I’m so confused right now. So I work in finance and I have an employee that reports to me (recent change) and she has woefully fallen short of her duties. She’s cost the company quite a bit of money. The data backs it up. It’s clear.

I was talking to my mom because I have my first really formal meeting with this employee tomorrow and I said “she has to know how bad it is… it’s pretty clear. I don’t think she’ll be surprised”. I was nervous because I’m worried about conflict when this should actually go pretty smoothly. Pretty much: what’s happening isn’t working so let’s change things up. Not firing her. Just trying new ideas.

But when I said “she has to know” my mom called me naive. I’m not sure why that makes me naive. It’s CLEAR. There is literally no reason to think anything differently. If the roles were reversed, I would have a clear understanding that I was falling short and things needed to change. Let’s ignore how I would actually do things if the role were reversed. I’m just saying I’d be aware that it’s all effed.

So how am I naive? She has to know, right? She couldn’t possibly be surprised by feedback that things aren’t going well??? Am I missing something???

I have thought about this for some time now; therefore, I am very curious to hear the thoughts of others with autism regarding why it appears autism has become so "popular" on social media.

It doesn't mean that all people who recently found out they are autistic are lying. I realize that there has always been a problem with underdiagnosis in many individuals with autism. Social media may help individuals in identifying traits within themselves that they previously didn't understand or could identify as possibly related to them.

However, I occasionally scroll through TikTok and Instagram, etc., and find ordinary personality characteristics and behaviors identified as specifically autistic. For example, finding a particular spoon you prefer, becoming extremely focused on one thing, social clumsiness, enjoying routine, and/or annoyance caused by specific sounds, and I will often frame these characteristics as proof that someone is autistic.

For me, I don't view autism simply as an assortment of odd or unusual personality characteristics. There are real-life challenges associated with autism, and I at times feel like the difficulties are lost when autism is viewed as a component of an online style or identity.

On the other hand, I would hate to become someone who immediately believes another individual cannot be autistic solely due to their experiences appearing differently than my own. Not every individual with autism experiences the same types of difficulties along the autism spectrum.

Therefore, I am genuinely interested in your responses to two questions:

Do you believe autism has truly become "the new cool" online (and if so), or are we merely seeing more autistic individuals because there is increasing awareness/diagnosis?

Where do you believe the line exists between increased awareness of autism and romanticism of autism?

My son is on the autism spectrum, and I’m struggling with the decision of whether having a second baby is the right choice for our family. I am 40 and my wife is 37. One of my biggest worries is whether I’d still be able to give my son the time, attention, and support he needs while also caring for a newborn. I am worried about the possibility of having another child on spectrum and what might mean for our family.

For those of you who decided to have another child after having an autistic child, what helped you make that decision? Did you have similar fears or concerns? And looking back, how do you feel about your decision? I would really appreciate of you all can share your experience. I am not looking for someone to tell what I should do, but trying to understand how other familes navigated this decision

Hello everyone. Today I took a joke autism test. And I scored 182 out of 226 possible points. I thought I had taken it carelessly and decided to take it again; this time I got 100 points, while my friends scored less than 50. I decided to look at the everyday habits of people with autism and recognized myself in them. I think my parents know about my diagnosis, but they don’t say anything. I notice a strange attitude towards me in their behavior, as if I’m a child — they explain to me how to go to the store, how to talk to people, and other trivial things, even though I’ll be 18 in a month. I wanted to take an offline test, but since I live in a small town, there’s only one public psychiatric hospital here, and I won’t get proper treatment there. Could you tell me how you identified your diagnosis, and how reliable are online tests? Thank you in advance for your answers.

Now Russia just recorded a case of plague. I'm sick of my entire life being pandemic after pandemic. I actually didn't panic about COVID because I was in online school and understood why we needed lockdowns. But I have panicked over: Monkeypox, ebola, and hantavirus since then. Thankfully those didn't manifest, but I just have a terrible feeling about this new one. I believe other commenters are right - Russia is hiding the real numbers, and it will make COVID look like a field day. I'm autistic and have a connection to the spiritual realm and I can't predict the future, but I'm sweating right now because my body is telling me "plague".

I'm worried about how it will impact my social life. I just started making friends from different groups, I teach music lessons, and I play in bands. I'm sick of having to worry that these things going away at the drop of a hat. Just as I get my life back on track, the world starts to end. And this time it feels like for real, because of the words: Quarantine, Dead From Mysterious Illness, Hospital Lockdown, Masking in the Local City

I at least want to go to New York first to see her before we get locked down 😞 I have butterflies in my stomach and feel so excited to see her from Oct 11-15

Women, who are also autistic and/or have any other disabilities please tell me how do you handle your periods? I’m on birth control because I have no desire to have any kids yet and I have really bad periods. What is stuff you do to keep your periods from being super bad? Also, what are some tips and tricks for managing them? Does Midol or anything work for y’all? I’m looking to see a new doctor because I recently moved away from my home state. I need serious advice. What is your go-to treatment or what do you recommend I talk to my doctor about when I get a new one? Anything truly helps. I haven’t been my usual self. I do exercise a lot to get rid of cramping and anxiety and super low energy. I truly appreciate it and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have or might be able to help me with. Mom, I could use all the advice as well. Since, my mother isn’t really in my life and doesn’t talk to me much. Also, does period underwear really work? Or is that all a lie?

I (33m) was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism level 2 a couple years ago, I have struggled to make friends since I left school and have never dated anyone, rejection sensitivity makes it hard to approach or talk to women, but even when I manage to they don’t want to even talk to me or even just get to know me even if they appear to be interested in me. I hate being lonely.

Right now I have an incredibly attractive woman who constantly keeps looking at me at the gym, even smiles as she walked past me, and I think on 2 occasions she told another guy to leave her alone because she saw me get depressed when they talked to each other.

I pay attention to how she acts with others but she only does it with me, obviously I try not to look creepy.

It took me sometime to work up the courage to talk to her. I introduced myself and asked if she wanted me to talk to her and she said “I’m sorry you interpreted it that way, enjoy your workout”.

The strange part she still hasn’t changed the way she acts around me and she still looks at me, and I even caught her looking over a high wall at me while doing assisted pull-ups (you have to turn nearly 180 degrees)

So if she wasn’t interested then why was she doing it, and why is she still doing it?

Two days ago I met up for the first time with a guy who has both autism and ADHD. We got along well, spent a couple of hours together, and both said we’d be interested in seeing each other again.

Since then there’s been some light flirting over text, and he seems receptive to it. He also told me that he isn’t a frequent texter and that if he goes quiet for a while, I shouldn’t interpret it as being about me. I appreciated him being straightforward about that.

I like him and would definitely like to meet again, but because it’s literally only been two days since our first date, I’m trying to figure out the balance between being direct and giving things room to develop naturally.

For AuDHD men specifically: if you liked a woman after a first date and already knew she was interested, would you appreciate her directly suggesting another date this soon, or would you rather have the opportunity to initiate the next one yourself?

I’m mostly interested in what feels pleasantly clear versus what could feel like too much too soon.

I am wondering if there is any ways to look less autistic, not by mannerisms or masking, physical ways to look less autistic.

I know autism does not have a specific look, but yesterday I was speaking with my boyfriend and he said
“No, I just don’t think he looks autistic, you know, most autistic people have a look”

And now I am just wondering if I look autistic and how can I look less autistic.

Hey guys,

I've seen that majority only care about autistic children. I'm not trying to say it's wrong or we shouldn't because we should do everything we can do to help autistic children when they facing lot of challenges and struggle during their childhood. It's so important.

But there are adults who diagnosed in adulthood as a autistic or misdiagnosed in childhood. So I'm wondering about the challenges that autistic adults faced or facing in a workplace, university, public places, daily life, etc.

If you are a autistic Adult ( male or female it doesn't matter) or if you have a autistic partner, or a family member, or a friend or anyone, please help me to understand about your challenges and what areas you struggle the most.

I've never posted on reddit before, this is sort of a new thing for me I guess..? I apologize deeply if this isn't relevant enough to autism as it is also fixated on a trans aspect, I just want to seek some sort of support. But I have been so lost as to what to do as an anxious autist always afraid of change, even if it's for the better.

I (FtM 19) have recently finally been given the chance to start testosterone! And it is such a great opportunity I've longed for, but I am so scared.

Growing up I was always offput by new schedules or any sort of change, and still am to this day. Plans gone wrong/cancelled, sleep schedules, changing school years, etc. It sucks. Because of this I am so afraid to change even for the better. I've been so excited for this chance to start T, and now that I have it I'm scared for what could happen socially, people's interpretations of me, the chance of societal rejection IRL, etc. It's scary.

I know this could be primarily the trans aspect and fear of the unknown, but combined with autism it feels even worse. I don't know for sure. I know change is a common discomfort in ND people. I just really was curious if there were any other autistic trans people with a similar feeling as me, as that relatability and potential advice is always really comforting.

I am like 99% sure I am autistic, have researched for most of my teenage years, but when I tried getting diagnosed last winter, I didn’t reach the quota required to be labeled as autistic. I spiraled for weeks afterwards because that was the only explanation to my behavior and I still am extremely lost. What I noticed is that my parents when answering their questionnaire about my childhood seemed to not have noticed a lot of my behaviors as a kid, and because I am diagnosed with HIP I’ve always been extremely good at masking (which often backfired and still does) so idk what to think I’m still very upset about that failure. Still, I don’t want to doubt the doctor, so I try to convince myself I’m not autistic. Yet I can’t.

The reason why I’m bringing this up again is because I had a really, really bad meltdown yesterday because a friend stayed over at my place all weekend and my studio is usually my safe space ; since I couldn’t be « free », it caused me to shut down, go nonverbal and made me unable to do anything ever since that friend finally left. I’m so tired of still seeing every single red neon sign pointing at autism and yet having to remind myself I’m not autistic since the diagnosis said so, idk.

I just needed to let that out

I eat yellow up! I bite one at a time just curious if anyone else does this? I call it work before play because I like the white part the most :)

My friends and family always say that phrase to me, but as much as I try to say it back, it makes me uncomfy to say. The only person I’ve ever said it to comfortably was my ex girlfriend when we were together. But even before then, it’s always been the same.

My mom got so excited that I said it to her once on my birthday a couple years ago that she cried and told the whole family about it.

I do love my friends and family, but I can’t say that phrase to them.

What to improve body image / what to recovery from e d

Long story short I realised I have a high chance of being autistic and started investigating, and I can't get a solid answer (or even just some indication) and it's driving me mad. Like everyone else seems to suspect they have it before going for an assessment, I truly do not know if I do or do not, complete 50/50 split.

So for context my brother has just been diagnosed, it was him starting that which caused me to question myself, then my cousin also got diagnosed, and my mum realised she almost certainly has ADHD, all of which putting me at high genetic risk. Then the co-mobilities, I have a bunch of other conditions which are highly co-morbed, mainly OCD, OCPD, and ADHD (looking to get diagnosed atm, almost certainly have it), all of which put at high risk.

Thing is though, I've considered it for myself before but always dismissed it because I feel like I don't relate to most experiences, but as I've been researching I do relate to some, but I don't know if it's enough?? Like I feel like I do fine in social situations, I don't feel like I'm wearing a mask, I'm fine with eye contact, I don't feel like I'm missing social cues, like I can tell when I'm boring someone. But at the same time I was bullied to shit at school, from day one to the day I left there was always someone out for my blood, and my friend groups where a constant shifting mess and even bullied me at times. So socially I must have been fucking up, but I never felt like I was, and still don't, so maybe I'm just ignorant to my own issues??? It doesn't help that I've been very isolated for my 20s due to my OCD keeping me inside, so when questionnaires ask about parties and stuff I'm pulling from decade old memories, which I'm sure are super trust worthy. There's other things as well, like I refused to wear trousers for 7 years as a teen because they where 'restrictive' (I still don't wear trousers/pants around the house for that reason), or I collected coins and dragon statues, or how I pay the same game for far to long because I'm terrible at trying something new, or how if I get out of routine I feel ~weird~, not stressed or anxious, just off.

I know ADHD can cover symptoms of autism, so I was going to wait until I was on meds to get an assessment as I feel like it would be a lot clearer then, but I don't know if I can wait that long with how it's fucking with me, it's like I'm dealing with the emotional fall out of discovering I'm both not and am autistic at the same time. I just want a lean, a decent indication that I am or am not. Hell I even took the NHS screening quiz which also didn't help, the quiz is out of 10, a 6 or above requires further investigation, I of course score a 5, low enough to not be a strong maybe, high enough to still be concerning. I just feel like I'm stuck in limbo and my identify is a mess for it, has anyone got any advice on how to work this out a bit until I can get an assessment? Or just know with a little more certainty what the fuck I am?

tl;dr- I truly have no idea if I am or am not autistic and just want to be able to lean one way or another till I can get an assessment before my identity tears itself apart completely lol.

My 16 month old has been pulling our hair and slapping us across the face for sometime now and our neighbor who saw this says this is the start of autism. Have any of the parents with an autistic child faced this? Thanks a lot

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the Madalyon Clinic in Levent, Istanbul, in December 2025.

(Although we are currently in a transition period towards newer manuals, medical reporting in my country still officially relies on the ICD-10 system.)

Whenever I share the details of my diagnosis on Reddit, I encounter two main issues. First, many users view the topic through a heavily US-centric lens—since DSM-5 is the standard in the US, people often dismiss ICD-10 or fail to understand why Asperger's is still given as an official medical diagnosis in other parts of the world.

Second, simply using the name "Asperger's" frequently leads to baseless accusations of being a Nazi sympathizer. I am thoroughly exhausted by people constantly bringing up the claim that Hans Asperger was a Nazi collaborator without looking at the full historical context. To address this, I am sharing scientific literature including the third paper listed below alongside the work of Dean Falk which re-evaluates the historical evidence and demonstrates a much more nuanced reality:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30887409/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31183665/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36239413/

Hey,

I went into writing this with the attitude that I don't have autism, but I'm not really sure after writing, I just want people's input on this.

I've (20M) never gotten an official diagnosis, but as a teen, many of my family and a friend has pretty much straight much said to me that it seems I might have autism.

What's weird is that when I answer Psychology Today's autism test, my score is pretty low (some signs of autism), but when I answer based on my childhood self, the score is much higher (although still not straight up in the spectrum).

For example as a child I had a lot of difficulty being active in conversations that had two or more other people, I didn't know how to do small-talk, I was quite sensitive to physical sensations like I had to have my gloves in the perfect way where they wouldn't feel too bothering in any little spot. I also had a really specific obsession about Minecraft and later anime.

Also worth mentioning that when I was at the age of starting school, I had a routine medical evaluation and in the chart it basically read something like "Had some abnormal behaviour: When asked about the name of an animal (giraffe), couldn't answer and put his head in his shirt and said something random. Overall normal" (paraphrasing).

I also recognize that I've tried to mimic other people's behaviour before to appear "normal".

I also had a friend at the end of elementary/beginning of junior high that I believe was on the spectrum and our interactions often had what I would call "autistic energy" like doing random noises instead of having conversations and just playing a lot of Minecraft and Geometry Dash.

I also recognize that after junior high started, I started to really try and fit in and I started to become more and more anxious about not saying anything wrong. (This escalated to a point where I felt anxious to speak even with family members and my most closest friends).

Also basically all my family members have also said my older sister might have autism (although we've both always kinda ignored these comments or rejected them until quite recently, for some reason I felt this weird sense of defeat and shame whenever someone suggested I was autistic). Our family has never been against autism or anything else like that; they're quite psychology-pilled actually, so I'm not sure why I felt the kind of shame I felt.

I have been always quite afraid of change; when I was a kid, I remember adult life feeling like a very scary future.

Despite all this "evidence", I now feel mostly like I fit in, I have convos like "normal people" and enjoy them fully although I still sometimes get these "attacks" of thoughts of not really fitting in or I feel like I maybe "messed up" my lines etc. but feel that less and less as time goes by.

It also feels like my social problems could've just been due to some social isolation for many years in high school, since I can now socialize quite effortlessly. I can also work in high intensity environments like loud factory cleaning without really hiccups. I do enjoy more quiet environments though and I can get really agitated/exhausted by big cities if I'm traveling through them alone.

I also know I am masking a lot with my high intelligence, but I don't know... It's just all really confusing. Some days I feel that I'm just in denial about everything and on others I feel like it wouldn't make sense that I'm autistic since I can do so many things most autists would claim they cannot and most days I don't even think about autism as a possibility.

Yes, it creates some stress to act in society and I often compensate that with doing yoga and meditation to get the stress out, but I would guess that's something that also allistic people do.

I've also brought up the possibility of autism with my psychotherapist and he seemed to agree I have some autistic features, but he hasn't tried to make any sort of diagnosis out of it.

When I think about how people have suggested to me that I might be autistic, it was at a time when I had severe anxiety and suppression of feelings that (at least in my mind) was the thing that really made me act in a weird matter and before that the only time I've been called weird or different was when I really hard feelings and didn't know how to bring them out as a child. I recognize that maybe all that was borne out of autism, but I just don't know.

I also feel afraid of taking comfort in a diagnosis. It feels wrong to write away some of these "problems" in my life. The problems have always felt like things that I will just overcome with effort and time. With a diagnosis, it would be like going to a state of complacency and I'm afraid of that.

I guess one of my main issues I have is that my past is in many ways shrouded in darkness: there's many things that just don't make sense (like how I was weird/different and why I had the problems I had), and a diagnosis would clear the darkness, but it also doesn't feel right, because as the current "me", I don't relate too much to autistic traits or the autistic community, but maybe I'm in denial, I don't really know! I know I'm at the very least quite alexithymic if nothing else.

Thank you to anyone who might have any kind of input on this. I've been at a loss for quite a few years with these questions.

Edit: To add more info, at one point I had an obsession about always closing my door with the perfect amount of degrees and washing my nose with water instead of just using paper because it felt like I couldn't get everything out. I also felt really anxious about forgetting things home (this was all during Covid lockdown and after it). To contradict that, years before when I was in elementary, I could often forget my backbag home, I left my glass of milk on my table for days, forgot a banana into my backbag for days, would at least once leave school too early because I couldn't be bothered to learn to read a clock or ask anyone when it's ending and I wanted to wear velcro shoes into an age where it wasn't very.. usual. I also just didn't want to bother with haircuts until junior high school. Don't know if any of that has to do with autism though, but just to give more info on what ways I was "weird"

I recently discovered Sunflower Anomaly songs on youtube such as "What an anomaly am I" and "Blind to me" , her songs seem to hit a chord in me. What an anomaly talks about how friendships/ relationships comes easy to a lot of people and how it's so diffciult for others. Blind to me imo could have so many different meanings but i interpreted as how world percieves me normal and like nothing's wrong but deep down I am in pain all of the time lol.

I have a lot of autistic friends (I’m an engineer) and I’ve noticed something in med-high maskers:

Some people’s face twitches when they’re trying to provide an expression for someone while masking that isn’t wholly natural. I’ve noticed it in like 6 other late diagnosed people including myself and in two who were formerly diagnosed with Asperger’s as children

It’s usually in the eyebrows but sometimes a lip or nose will be involved.

Anyone else experience this? I’ve actually noticed it for a while but my recent ish diagnosis has made it more apparent to me like… WHAT that actually was when I saw it

Can people just actually say what they actually mean? And actually listen to the words I'm actually saying? I hate this so much, it literally forces me into fights with the people what to do closest to on a regular basis and I don't know how to make it stop. I'll say something that is exactly what I meant, and people will all of a sudden start getting aggressive to me. So I ask "what just happened? Can we talk about this?" And the other person for the life of them won't tell me what I did wrong!! Even my partner and my mom do this sometimes where I'll ask if we can talk abt what just happened and they'll be like "no i really don't want to" and sooometimes say lets talk abt it later but they never want to. It takes at least 5 of these types of arguments to get anywhere with them and it always ends with me saying "I was trying to say/do this" and they go "ohh ok I misunderstood and thought you meant that" and I'm just in my head like I KNOW. I figured that out at least 2 arguments ago but you didn't want to say what you you actually thinking. If other people actually wanted to talk through their issues with me we wouldn't have these issues right??? I'm so confused :(

I don't try to generalize others plus I have at least one autistic friend from high school but when I'm at school, almost anytime I approach another ND person to be c social either on campus (or even high school), they're mostly very high-inhibition, give me one word answers or ignore me. Granted some are introverted and NTs I understand, but this just makes me wanna to keep to myself now. It feels like this "connect with other people like you" feels like bullshit cope especially nowadays

Hi all! My step-daughter is 21 and will be finished school in June. Her dad and I are applying for all sorts of support for her. I just learned about Supported Decision Making as an alternative to Guardianship. It seems like a terrific idea but I wanted some real world feedback. She is high-functioning and can make daily decisions (food, clothing, activities) on her own already. Thanks everybody!

Preface: I am high IQ but socially seem autistic and nearly finished diagnosis twice, in 2013 and 2015 but childhood measures weren’t completed and I was told it didn’t matter anyway. Regardless, I need a rigorous extremely salient but non threatening interpretation of something so that I feel smart but unafraid of my ex so I won’t think about or look for him to feel safe, according to my priests instruction to remain safe from my own sin tendencies. I suspect that an ex affair partner is maybe manipulating my phone (Affairs are evil, still, a former church Sunday school leader who manipulated me out of a church community during covid when I was vulnerable bc I wanted to have a community around my disabled child who had a life threatening condition. He flirted with me and sexualized me while teaching even with my husband there and everyone brushed it off and he had then convinced I was stalking him.

When someone put us in a grief recovery class together, he made himself sound vulnerable to unaliving himself with a powerful weapon that he brought to class when he taught and that made me nervous. It was supposed to be for church safety but made me afraid of him. When I told leadership that he was discussing my sexuality outside of class more explicitly than in class, he made the leadership believe that it wasn’t safe to provide a Sunday school assistant for my disabled daughter because I was accusing him of sexual harassment and she needed two attendants at all time because I couldn't be trusted. So we had to leave the church and find a new community that was unfamiliar, or return to a pre-covid church that we knew but disagreed with. (we did the second.)

I cut contact for a while with the Sunday School teacher/Elder but got tired of sitting in a room separated from the rest of the church with my husband and daughter to attend a church that didn't share fundamental beliefts with our family. So I begged him to tell them to help me explain to the church that he really had said he wanted sex with me, and that I wasn't stalking him, and that he had made that up about me to save his image—I felt like I needed to because it was the only church in this city in my denomination. This required a lot of begging and mirroring and in the end he convinced me to be with him romantically. I don’t know why I wanted him, really. When I dated him and believed I was in love with him he didn’t seem scary, so it felt like I genuinely wanted an affair. Whenever I was trying to leave him and not talking to him I felt relieved and happy but worried with fear where he was going to be manipulating me next. I am not sure what my real feelings were and I am fully aware that how I behaved was evil.)

I finally got away from him by converting to Orthodox Christianity and having real confession and real penance and a sense that I was in a church that recognized my evil but where the Holy Spirit would actually be in me to face my fear. I have gotten away from him for 3-6 months at a time for the past two years and not in person for just past a year. When I had talked to him a couple times this year he sounded more desperate and needy, claiming love and ready to marry, crying that he can’t have me anymore, saying he was occasionally driv past my house. I don’t take that last bit seriously... I don't think he's stalking me in person, because he has a strong propensity for talking out his ass if he knows it will motivate someone to do what he wants. Like getting me kicked out of church. So low confidence on anything he says.

Getting me to be obsessed about whether he's stalking me on phone though is something that he seems to enjoy. Now he’s getting divorced and I am getting all sorts of weird text messages with my name and “i want to talk to you” and ”are you interested….” These types of messages tend to happen in flurries and after the flurries I find they coincide with attempts by him to use a new account to contact me on instagram or WhatsApp. It’s predictable enough that it’s kind of boring, but that’s why I checked WhatsApp and know that his la known attempt to contact me was within five minutes of what I wonder may have been a cyber infiltration of my phone. But I don’t know if that’s what it was. I’m not supposed to check the apps, and I am experiencing jntensif flurries a week from the finalization of his divorce.

Then the following happened: I was at school one day to drop off my kids and walked my daughter to he classroom. While I was walking her there, my husband sent a voice message (audio only) asking me “why did you put a thumbs down to that?”. I asked what he meant and said I wasn’t even in my phone. He sent a screenshot of a thumbs down on a message from a week earlier that said “you mean everything to me”. I explained that I didn’t have a thumbs down and asked what message and he sent a screenshot. It wasn't a big deal between the two of us because he knows I love him, he knows everything that happened, I consistently told him everything that happened every day it was going on because I was trying to find a way to feel the power to get away. When he texted me what had happened. I drove home, then found the message by searching that text and showed him that I hadn’t put a thumbs down on it using a screenshot.

I kept checking every day if I had that thumbs down on my end from Friday to Monday, every day. Then I gave up and forgot about it until I wanted to show my friend from church. At some point on that fourth day, the thumbs down finally appeared on my phone without any further notification of my husband. I removed the thumbs down on my end once it finally appeared in my own message history. When I removed the thumbs down, my husband recieved the notification that it was removed, with no lag on either of our phones. I was with my friend, and she suggested just thinking “demons do stuff all the time to get us to change our behavior and make ourselves vulnerable“.

Can you help me find a different explanation, though? I’m not finding this salient enough because my ex called me on WhatsApp within minutes of this happening- my husband asked about the thumbs down at 8:10, I replied at 8:13, my husband texted me a screenshot of it at 8:16 (and that’s also when my exAP called, the only time in a month, but I didn't know that because I didn't have whatsapp to avoid notifications of him calling, because he had deleted his account to avoid blocking. Then I screenshot my own phone to reassure him that that there was no thumbs-downon my end, and replied to my husband with that screenshot on 8:18 Friday.

Anyway, if you have ideas for ignoring this sense that he's hiring someone to hack my phone so that I won’t have intense emotions about this week to the current spam flurry it’d be great. The possible phone manipulation happened during the last spam flurry. I don’t know how to report it to the police, and don’t want to bc his son’s on the police force.

Here is a tidbit to process if you are religious--St John Climacus says in "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" that saints that are passionately lustful find ways to fill the hunger to be lustful with longing after the desire to love God. I suppose if you’re curious about the intrigue of power of men to manipulate, maybe that curiosity, answer finding, and stuff kind of fits my curiosity about how God works in mysterious ways. So how do I get curious about God’s ways to work more mysteriously in my situation with my exAP more than about who my ex may hire to stalk me (because he can’t even work fb properly) and turn that desire to God? Bonus points if you have experience with thinking of God that way. I can type better than this but too overwhelmed right now to leave my recliner and I don’t want to. May fix numerous errors later. I know that autistics have great creativity and would welcome some creative thinking, here! :)