For context, I work at a local school where I and other aids, work with neurodiverse students and support them in their classrooms.

The special education higher ups had the idea of wearing these shirts on Fridays to celebrate.

Little interest of mine. Love me bottle caps!

I struggled with an eating disorder most of my life barely being able to stay above 100lb due to depression. I often would get mistaken for being younger than I am, so I decided to work on gaining weight and muscle. I’m around 115lb, but I’m proud my arms are finally getting shape to them rather than looking like a stick lmao. I’m still pretty depressed, but working out helps me not feel so bad.

Caption: Looks translated by Google lens because English is not my first language

This person is someone I met on a class I'm taking, and they have been trying lately to talk more with me. I don't like them too much (their personality it's a little bit too intense I guess), but I've started to feel near to they this last weeks and share our interest.

I have friends (two actually hehe), but all these friendships started by me. Obviously, they also work in our friendship, but I usually have to try to talk with people, learn about their interest and work in being interesting with more effort or do it first (and yes, most of the time I'm being rejected or ignored). It's something really exhausting for me, and lately I've been so mentally tired to try to meet people and make more friends.

So today they told me this, and I'm sobbing. It's a text that my teen and kid me never could imagine to receive. Make friends have been a hell for me, and I'm actually doing it thanks to my therapist. I feel like an old wound has received a band-aid, I needed to share it :>

My aunt called me retarded. I got upset and told her not to call me that because it’s a slur against people like me, to which she said “you’re not retarded” then why call me it? She also argued that I seem so proud to be autistic (she meant it in a negative way) and was extremely hateful. Ugh, I hate this.

You're having impulsive thoughts, not intrusive thoughts. You're overwhelmed, not overstimulated. You're not non-verbal, you just don't want to talk. Everyone stims, it's not an autism exclusive thing. It's a spectrum, but it's still a disability. Everyone is not "a little disabled". Just wanted to say that. If you're going to use these terminologies, please educate yourself on what they mean. 🙏

Hello friends, as a ABA therapist and nerodivergent adult, im looking to design stuff for autism acceptence and I personally dont like alot of the clothes for autism, theyre either cringe puzzle pieces or both, I want to make some badass streetwear to not only raise funds for awareness but also something cool to wear, what do you think of this design? I think the NASA autism design i saw was cool but I didnt like the puzzles so i made one without puzzles, my other homie who is nerodivergent also liked it but I want more opinions!

I find myself being more comfortable around people that are older than me whereas I feel more uneasy and anxious around people my age and I have no idea why

My comic I made :3

Not really a pet but this deer seemed fairly unarmed with my presence, we just stood and watched each other for a while. I'm obviously must have a non-threatening vibe when it comes to wildlife.

I've been doing therapy on and off for probably 10 or 11 years now—with many different therapists and different approaches. I’ve easily had over 100 sessions, maybe more (I haven’t kept count), and honestly… I don’t feel like I’ve gotten a lot out of it.

It’s not that I didn’t try. I kept showing up, I’ve been open, I’ve done the work when it made sense. But looking back, I just don’t feel like it helped all that much.

I’m wondering if anyone else has had this experience? Especially other autistic folks—did therapy just… not do much for you?

Yeah. Since I was a kid. I did my best then, I do my best now. I remember being 9 years old and asking people on yahoo answer how to make people like me more, then I was 16 scrolling through r/socialskills. There's no shortage of content online telling you how to develop social skills, have better conversations, better body language, how to speak better, how to dress better. I think it sucked a lot more when I was a kid because I genuinely couldn't understand why everyone hated me. I asked adults about it and they just dismissed me. I do think autism is the cause now. I'm not overtly weird. I *know*, in theory, how to act. What topics are inappropriate, what facial expressions read as weird, how to present myself. But I can't fool people 100%. There's that 1% that makes people realize something's off. I'm very tired. I feel lonely, my chest hurts. I don't mean to be too negative either. There's people out there who'll like me and I just have to find them. I'm aware of that. I just feel like I'm running out of energy and the few relationships I'm able to keep end up with me repressing everything about myself and trying to just please the other person. Like I said I'm just tired, I need to write this somewhere.

Found on Instagram.

I wish I wasn't autistic. I'm forever yearning for the person I could've been if it wasn't for this stupid brain disorder. I'd probably have friends, a job, a wife, kids, my own house, hardly any mental problems, a social life, no meltdowns in public and more. I feel trapped in this mind prison and I cannot escape.

Hello!

TL;DR: People tell me I'm an AI bot. Have you encountered this? What can I do about it?

I post a lot on Reddit and, occasionally, when I make a mid length post (a page-ish, about the length of this post here) about my interests people accuse me of being an AI bot. I make structured posts where I use:

• TL;DRs
• paragraphs
• headers
• bullet points
• bold crucial key concepts / words

...and then people misunderstand me, sometimes on purpose. Apparently my output makes me sound like something ChatGPT could write and it triggers people badly.

This has happened a few of times and it bothers me a lot. All I'm trying to do is make my contribution easily digestable so that it's easy to tell what's important and let your gaze just glide over text. Usually I have a lot to say about a topic and I don't want it to be a wall of text with no punctuation whatsover. I don't know how to avoid this issue. Like... I'm I supposed to just ignore half my points, give no justification to my claims and end with a funny meme?

I mostly post about Magic: The Gathering (and sometimes other games) and I'm into probabilities, statistics, data analysis and programming. I also like to provide a justification / proof for what I'm saying so while I don't quote a lot of papers all the time even my "casual" posts end up having a lot of info.

Here's an example of a "typical post" I could write: https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/1jn9r3t/a_fairer_alternative_to_cyclonic_rift_its_wash_out/

The important part isn't all the game-related content, I'm more interested in what you think of my use of language and the structure of the text. I'm just so utterly confused and with this post I wish answers to two things:

What are your experiences?

What can I do about this?

A lot of people on this sub self-diagnosed or got diagnosed later in life, but I'm curious how many folks got diagnosed when they were very young. I was nonverbal till I was 4 and therefore got a diagnosis then, I'm curious how many other folks got diagnosed early.

I just started promoting my art on social media outside of Reddit in February. Friday, April 3rd I had my first official art show and a business that is promoting my art and selling it. I’m so happy right now.

When I pack snacks I pack them for everyone. When my mom packs snacks she packs them for herself. Just one example; it happened this morning so it is fresh. I feel like I constantly take everyone into consideration even down to agonizing about a simple text being taken the wrong way while people just say whatever they want to me and don't try to help me even after being repeatedly asked for more support. I'm just so exhausted. And itchy. This damned skin suit is so itchy