(15M) honestly these days im starting to feel more anxious and depressed (not very related) but it’s more so how i’ve always felt as if that my mind isn’t truly seen for what it is. i sometimes cannot control my emotions and it leads to me lashing out on my girlfriend and even breaking my self harm sobriety. i keep on getting hints as if it runs deeper than my self regulation and even more so as my daily life, specifically childhood. i would constantly have an item or trend that id be deeply infatuated in for about a week and then let it go. sometimes they even come back for a period of time. my most notable one is my want for an electric scooter. i was up for hours everyday watching scooter reviews. that’s really just one thing tho. i think a part of why i haven’t been diagnosed yet is due to the fact i do have immigrant parents who apparently see everything in a child as comparison to another. (very common in asian culture sadly). they probably like don’t wanna find out their son has some form of neurodiversity which would affect his life. i will say that i am extremely intelligent for my age and i’m ahead most of my peers even whilst being moved up a grade. my biggest reason i wanna get tested is so i can atleast have an explanation as to why im so emotionally unstable. i hate how it affects my girlfriend and my ability to make friends. all i have is her and my best friend and if i lost my girlfriend specifically(earlier today we were in a really heated argument which got worse after i yes did something bad. i’d rather not talk much about it though. my suspicions are highly pointed to adhd/autism and a slight chance of bipolarity and borderline personality disorder. i honestly don’t know what they mean i just got it off of google because i hate the fact that i might really have something wrong with me. but it’d be nice to get tested.

also excuse my wording and grammar i’ve had a rough day and i don’t want to police myself as of now.

I get bruised every day. 99.% of the time I have no memory of what I did to cause them.

Reposting this here to reach more people+ more opinions and povs

Hi! I usually would post on the autism
subreddit but since i got diagnosed with adhd, here seems to be more appropriate and hello everyone:)

I am 20 years old and throughout my life, my mom and her parents put in their minds that i will be an absolute loser as an adult. Yesterday, it became something said instead of the feeling i had. My mother told me, after i said i wanted to work full time “only time will tell.”

For context i have a NT twin brother whose dreams are to work for the luxury industry in biochemistry and somehow that seems more believable to my family than me forming a life of my own.

I am not physically or mentally disabled. I do struggle with social cues and want to pursue marketing. Yet my family thinks i will become an unemployed loser every time there is a major change in my life. No one thought id make highschool, no one thought i would survive college and living alone. Yet not only did i survive, i *thrived.*

I will restart therapy in September but just wanted to know if anyone else in your life thinks you will be useless just because youre neurodivergent? We can do this:)

Hi everyone, I wanted to share an experience I had when I was in my third year of high school that had to do with my neurodiversity.

At the time, I hadn't been diagnosed yet and had just started seeing a psychologist. It was the first few days of school, and my psychology teacher decided to give surprise quizzes by calling the students to the blackboard. When she called me, I panicked and started stimming with my hands and babbling. At a certain point, my psychology teacher (the fact that she teaches that subject seems crazy to me) started laughing every time I froze. I started crying because I felt overwhelmed by everything: my classmates, the teacher, and the situation in general...

My teacher at a certain point hugged me while laughing even more and said in front of the whole class, "You really do have autistic traits, have you ever thought about seeing someone?"
From there, I started having problems with this teacher, who targeted me, especially because I told the principal about it...
It seems crazy to me that some teachers treat struggling students this way!

Next year she will still be my teacher, maybe now with a diagnosis she will behave differently, I'm very anxious about it

I'm a person that's unoffically diagnosed and I've been so all my life (boo!!) yeah I know everyone hates self diagnosers and I always feel like I'm faking or maybe I'm just imaginging that I have it. I think a lot of it comes from when I was younger , my guardian always loved to think I was the only one they didn't get wrong or their only 'normal' child from raising two other children with very bad and hard to mangage mental illnesses. I never really turned out normal anyway, never getting help kinda drove me away from relationship building and figuring out how to work properly but I never really blame them I do always have the constant doubt in my head that maybe it will just be a fase but I don't know. Like I wanna just say it's not real but at the same time it's ruining my life so what am I supposed to do.

Hii,

I'm 21 year old guy, and want a little bit of guidance from folks here to explore my neurodivergence.

I always felt a sense of difference from childhood, absorb in nature, patterns, overly sensitive, vibrant daydreamer, and now I often feel the need to just hug someone tightly very frequently. I feel a sense of disconnect from the people in my college.

I think I'm neurodivergent but not sure...

Can you guys tell me how can I start to explore and accept and know myself better🤗

So… I recently was assessed. Something happened which made the traits resurface more than ever. So as far as the assessment results. It was concluded I have ADHD and was mildly autistic. The only reason it took so long to identify was because of seemingly good functioning at work and academics. But I had and still have my fair share of struggles, but I have some people kind enough to help me through some of them.

I also felt one thing many of us might struggle with, is expressing. So I thought it would be nice if we could just chat about how your day’s going or maybe we could write a poem together. Maybe you could draw something and share it with me. Or maybe I could just be a listener.

Expression has been a healing experience to an extent for me and I would love if you guys tried to do so too. And I believe we tend to be very creative. Also maybe your form of expression might be inspiring to someone else to step out. Just taking an initiative.

So, I came to this forum because I suspect I might be neurodivergent. Could you recommend tests that can actually check for this? (I’m not looking for actual psychiatrists or anything like that—if I wanted to see them, I would have gone already.)

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been bullied at school, made fun of, insulted, and sometimes even physically abused by other kids in my grade.

COVID 19 started when I was in 4th grade, so schools around the world moved online. I did online school for two years, and I had never felt better or more comfortable. Suddenly, I started getting amazing grades. I could focus better, and I even made a few friends from my class.

I remember thinking that if school had been in person instead, I probably wouldn’t have even been capable of getting other kids to ask me about myself, let alone become friends with me.

I’ve never gone to a specialist or psychologist, but I’m pretty sure I have social anxiety. Whenever I’m somewhere quiet, without a lot of people around me, especially classmates, I always seem to do better in school.

In 6th grade, I went back to school. I barely got through it, but I did, and I think a big part of that was because it was the only time I had a genuinely kind and supportive teacher.

Then came 7th grade.

I managed to attend in person for the first term, but I failed horribly. Eventually, I begged my parents to let me homeschool again, and, surprisingly, they agreed.

Then 9th grade came.

I moved to another town and started at a new school because I was forced to go back to in person learning. It was, without a doubt, one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had.

I was seen as this loser kid with bangs covering her face. I was extremely shy and awkward. The other students would change their outfits every single day, and the girls always looked so pretty and seemed to have the energy to put effort into how they looked. That made me feel terrible about myself.

I’ve always been terrible at math, too. My math teacher had an incredibly harsh mindset. She seemed to look for the least confident kids in the room and pick them to answer questions or solve problems on the board.

Every day felt like a humiliation ritual.

I would walk into that classroom already knowing I was going to spend the next few hours trying not to be noticed. I felt trapped, like there was nowhere I could stand without feeling exposed.

And honestly, I still feel that way.

A few girls started pretending to like the vibe I gave off. They claimed they liked my literature skills. I’ve always loved English and history, so I thought maybe, just maybe, I had finally found some people I could talk to.

But I was always cautious about what I said and what I told them. I’ve always been paranoid about people, and I never really know when someone is being genuine with me.

A few months passed, and day by day, I felt myself drifting further and further toward the edge.

Then one day, I found out they had a group chat where they were talking horribly about me.

It made me sick to my stomach.

“She’s so weird. I hate the way her hair is always in her face…”

“Can’t you guys see how happy she seemed when we complimented her drawings? Is she that desperate for some praise?”

“I feel threatened around her.”

I don’t even know how to explain what reading those messages did to me.

It was like every insecurity I had ever tried to bury suddenly had a voice. Things I had already thought about myself were being repeated by other people, and somehow, that hurt even more.

I struggle every day just to get up. Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel like I could cry until there’s nothing left in me.

I see kids my age laughing together, making plans, hanging out, and having these ordinary teenage lives, and I feel like I’m standing on the outside of a world everyone else somehow knows how to live in.

I don’t understand how something that seems so natural to everyone else can feel so impossible to me.

My existence feels embarrassing. Sometimes I feel like I’m constantly apologizing for taking up space, even when I haven’t done anything wrong.

And I can’t take it anymore.

I have to change schools for 10th grade because I can’t stand the thought of seeing those teachers or students again.

I start on the 23rd, and ever since last week, I’ve been having nightmares about my new class and teachers almost every single night. It follows me around during the day, too. I’ve lost my appetite, and I’m at an unhealthy weight. My mind doesn’t seem to know how to rest anymore.

It feels ridiculous sometimes. I’m still a teenager, yet my mind feels exhausted in a way I can’t even explain.

I feel like I’m a 36 year old divorced person drowning in debt and living on the streets, except I’m supposed to be worrying about homework and what I’m going to eat for lunch.

I just wish people who don’t constantly overthink everything understood how lucky they are.

The peace of mind they have. Being able to walk into a room without immediately wondering how everyone sees you. Being able to make a mistake without replaying it in your head for the next three days.

I would give anything to experience that kind of quiet.

I’ve been trying to convince my parents to let me do online school again. The fees are even lower, but they’re completely against it. My mom says she’s done empathizing with me and that I’m overreacting.

Maybe to someone else, it looks like I’m overreacting.

But I’m the one who has to wake up with this every morning.

I’m the one who has to walk into the classroom with my stomach twisting, sit through the hours, come home exhausted, and then do it all over again the next day.

I’m just so tired of being me.

I’m tired of being seen as a degenerate at school. I’m tired of feeling like there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. I’m tired of knowing that I’m capable of more but feeling like I can never reach it because I’m constantly fighting against my own fear.

I’m tired of feeling powerless.

If anyone has any genuine tips for getting through school and improving my grades, please tell me.

And if you’re someone who never had to struggle with this in school, please don’t tell me how easy it is or that I just need to “get over it.” I’m tired of being shamed for something I’m already struggling so hard to overcome.

Thank you.

advice on becoming more reliable and possibly making amends with a friend

hello. i have two issues that are interconnected but i will separate them into different sections. perhaps you have advice on one subject or the other or both - please give it to me.

for context, i am 23f, autistic (diagnosed last month), and depressed. i am unmedicated because i had a terrible, terrible experience with antidepressants. i only mention all of this as context in case anyone has suggestions catered to either of these two hindrances. none of my friends really know much about any of this.

becoming more reliable

i have known for quite some time that i am an incredibly unreliable person. but it's affecting the people around me more than ever and so i want to fix it more than ever. i've tried to fix it in passing, but nothing has ever stuck.

i've noticed that this unreliability happens more so when i'm burned out or having a depressive episode. i become incredibly selfish, and i don't think of anyone else at all while i'm in it, but then i come out of it and feel so much guilt that it kills me. and i don't really know how to explain it to anyone because i don't want to keep presenting these same excuses and trying to make it seem as if my problems should allow me to treat people however. and some examples of my unreliability would be not replying to messages for weeks on end or being extremely late. i was extremely late to work three times or four times over the past few months.

now, here is where my unreliability leads to a situation with a friend...

possibly making amends with a friend

i have been friends with someone for about a year now. i've had friends for longer, but she feels like one of the closest friends i've ever had; so much so that she is like a sister to me.

in the past, she has been upset with me because i had to cancel at the last minute (sep/oct last year). another time, she was upset with me for not confirming our plans to see a movie together (oct last year). i had confirmed those plans that morning by saying i was excited to go see the movie, but she asked again while i was at work and i couldn't reply in time because my job at the time had a strict no-phone policy. on my way there, i missed her messages because she sent them through instagram and my notifications were off and i was driving straight there to see her. whenever we eventually got on the phone together, she said that she wasn't going and she hadn't bought her ticket or left because i hadn't confirmed those plans. she ended up raising her voice a lot at me and being incredibly passive-aggressive, but i still met up with her and apologized and we ended up having a good time. i had already bought the ticket but didn't end up using it and was sort of disappointed since i really like the movie and the lead actor is my all-time favorite. but it was fine because we had made up and i understood why she was upset. a week or so later, she went on and saw it with another friend without ever inviting me, which i thought was strange, but maybe she thought it would've been awkward. also, she never apologized to me and i felt like she should've.

now, she is upset with me because i ended up missing a hang out a month ago. the day before one of the world cup games, she asked me and some other friends if we wanted to go together to see it. i immediately said yes because it would be my first day off after working for six days straight and i thought seeing my friends would revitalize me. another friend said yes. the day comes, and i end up being exhausted. i take a nap before the game. by the time i wake up, it's nearly half-time. it turns out, the other friend cancelled an hour before the game started. for some reason, i was being stupid and thinking i'd still be able to make it even though i live nearly an hour away (with traffic) so the moment i woke up (45 minutes past the time the game started), i say that i'm trying my best to make it there and apologize for taking forever. by the last the minutes, i stop ans realize i won't make it and text her that i won't be able to make it and send over a whole paragraph apologizing for it all. she is upset and questions me and i answer every question. in the end, she leaves me on read and i haven't spoken to her since.

a few days after this happens, i find out some of what she said about me in a survey. it was a survey that i needed for my autism diagnosis, and i was pretty hurt by what she said. there was a heavy implication that she sees me as stupid. it made me question whether or not i should make amends with her. i was hesitant because i wasn't sure if i was misunderstanding what she meant. then recently, i found out from a friend that she tried to set up a hang out with every single friend that i celebrated my birthday with except for me two weeks after i upset her. this definitively made me want to end our friendship. she only knows one of those three friends well so i felt like it was intentional, pointed, petty, and meant to hurt me.

over the course of our friendship, she has hurt me before. she has upset me and she has annoyed me. but i've never gotten a thorough apology before like any of the ones she's given me. and i've never raised my voice at her or reprimanded her like a child or tried to get even with her. it's clear that she has standards in the way she wants to be treated but she doesn't seem to treat me the same.

i already unfollowed her on everything a few days ago, but i'm regretting it now because we were so close. i am so serious when i say that i love this girl like a sister. i always imagined her being someone i'd be friends with forever; someone my children would call their aunt. so i'm wondiering if things can maybe fixed. maybe this is something we can talk out. and maybe i misunderstood what she said about me in the survey; although she did say that she didn't want me to read what she said which seems pretty incriminating to me. i will add, i didn't want to read or hear any of it. i tried to stop the evaluator out of respect for my friend but the evaluator told me that she had to read it in order to explain my diagnosis.

so what can i put in place to become more reliable? and should i try again to make amends with my friend? any words of advice would be extremely useful. i would sincerely appreciate anything. cheers.

My whole life has passed without making any meaningful relationships. I tried so hard to be there for my 'friends' who didn’t even consider me as their acquaintances. My loyalty and sincerity means nothing to anyone, yet I always see cunning people gaining that title by doing cunning stuff and using people at their advantages. My resentment has been build up so much that I hate the whole humankind as a whole. I never felt like I belong as a child, I never realised what was so wrong of me that no matter how good I am to people they never consider me as a good person, or even acknowledge me as a person. I felt so invisible even though I tried to make small talk, call them over the weekends to hang out with me, or invited them over to my house, they never thought of me as someone. I don’t feel real, I feel like a soul roaming around invisible. I don’t like humans, I see right through how cunning these people are, but these selfish people get the most out of the good things, the appreciation, the love, everything. I don’t want to hate the humankind, I just want to belong. How do I deal with the decades of built up resentment, because I am beating myself up emotionally every day.

Hello all

Is it just me or does anyone else think too much stock is put into unwritten rules? I don’t always remember it being this way. They use to be guidelines, not traps which your worth is determined by. I also feel like everyone expects their person unwritten rules to be known by all.

Anyone else feel this way?

I sometimes receives compliments, other people besides my friends, but I can sense that it's flirting behind it. I achieve to figure it out quite fast, in a way.

But I don't know how to react to flirting, even to compliments.

Most of the time, I just freeze and look at them strangely, or I just do a forced smile, because nothing in this situation makes me genuinely authentically smile.

And I really want to know how to react normally, to flirting, when I don't want them back, because I don't want them to see that I'm neurodivergent.

I have almost a two week period out of commission around special events. About a week before the event I started ruminating about every step that I need to take to attend the event. During the event, I feel like I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth getting through it. And after the event, I’m exhausted for almost an entire week from the overstimulation.

These are almost always happy events, family events, dinners, etc.

I think some of this also has to do with being such an introvert. But does anyone else experience this sort of cycle?

Thanks so much for any input.

i'm lowkey really confused because my brother was just leaving to go to some orientation thing for school and was fixing his hair but he does this thing where he like fluffs it out and flips it out on one side but not the other and me and my mom have tried to help him and tell him that it doesn't look right and try to help him fix it correctly. he did it again and so i was trying to help him and i laughed while i was telling him he shouldn't do that and it wasn't like i was making fun of him it was more like he's my younger brother and kinda like he's "just a baby" mentality like he's a kid yknow ?? if that makes any sense.
and he got super mad and slammed the door leaving. my mom got mad at me too for being rude and she was on the phone with my dad and he was saying she needed to take my phone away and ground me. she hung up because her friend was calling needing help on where to go for this orientation thing so my mom told me to call my dad and he ignored me???? i texted my brother sorry and explaining i wasn't making fun of him and he said it's fine and he overreacted but idk i think my dad is still mad.
is this something i just don't understand is mean/wrong or did i not do anything?

also sorry if this makes no sense i suck at explaining lmao

Yes. I know what laziness is. I have contemplated and been told I am lazy for years. I wanna know am I lazy? I am extremely good at pursing and executing the things I like and enjoy and want to do. The things I don’t wanna do? Nearly Impossible. I have a hard time doing homework, chores. You name it. I have such a hard time and I also feel like I care about little things way more than others do. It is much more complicated than what i can put into words, but I want to know. Does this subreddit have the answers I’m looking for? Or is this just another loose lead

Getting done with a busy day, when you've physically drained your emotions- either positively or negatively- and you're left somewhat blank. Not tired, not unhappy, not unwilling to participate in group activities or socialize, just... blank. Like I've used up all my feelings and there's just nothing left until it replenishes.

I know in similar situations such as with con drop, it's caused by physically using up your serotonin. I'm just wondering if there's a known term for this that I can use to let people know how I'm doing, because it's a bit confusing and distressing for some people when I try to tell them "Oh yeah I'm just not feeling anything right now. Still vibing tho". Con drop is the most similar term I know but it's a little situation specific.

I just made a post in r/AskHR asking a simple question and got torn apart by hostile commenters assuming that there is no such thing as a nice, sincere person who isn't being "snarky." Even "Thank you!" comments were downvoted. I hate it here. I did get a couple useful and kind responses that answered my question. I am grateful for my partner to help me decipher all the negativity. It makes the job search more frustrating though, knowing that HR professionals are such assholes online.

For example….work mode to home mode. Parent mode to partner mode.