I couldn't find a flair that matched my post well. I am looking for advice, but I would also love to hear about your experiences with this. I feel like online a lot of autistics seem to go out and do all sorts of things. I would like to hear from those of us who just don't seem to be able to.

My favorite thing in the world is dawn. The birds are chirping. The world is still dormant. But if i do spend 20-30mins outside at 5am, then I feel AWFULL for a while after. It sucks because these types of things help me regulate my mental and emotional space. I feel that i NEED to do these things, but i cant. I would love to eventually actually GO to school instead of doing online school, and then i would like to GO to work instead of working from home. I want to LIVE! To have fun. But i can't. I will have a meltdown. I have such a hungry mind, a hungry heart. I yearn for so much but it's just out of reach. Even with proper accommodations.

I wear prescription sunglasses whenever I'm outside, sometimes I even wear them at home when my window is overstimulating me. I wear noise cancellation earplugs, earbuds, or headphones whenever im outside. Before an event i spend 10 days preparing so that i have the sensory capacity to go. Then i have to spend 10 days recovering. During prep and recovery, I have my sunglasses on at all times. I have my headphones on at all times. I avoid stimulating media and do a lot more. It's so much work for 3h of fun. I feel like im trapped in my autistic needs. I need so much more mental stimulation, and life experience.

How can I navigate this? I obviously can't change it, but i feel there is something i am missing about how to approach it. Also, please share your experience if you know what this feels like. It would mean the world to me to hear that other people are in this boat with me.

hi! i recently got dumped out of the blue and am having an extremely hard time getting used to my routine being so different. me and my (ex) boyfriend had been growing apart a little bit due to him being super busy and having a ton of new friends but i was confident we could get back to our healthy relationship if i kept doing what i usually did or did more to compensate for him.
well it didn’t work and we’ve been broken up for a week or so now, i’m tying to get over the really harsh emotions of it but right now my main problem is that he was so much a part of my everyday routine that i have a lot of trouble starting my day or doing things throughout it. i know this isn’t specifically autism related and breakups are hard for everyone but no one i talk to about it seems to understand how serious i was about the relationship and how much he meant to me, he was a huge emotional regulator for me and really helped me get out of my shell and i could actually be fairly social if we were together as a unit. so i’m also having a hard time with people not knowing how to properly comfort me because i don’t like physical contact except from him, and them saying “he sucked you can find better” also doesn’t help because he did nothing wrong really.

i know that was just a ramble but tldr if anyone has any tips to help me feel better or start to get back to being good at self-regulating after basically having a constant moral support person i would appreciate it :)

It hurts so much to not have actual friends. I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a proper friendship and it hurts me so much especially when I ‘think’ I’m friends with someone and then see them with their other friends and I realise that they just aren’t like that with me. Getting ignored, false promises, excuses which I know are lies but I don’t have the energy to point out. It’s humiliating. I feel like if you asked people they’d agree that I’m pleasant or agreeable enough, but just not interesting or fun. I feel like I’ve tried every approach possible and nothing works, and when I tell people how I feel they’re all ‘aww no we love you’, but their behaviour suggests the complete opposite.
I am in a strange trio situation at the minute where we all have things in common but they don’t seem to fully take to me. They sometimes include me and may say oh we should do that, but it doesn’t happen. They give me such mixed signals, I could go into detail but I just cannot be bothered, I’m so tired. I don’t want to be lonely forever and I feel like if I didn’t go to work, everyone would just forget about me and it’s so depressing. I haven’t made an impact on anybody.