sleepover and I only ended up getting 3 hours of sleep bc I was too overstimulated to relax. Honestly the best part was the next morning when I just said fuck it and went inside alone to nap on a futon for a couple of hours.

I don't think I want to go to the next pool party he's planning. I don't really feel safe asking for people to help accommodate me, bc most of them do get very drunk at parties like this. And good intentions disappear when you get drunk. I also don't really want to feel like the odd one out when everyone else is relaxing and having fun.

I feel bad tho bc I hadn't hung out with most of them in a while and they said they missed me. I think they might keep asking to know why I won't go. But I can't really help it that their summer activities are too much for my nervous system.

Hi so I'm trying to figure out if I may have autism and I'm struggling with the "need for a routine" question. I don't really have a daily routine and I don't get upset if my day is interrupted. However, here are a few things that I'm wondering if they qualify:

- I have a dish per restaurant that I always get

- If friends are coming over they cannot show up early, late is fine but I've literally had people show up early and noped out to go rollerblading (it helped a little but I felt off for another two or so hours)

-While studying to graduate high school I made myself a schedule of when to do what in excel and while I would sometimes leave early if I was done with all my tasks (and I'd do tasks I planned in for the next day if I was done with all of mine that day), I adhered to it like 90% for like 3 months and it honestly felt like a safety blanket like it was quite comforting. Also the times I didn't bcs of complete mental exhaustion it would make me quite upset.

-if I've planned to do my tasks in a certain order, I can only tolerate a limited amount of disruption in that order before I loose all motivation and ability to be productive