People usually say this to me when I get angry over something and express it. However, when the same people or others are angry over something and they express their feelings, others see it as valid. It could be the rudest thing to ever come out of their mouths, but it’s still acceptable? I don’t understand what it is. I’m doing wrong then. Would how I talk really be that bad whenever I’m angry? How do I fix this?

y’all ever like something so much it’s almost painful? like my chest is genuinely aching just thinking my favorite song. It probably doesn’t help that I got to see it live at a concert a few days ago, but this sucks.

Who here has a extremely extroverted family and how did it affect you growing up?

Both my parents are/were extreme extroverts as well as my brother. We had multiple outings throughout the week and our door was revolving. People moved in with us as needed, we always had parties, church events, hosted book clubs and all kinds of things. My parents have to talk to multiple people all day everyday.

I am the odd one of my family and I hate social stuff, need lots of recovery time, and could happily live in my house for weeks without seeing anyone.

I did realize though that growing up that way made me mask from a very young age and I am very good at faking being nice and social. Now Im starting to wonder who I am under all the fake layers...

Any other aspergirls live in one bedroom apartments or homes with a significant other? How do you cope with low privacy?

For context, I’ve been with my partner for 7 years. We’ve lived together for 6, but from 2020-2025 we had a bigger place to escape to in the mountains, in addition to our big city apartment. A year ago we moved out of the mountain home and for the last 1 year we’ve been only in the city apartment.

It’s a 700 square foot railroad style apartment: living room in front, then bedroom and bathroom off the short hallway, then the kitchen and dining nook in the back.

I’m the type who’s good at masking and can appear very social but it really drains my battery. I also live with endometriosis (had surgery this March) and chronic migraines. So I have fatigue, chronic pain, and daily sensory overload.

Even though my partner understands these things and wants me to be comfortable, I just can’t help the fact that sometimes I hate seeing him and him seeing me.

For example, if he talks to me in the morning before I’ve had an hour of tea and reading time in the dark (I get up at 5:15am for this solo time) then I’ll quietly rage and my stress and pain will spike.

And if we’ve had an argument, oh boy it’s so hard to come down from that and reset. You can feel the tension in the entire small apartment if we don’t make up immediately (which we’re getting better at).

I should probably mention we both work from home, him at his own one man startup and me at a big-ish tech company. His desk is in the dining nook and mine is in the living room. So we are around each other a LOT. I try to encourage him to go see friends and go to the gym more (AKA things without me) so I have solo time to be a gremlin here, but he’s become a bit of a hermit since covid. I leave the house for solo things, but this isn’t restful.

We’re planning to get married soon, I love him, and we love our home, so I’d appreciate any advice around dealing with this. Especially with regard to how I explain it to him—any adjustments we should make.

Please don’t suggest moving. This place is rent controlled in an extremely HCOL city and we’re saving to buy a house. We have redesigned and updated several aspects of the apt over time, as if we own it. It’s very special to us even though it’s small.

Thank you for reading.

Mostly posting this for a sanity check and maybe for some tips/advice if anyone has any. Does anyone else really struggle with unstructured days but also days with too many plans/things to get done?

I feel like I waste my entire day if I don't have a set schedule of things I have to get done. Then I feel like I've wasted my day and spend half my evening sulking about how I didn't get anything done. If I try to "go with the flow", I feel like I'm not present. Like my mind is elsewhere.

I had a completely open day yesterday after my tattoo appointment got rescheduled. My husband suggested we get coffee and go search for a few home things we need. I barely even remember what we did because I was physically there, but my brain wasn't really computing anything that was happening. We got home, I started dinner and I realized that I wanted to get like 3 house tasks done that day and hadn't done any of it. Then I struggled to watch a TV show with my husband because all I could think about was what I didn't get done.

I'm probably explaining this really badly but tl;dr: I crave structure. If I don't have set plans, I wander and feel lost and confused about what to do with myself. Then I feel crappy at the end of the day because I don't feel like I was present and wasted the entire day. But I also get panicked when I have a full to-do list on any given day.

Does anyone else feel this way? Even commiseration would help me feel like less of a weirdo.

Hi! Im 29F and a first year medical student and I have noticed that I often have issues being around groups of people. I am totally fine when I am by myself or in a quite place like the library. I am also okay with being around other people as long as they are alone just like me. But as soon as I see other people talking while I am sudying, I get this debilitating sense of loneliness and despair. I dont have any friends right now and I am far away from family. I used to have a best friend but we fell out years ago. I have no-one that appreciates me and who I can truly be myself with. I feel like im the "loser" of the class. When I see othet people talking in big groups, I get depressed because it seems so easy for them to socialize. All I have done is bored people to tears because I talk about school because thats all we have in common. Can anyone explain why I can't be around people? It feels like being around people triggers my fight or flight reflex

So I've just done some journalling and had a cry and I'm feeling unreasonable and I guess I'm writing here to get some support or perspective

My mum invited my brother and I to lunch. I never really agreed, we talked about finding a weekend for them to come to me because I moved house a year ago and my brother has never seen the place. But we couldn't line up our availability with the restaurant near me that my mum likes. So suddenly in the chat it's "come to mine for lunch on Sunday as agreed". I never agreed, she just made the plan because she knew I was free today

Anyway. She never set a time. I live an hour away and we all need clarity right? So I send messages and try to call throughout the morning to find out what time to be there. She didn't respond to any of them. So at nearly 2pm, keyed up, and hungry I message that I'm not going and I'll see them another time

And as soon as I send that message I'm so anxious. I've got a lump in my throat and I want to cry.

And she finally responds so I send "I'm sorry I'm not trying to be difficult but you never set a time and I've been trying all day to get some clarity and you know that I struggle with uncertainty and now I'm shattered and stressed and I don't have a two hour round trip in me"

And now I've calmed down a bit I'm feeling like I've been unreasonable but I'm just so tired and worn out lately and I'm upset I spent my entire Sunday waiting and waiting and getting upset and now the whole day is marred by this huge emotional reaction I've had. The reason I feel unreasonable is I wasn't getting a double tick for delivered on WhatsApp so it's not that she was ignoring me but that the messages weren't getting through so to her out of nowhere I've just thrown a strop.

And it's nearly 3pm and I've still not eaten and I feel like I've ruined the whole day

I've been with my partner for about two years, and he recently came to me with an issue: he hadn't wanted to admit it to himself, but he'd been feeling lonely for a while in our relationship. This was obviously pretty heart-breaking for me to hear, and I want to do what I can for him to not feel that way.

He attributed the feeling to a lack of non-verbal communication between us. Maybe relevant is that he's a musician, and was a bit of a child prodigy (to be fair, he rejects that classification but I think it evokes the kind of kid he was). He struggled a lot with communicating his feelings through words until post-college, and he definitely used his instrument to communicate what he couldn't verbally.

On the other hand, words have always been my domain. Up until very recently, I've made my living as a writer. I've never thought that much about non-verbal communication. But I want to learn. It feels almost like we have two different native languages, and that he's consistently been having to translate himself into mine.

He's super expressive with his eyes, and when I take the time to really look, I often can tell what he's thinking just by looking at him. That element of it feels accessible to me – being more patient with trying to understand him non-verbally, rather than always jumping to words.

He's also told me that sometimes it's hard for him to follow when I'm telling him a story because I'll go a long time without looking at him. He's said he needs the eye contact check-ins to feel connected when I'm talking. I'm working on that, and it feels do-able.

The part that I'm not sure how to tackle – and I'm wondering if it's related to neurodivergence – is learning to communicate non-verbally myself. He's said that sometimes he'll look in my eyes and I just look "empty" or "absent", which was honestly kind of tough to hear. I have actually noticed that myself on a couple occasions in photos, usually when I'm very tired or have a migraine. We've done a couple experiments with me trying to communicate non-verbally, but trying to communicate something with my eyes honestly feels a bit like trying to do telepathy. I'm not sure I've really succeeded.

I really love him, I don't want him to feel lonely in our relationship anymore, and I want this to work out. Would appreciate any tips, advice, or perspectives! Thanks guys.

I experienced a weird situation with my dad earlier. After we just got some food and I felt like I wanted to be able to get some advice here. We both got some food from the restaurant downstairs and he told me earlier that he was wondering how we were going to split it in half. But then later when I finally got the food he didn't really bring up again how we were going to split it. Then, I asked him hey Dad how are we going to split this. Then he said what are you talking about I don't need to split it with you. And then I reminded him I said dad you literally said to me that we are going to split it and I'm going to want to split this food with you. And I feel like I had to give him some kind of stern eye contact or use some assertive tone in my voice. After giving him the stern eye contact and the assertive kind of tone in my voice, he seemed to reciprocate what I was saying and he just replied " it doesn't matter."

Then, as I went to go eat it he got up from where he was sitting and asked me so how are we going to split this and in my head I was experiencing some short circuit experience feeling. But this happens to me and my dad very frequently. We ended up splitting the food. I was happy that we could share a meal and eat together. We don't normally share a meal or eat together. I would like to be able to have a talk with my dad anytime where it's assertive or communicative or getting to the point. I feel like I personally lack the ability to be concise and make sense of what my dad is saying sometimes. There's one other example I have of this thing going on with my dad's communication typewise. Many times I've asked him if he would like to go out food shopping and then, he would get snappy and seemingly look like his heart rate was going up and tell me we have plenty of food in the house and we're not going. I was scared of his responses because he seemed genuinely enraged or infuriated or attacked me emotionally. This is how I felt about the sandwich item that we split earlier today. I felt that my dad was emotionally attacking me. But then just like with the food 20 minutes or 2 hours ago about 20 minutes after I asked my dad to get food for the 10th time in the past he would knock on my door enthusiastically asking me hey when are we going to go food shopping what would you like me to buy for you?

This is the type of communication that I have with my dad. I tried to bring it up to him before. But I don't think that he really has the best way to cope with his responses. I myself found myself replying in the same way at times. I've even experienced my older sister responding to me similarly. I'm not really sure how to go about this. As for how me and him split the sand which food item earlier I eventually just made sure that I put in my weight or the effort of trying to help him and help me split the food. I do acknowledge that I am not completely incapable of action. Sometimes I do experience some form of thoughts or reaction or response. I feel that maybe my dad also experiences this. There is sympathy for this. I just hope sometimes when I respond the same way that he feels that way towards me too. I apologize for the very long post. I decided to use text to speech since I didn't want to write this all out and I think that through future reference I may use text to speech again. If you ever use text to speech, then maybe it can help you the way that I feel it's helping me currently to process the scenario. Really I'm just looking for advice.

Im so isolated and no idea where im going to live. I need to move out of my parents house due to abuse from father with dementia

People keep telling me to "build community" but I dont know how to do that now when im depressed and pregnant and scared and neurodivergent, it makes everything harder

Edit: i dont believe in abortion and would appreciate not getting comments about this, its extremely hurtful and disturbing to me that there is so much rejection towards my baby, it makes me want to cry.

I love my baby and Im happy about having one. Im upset at my relationship and my circumstances.

My main issue right now is isolation while pregnant and neurodivergent, and needing community and support

TW: bullying, relationship abuse, self harm

Today I was with my bf and we were playing games. He made a joke about me being slow which hurt a lot because I have been called slow and other horrible things growing up. It was just one small comment but it triggered me really badly and I started shaking and crying in secret at first. I don’t know what gave me the courage but I wanted to try telling him how I didn’t like the joke and I did. He immediately apologized and I felt so chocked by it.

If I ever tried to speak up in the past about basically anything I would get yelled and and berated for hours. I would start hating myself and even hurting myself because I started to believe I was the most terrible thing on this earth. My whole childhood in school i experienced bullying and then abused by my first (ex) boyfriend and I could never speak up and didn’t dare try to defend myself because it would just get 10 times worse if I did. I would always shutdown and was very ”out of it” in general back then. I had been bracing myself to be yelled at for hours again and it didn’t happen. He apologized and that was that. I feel so shaken up I started crying even harder and hyperventilating even though literally nothing bad happened. I feel so broken but I’m also grateful he treated me kindly. I’m so happy he is kind to me but I’m also angry. Why were everyone else so terrible to me? How could they treat me like that? I have only ever tried to be kind I never did anything to them to warrant it. Why did I have to suffer so much?

I don’t know I just have a lot going on in my head right now. I’m lucky and so grateful for my boyfriend tho he could guess immediately that I was autistic and been very supportive and trying to help me get away from overwhelming noise and similar. I don’t even know if this post is making much sense but I just wanted to share this with someone

Today I was getting over a gluten sensitivity issue. I was in pain last week. I was feeling off today, and my sports bra felt like it was restricting me and making it hard to breathe even though I know it wasn’t really too tight😣. But I felt like it might cause more anxiety without it in public and being physically active. I don’t mind not wearing one at home sometimes, but I really don’t like that uneasy feeling from not wearing one in public 😣

hello! I feel like when I was a kind, identifying my emotions were a lot easier (maybe because they were simpler!), but now as an adult, I have a lot of feelings that I can sort of describe but not identify.... can anyone suggest any resources for autistic adults on identifying complicated feelings?

ex: I am feeling apathetic, out of focus, and have a neck/shoulder pain.... I know this is some kind of fatigue but without knowing more, I cannot find the source and fix it. so alternatively -- does anyone have any tips on investigating their own feelings? im unsure how to phrase this for google!

I'd sign up in a heartbeat. A beautiful monastery-style building out in nature designed for us monotropic folks, with single rooms, a big library, and spaces where each resident can dedicate themselves to their work or passions most days for hours on end. A dining hall where interacting is okay, but not expected. An open culture where nobody needs to suppress their emotional regulation mechanisms. Once or twice a week, each resident contributes with a single duty: cooking, cleaning, admin, gardening. For these duties, you'd have the chance to be mentored on it once you sign up, so no need to be an expert beforehand. But it's important that it is a single task, one you'd be able to focus on exclusively on your assigned days. Optional meditation sessions in the mornings and evenings. Talks on neurodivergence and self-acceptance.

Basic needs are taken care of for everyone - breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served at the same time time every day, although they are optional, and can be taken into your room, as long as you don't make a mess there. There is a tea room for gatherings and celebrations. You are free to come and go, as long as it's not disruptive, and visits by mentors, teachers, classmates, work colleagues, etc. are allowed, so you can meet 1-on-1 to show and discuss your work. Rent is extra cheap, and is only used to cover bills and such, as most of the maintenance work is done in-house by residents.

There are probably many aspects I haven't considered, and it'd be important to consider the underlying incentive structure for a place like this, so nobody takes advantage or feels taken advantage of. Fairness would be a central tenet. A place autistic women could go to for an interest-based retreat, so to say, where passions can flourish and people can thrive, away from the survival stress and endless demands of modern life. Low cognitive load, high learning. A girl can dream...

Edit: Wait, I think I'm describing an actual nunnery lol

Whenever my partner and I have an argument, he always asks for space which I fully understand why. But as an anxious person with abandonment issues and traumatic past, am I wrong for asking to compromise and ask for a rough time as to when I can make contact with him again? I have no one else so I really struggle on my own but I want to respect his wishes too. Personally, I see this as the fairest balance of the two but I’m open to suggestions. But my partner seems to feel this is asking for too much.
I asked this elsewhere and got told I’m the one with the issues, which I will respect if people could explain why. I’ve never been made to feel this horrible before and it’s overwhelming me because I always try my best to be a good person

I have always wanted a career in academia, having a PhD has always been a dream since I have been known to obsess and get details right from a very young age.

College was a different deal, however.

I was exhausted, overstimulated, constantly on the verge of complete emotional and mental collapse due to a lot of things happening at once.

Since my diagnosis is extremely recent, I am not so sure what to do next, I did get through college but it was after massive burnout and my teachers were kind enough to let me graduate with an academically challenging degree ( terrible grades, mostly Cs and Bs).

I am unsure as to what to do next, I have been unemployed for a year but have recently taken up a tutoring job because I love being around kids (it is a one-one setting and I am very animated which proves very effective in my teachings).

However, I do want to do more with my life because I love learning and I love my subject (Physics and Mathematics). I struggle with everything else though :///

I won't get to do half the things I want or become the person I want to due to how disabling my autism is for me. I feel so detached from my age because I'm not the person I imagine I'd become when I was a little kid. I'm in the last year of my 20s and I have nothing to show for it.

I think majority of my time I spend in a constant state of dissociation and brain fog; that it's almost a slap in the face when reality hits me, and I realise this really is it, this is my existence. I'm so jealous of neurotypical's. I really wonder how much better my life would have been if I wasn't autistic.

Hi, I'm in a period of intense burnout, and since I was 12 (I'm now 18) I tend to fall into derealization. I do this very often these days. Last night,as I was about to sleep, a strange episode happened to me, and thinking about it this morning I don't understand if it really happened or if I was hallucinating. Tomorrow I will discuss this better with my therapist. But I don't know how to start the conversation, has anything like this ever happened to you?

I will describe the most recent situation today but it is becoming a noticeable pattern for me with this particular person that I unfortunately cannot cut off.

Before this, I had asked them what they would want for dinner (note that we tend to split cooking so i asked so i know what to expect and to prepare) - they had also stated they wanted dinner today, in the previous day. They said that they are busy at the moment and will say later. I had also said that I have a bit of a headache when they came home but I’m unsure if they heard. I have had this headache for around the last hour and it was getting worse. I sometimes feel sick if my headache is bad enough at it was the case at that moment.

After a bit, I came back and realised how bad my headache was. I realised that I had to clean some dishes for us to use before we could cook. I realised that I did not have the capacity to all of that so I asked them if they were ok cooking dinner for us today since i had a really bad headache. They got confused and asked what i meant - if i wanted them to just cook for themselves or for both if us. I said can you cook dinner for us.

They kept asking what i meant like 2 or three times and made me repeat that I didnt want to cook because i feel too ill. They also asked if i would cook half of food (so basically what we usually do)- i didn’t know what we weren’t gonna eating so i asked and it was kieve dinner. They wanted me to cook rhe microwave stuff which is like three things and i have to do time management and there are people home so not empty kitchen and it was too much so i said no. And at one point said that they don’t want to cook. So i said that i don’t want to cook and you don’t want to cook so no one will make dinner - idk if they might’ve been offended by me saying this my headache was overwhelming at this point i was just trying to manage that and think of a plan because i didn’t want to have to buy takeaway again but i didn’t have it in me to cook and we weren’t gonna have food but i only had one snack the whole day so i need to eat.

They asked again what i meant even though i just said that none of us wants to cook so we weren’t gonna have dinner - i felt at this point that they were being obtuse on purpose because i stated my point so many times so i told them that. I don’t understand how they don’t get it. They said that i was being vague and not answering them. I said my point so many times. I was trying to deal with this headache and then the mental load if not having dinner then also trying to say the same point over snd over again because they dint understand was all too much so i left saying i cant deal.

They got mad cuz they said tgey were at work all day (i didnt wirk today) and they shouldnt have to cook - i didnt say they had to - I just said i didnt want to. I leave and my mum ask fir explaing so i do my best and say they keep asking me over and iver again when i say that i dont feel well to cook. They come out the room very angry screaming that its my fault for being vague and that they didnt want dinner anyway - they didnt communicate this to me otherwise i wouldn’t have asked - and that why should they cook when they have been at work all day. I say that i never said they should they just keep being angry. I feel my brain exploded from headache and stress and feeling nausea.

This is the pattern - i feel i say something clearly- they say i think i do but i dont - they dont ask any calcifying questions that i can answer in a different way and they dont give me important info like They don t want dinner so i feel we are at a point of clarity when we are not. They say I am the problem and are angry. I feel that they demand me to be 1000% perfect and eloquent every second of every day.

I sometimes feel like they are vagueor difficult and hide their intentions but i cannot say that ir i am manipulating or being a bitch or acccusing. Like they didnt say they dont want dinner then when someone else is involved they say they dont want dinner then i hear them saying later downstairs if they can use the kitchen to cook.

I cant improve my clarity if im not being told the truth or being asked for the missing info properly

Sorry for spelling i still have headache and clarity might not be good. Not sure if i weite the order of events properly

ETA- this person is my sibling. I am not in a place to move away so I must continue to live with them.

So I've been with my girlfriend for almost 3 months and she has a problem with crying, everytime she does something bad she immediately start apologising like the world ended because of her and it has gotten so bad that when we played DnD a couple of days ago she got really bad rolls and started crying badly because "she was getting in the way and we were not progressing because of her" even though she didn't do ANYTHING wrong. She knows she has a problem with apologising and crying and the issue is that every time she does something wrong, even if out of her control, she verbally abuses and belittles herself in her head. Another issue is that she cries from anything, I just finished a meeting today and she started crying because she sees me doing stuff and thinks that she's worthless and I've tried several times to encourage her but nothing seems to work. Can someone please tell me what can I do for her, therapy is not an option because in Romania it is heavily looked down upon and we would probably be harshly judged by our parents.

I'm NeuroDivergent, and my partner has Aspergers. We have been together for 3 years. He was diagnosed early in life and knows quite much about Aspergers and how to live and be functional with it. I have AuDHD and got only aware of it 2 years ago. Ever since, I have been trying to both meet my partner's communication needs and know myself and learn how to be, with a new light of ND perspective.

We have this cycle of hell however, that every once in a while he starts arguing with me over something "seemingly" small (mostly about me not considering his "clear" communication need and asking questions instead of assuming things) then right away, he says he has no intention of being together anymore, asks me to leave his house, blames me and belittles me, says he is disconnected and wants to break up, he becomes furious calls me names and blocks me and leaves for days or weeks without telling me when or if at all he will come back.

To me, it is torture. It would have been nice if he would explain that he needs space, but he never does. He makes it look like I should emotionally detach and forget all about him. Which I do every time. It hurts so damn much to leave and come back again. Every time I lose part of the love I have for him.

And then he comes back. Either apologizes or tries to connect us through a joint activity or makes up for the time he wasn't there.

But it is never clear if he wants to come back or not. He sure makes sure I believe he has already left for good.

During the time he is withdrawn, if he has not blocked me yet, I try to explain or apologize or ask him what he needs or if he comes back. But thay only makes things way worse. It also makes things worse if I don't come forth to apologize furiously. I don't know what to do with him.

I just think it is my basic right to know he needs a space and he will come back; for me to have some peace in this relationship. My life is also affected hugely (my eating my project and sleep, I often get sick right after he leaves because I can't take care of my body in shock). I go through hell rollercoaster at least once a month.

We have been to therapy together, which helped a little to understand each other (that is how now I know he leaves because he needs space, not because he doesn't love me or not cuz I'm a monster. before therapy, he used to make sure I feel that way)

I know he is in pain. But I really need to change this cycle, and I have no idea how to. We still can't move in together because of this and are wasting so much of our finances over paying for two rents. I have to have my stuff in 2 different citiea and commute quite a lot. I am unreliable in my work and studies and projects because he has all the power over my mental stability and availability in life, with what he does, I can't focus on building resumes for my visa.

Please, if you have experience or resources I can use to help with this situation, share with me, I would appreciate it very much.

Thank you.

I’m 29 (was diagnosed at 22) and earlier this year, my stepdad filed for divorce from my mom very unexpectedly. He’s been in our lives for almost 25 years, so he’s known me almost my whole life. My mom was a mess for a few months, but she’s thriving now. Our relationship has been complicated to say the least and he’s not the best guy on the planet, but I guess I must’ve loved him because I’ve recently been hit with a wall of grief. I’m very certain that I’ll never hear from him again now that they’re divorcing, so it’s almost like he died even though he’s still alive and I could technically run into him at the grocery store or something. For months, I felt nothing about any of it other than occasional anger, but it’s finally starting to hit me. I cry a lot, I’m more sensitive to change than I usually am, I’ve been more anxious than usual, stuff like that. It’s not even that I miss him, I’m just really hurt by the way he discarded my mom and me. There’s also past trauma stuff involved as well that I don’t want to get into here. Has anyone else here experienced a delayed grief reaction like that? Am I broken or something? I was hope I could just keep on keeping on without feeling anything about it. I guess that would’ve been unrealistic though. He taught me how to ride a bike, he’s always been around.

Hi everyone. I'm going to be moving out for university very soon. I'm 20 years old and I'm still so scared to be living on my own. I'm going to have a few suitemates but my own bedroom. If there are aspergirls here that are much older and wiser than I and have been through university, could you give me some advice or reassurance about moving, and what I should know/be prepared for? Also, I feel like I'm lacking life skills, and I worry about being a bad roommate.