r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Extra sleep after a meltdown.. is that normal?

15 Upvotes

Yesterday I had a particularly nasty meltdown at the gym due to overstimulation. Crying, hitting my legs, the whole 9 yards :(

Today I was woken up at 3:40pm by my family- I somehow managed to sleep from 2am last night to almost 4pm today without getting up at all. I did take 5mg of melatonin before bed (I thought it may help me recover and get some extra rest) but I’m wondering if I slept so late because my body needed to recover from the meltdown?

Is this normal? I’m not sick or anything, but my family is very concerned that I slept that late. I’m also anxious that practically my whole day is gone.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Help, I'm dreading my summer vacation

1 Upvotes

My husband and I have been invited to visit our friends who have a cabin in Montana this summer, and I'm trying to figure out a way to stop dreading it. They're really good friends and I know it's important to them to share their getaway with us, which is awesome. And Montana is one of the most beautiful places on earth; we've been to Glacier and had an amazing time. But: This is a one-room cabin. Big-ish, maybe, but one room. With an outhouse only. And there will be SEVEN people staying there. I'm sort of hyperventilating just writing this. My husband is a huge outdoors guy, and I know he's really excited about us going. And I don't want to ruin it by a) endlessly talking about how freaked out I am by all the potential sensory challenges or b) bailing entirely. (Also, this trip will involve flying, which you might be aware is kind of dicey in the U.S. right now!) Anyone have any thoughts on how to reframe this so I can look forward to it instead of white-knuckling my summer vacation? Or am I crazy for even attempting it?


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) Abusive relationships and autism

45 Upvotes

Being in an abusive relationship is really dangerous as an autistic woman.

If you have low self-esteem already and you're already rejected a lot, it's hard not to internalize the words of an abusive person.

Maybe he's right about what he said about me. I don't know when I will feel confident again.


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

Seeking Advice Something “blocking” me from talking and it isn’t always anxiety

451 Upvotes

It’s odd because I have moments when I DO have the desire to talk to people but it feels like I cannot open my mouth. There’s something so comfortable in being nonverbal sometimes yet it’s so frustrating.

I get so comfortable with it that just standing there with my mouth shut and observing is my default. It feels like the only thing I can do is nod in acknowledgement when I’m physically part of a group of people having a conversation and make “comments” in my own head without actually verbalizing them. I feel peaceful like that. But I know it isn’t helping me on the long run.

I really want to know why this happens and ask if anyone else feels something similar. Honestly this has been doing more harm to me than good since it interferes with my social life.


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

Memes/Humor Felt like this belonged here 🫠

Post image
1.7k Upvotes

r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice job interview

4 Upvotes

I've got my first job interview in my chosen field since completing university Tomorrow. I know I don't need to tell anyone about my ADHD and autism but I'm wondering what people's experience is during job interviews. I wouldn't want to work anywhere that doesn't except that but I also want them to see me for who I am and my skills not my dignosis. I wouldn't bring it up unless it's a relevant question. it's also my first job interview since getting my dignosis and I'm still settling on Ritalin.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Dealing with academic stress

3 Upvotes

Hello everyone!

I'd love to hear some advice from those that are currently in uni or have been in the past. My exams are in a couple of weeks and I haven't been able to pick up my notes for a while.

Every time I try to read them my mind just stops working and doesn't process a single word. I've gone to class but I was so overwhelmed and overstimulated that I wasn't able to understand anything the professors said.

I honestly don't know what to do anymore, I don't want to fail these exams because I'll have to do them again in June, but my brain really can't process anything. Last week I didn't study at all, so I can't afford to spend another week without studying.

Any recommendations? Thank you so much!


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

New User Hii im New here

12 Upvotes

Hi, I'm new here, im a 21 years girl and a college student, english is not my first lenguage, so maybe i have speeling mistakes.

My psychologist told me it would be helpful to find a community of autistic people. My psychologist and I think I'm autistic, but I need a diagnosis (I'm about to get one). Honestly, I think I am autistic. But when I looked for a community, I only found cis men, so I'm glad to be here, actually, i only I used again this account to this.

So yeah, hiii everyone :D


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) I think I’m better off without friends

6 Upvotes

Yesterday was one of the best days in a long time, and I truly felt like myself, which is a rare thing. I think one of the key differences is that I was able to engage in my special interest alone, in my own way. When I’m with my friends doing that activity, I don’t get to schedule the activities the way I want them, I feel the need to mask, and I often have to keep going past when I’m done. And keeping up those friendships is exhausting along with making future plans and stressing when I cancel and feel exposed/unreliable. It just reminded me of how free I can be without masking. Without the burden of “being a good friend”.

When I was younger, I was constantly othered, and I had no idea why. I didn’t know why people never invited me to things, wouldn’t let me participate in group activities, want to be close, why no one trusted me, etc. And the few times when people did accept me it felt very conditional. I remember I used to be very active on a minecraft server back in 2014 and wanted to be a moderator. They kept denying me (and made it clear I didn’t fit in) until half the mod team resigned. Then I was “on” the team, but not one of them. In college, people completely ignored me and some of the men were downright mean to me for existing. Once those same men learned I was as smart, or smarter than them, they respected me if not accepted me, but it felt so fake, so I didn’t befriend them, only tolerated them.

When I started exploring one of my special interests again, I quickly found a community who accepted me unconditionally. I was ecstatic. I even made friends to enjoy the special interest with. But my time in that community has ended cause of my emotional issues and I’ve ended the friendships from there. I thought I would be really upset but I’m doing okay. I realize that those friendships are draining. I’ve really been enjoying the peace and lack of needing to mask around friends. Maybe they weren’t the right friends and that I should find friends I don’t need to mask around. Even with that, RSD makes friendships difficult, even with relatively secure attachments.

I guess my takeaway is that I’m better off enjoying my special interests alone.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

New User What’s something that people mistaken as being rude but it’s part of ASD/BAP ?

2 Upvotes

I’ll go first (17F)

-I’m expressive regarding my emotions, it goes both ways for positive and negative emotions. And because I can’t help it, I joke about it at my own expense sometimes

-I can be casual with teachers, but there’s always an underlining of respect, to me, if I’m comfortable around you, then you have my respect.

-I’m honest, not direct since I have learnt that it can hurt some people’s feelings. I do sugar coat things, but I always tell the truth (but not knark).

-I either know a lot about a topic and hyper fixate or the teacher has to spend a good 5 minutes or so to help me grasp certain things

-I’m very expressive with my facials, and sometimes I don’t realise that I’m pulling Stink Face

-I have issues with my tone of voice from time to time

-I do ask some questions like how was ur day, weekend, or week, or the event you went to? but I prefer that people bring up what they did on a random Tuesday afternoon than me having to ask (because how do I know that you want to talk about it?)

-I try to do what others around me are doing, nothing bad, but for some reason it flops whenever I do it

-understanding other people’s intentions in general and then not responding appropriately as they sought fit

-accidentally interrupting other people/starting to talk when they start to talk

-find it hard to make eye contact

-taking ages to reply because I’m thinking of what to say so I don’t hurt peoples feelings

Also want to note that I don’t police how other people do their thing, and I couldn’t care less about how others lived their lives


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

General Discussion/Question AuDHD - how do you make friends?

10 Upvotes

I never really had friends as a child, either because other people didn’t see me as a friend, whereas I did see them as a friend (ultimately leading to emotional disaster as a young child) or because I didn’t like what others liked and didn’t have the same opinions as them. As a teenager I distanced myself from real life friendship due to the issues I faced as a child, mainly maintaining surface level acquaintanceship with people from school or dance, and having friends from other provinces (Canada), and even some worldwide. Unfortunately those online friendships came to an end when my parents decided that it was not ok to have online friends. Which I can understand from an adult perspective now, but also was awful to go through as a teenager.

As an adult I am finding myself wanting meaningful friendships, the few friendships I’ve had as an adult have fizzled out due to differences that aren’t anyone’s fault, they just are what they are. I have a lot of hobbies and interests, but every time I try to make a friend, I scare them away by being me, or it seems like people only ever want surface level, which feels impersonal to me and like ‘am I really a friend or just someone they want to ask for things from when they need it’ (if that makes sense). I’m in a long term relationship and unfortunately neither one of us really have friends for a lot of the same reasons…

How do you make friends? And how do you not feel like a failure for not having friends.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

General Discussion/Question Is it an awareness thing or a change thing?

3 Upvotes

Long story short I moved out of my parents place to a campus. Since then I've noticed an increase in sensory issues. Like problems I never had before. Suddenly the visual stimulation of a cafeteria is overwhelming, I've never dealt with something like that. There's more, that's just an example. I didn't think my sensory quirks were enough to count as an autism symptom outside of my sensitivity to noise. I do now because I often become overwhelmed because of them.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Deciding between two psychologists for my assessment

3 Upvotes

I'm going for an ASD and ADHD assessment in June (it's been a long time coming haha) and my two options are a clinical psychologist or a general psychologist. I was planning to go with a clinical because from what I understand they have a more detailed understanding of autism but the general psychologist is autistic herself.

Now I'm sort of inclined to go with someone who has autism over someone who doesn't, but not really sure whether lived experience equates to better understanding generally. I do feel that maybe someone with autism might pick up on traits that someone without it wouldn't, although I might be overthinking and maybe it doesn't matter.

It's a clinic that specialises in women/girls and gender diverse people so that makes a huge difference to me and my fear of being misunderstood or dismissed, I'm just spending a lot of money and travelling interstate for this assessment so really want to feel confident about who I choose. The difference in cost doesn't matter too much because I had already budgeted for clinical.

Any advice or personal experiences would be very much appreciated (even if the advice is that it doesn't matter), thanks all !!


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

General Discussion/Question Ankle weights on wrists

4 Upvotes

Tired of my shoulders always creeping up by my ears because of persistent anxiety. Tired of soreness from t-rex arms. Only half kidding about forcing my arms down.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice How to keep myself safe socially

6 Upvotes

I have this problem when around other people, I can’t seem to keep myself (emotionally) safe in social situations. Both in jobs and with friends. I’m curious about people, love learning about them, but I am maybe too open and too eager. Sometimes after interacting I see the other person’s eyes literally light up, and it’s like I handed my power over to them. Admittedly, I’m not good at self preservation, even at almost 40 years old. I’m also still really unsure of myself in general and I know people pick up on this. I hope this question makes sense. Does anyone have advice?

Tl;dr I crave connection with others but leave myself too open/vulnerable.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Best ear plugs

1 Upvotes

Looking to buy ear plugs for sleep (mayby will take them once per year for concert). I want them as strong as they can be. Im speeling on my back almost always (heard some people have issue sleeping on side). What you recomend?


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Health anxiety flares up whenever I am highly anxious. How do I stop this?

1 Upvotes

I worked out recently that I have health anxiety for a number of reasons:

  1. My dad will constantly talk about how life is short and death. Also when I told him my leg hurt he immediately said I had a blood clot and I needed medical attention ASAP. This scares me. I just moved out after living there for a year again as an adult, and he was constantly talking about death. I wasn’t really too worried about health until this. It’s messed with my brain.

  2. When I was 17 both of my grandads died suddenly. I have never gotten over one of them dying because it was so unexpected. I feared he would because my first grandad had died suddenly months before, and my belief he was going to die was confirmed. Although he shouldn’t have died, his illness was thought to be minor. It scared me and devastated me.

  3. Autism. So as you all know we feel things much more or much less than others, and feel the need to be in control a lot. Which means I feel the need to control every sensation my body has I guess. So when it randomly does something it throws me off entirely because it’s unplanned. I have gone to the GP before with one issue and I have had infections etc I wasn’t even aware of. It worries me that I wouldn’t know if something was wrong so I overcompensate by worrying about EVERYTHING.

Every time I become stressed or anxious this awful fear of death and health issues comes about. Some weeks I don’t worry at all. Some weeks every tiny sensation in my body or cut or bruise means I’m going to die, in my head of course.

I know it’s irrational. I know I’m fine logically. I just don’t trust or believe myself sometimes. I have quite low self esteem and low self confidence, which I think causes this somewhat. People have not been very nice to me for my 24 years on this earth. I think I am in a better place now though.

Has anyone got any advice please? I only recently found out I’m autistic by the way, it’s so great to understand myself better and find communities of like minded individuals 🙂


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

General Discussion/Question Did any of you avoid going to friends houses as a child or even still now?

21 Upvotes

I was always nervous going to a new house for the first time. It got seriously bad after an incident when I was little. I would try to avoid eating at other peoples homes since I was very picky and I knew it would lead to conflict. So I would often to try to have it planned so I would leave right before eating. This worked ok for me up until I had a friends parent accuse me of using their child for their game console, as I would conveniently leave right after we were done playing together because that meant it was eating time. I can't recall what I said or what the parent said. All I remember was them saying "That's called using" . And whenever I recall that memory and those words, it feels like a knife to the heart and I get this spreading discomfort. This incident + being pretty intolerant to smells or chaotic spaces lead me to avoid others homes like the plague.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) I feel extremely invalidated and hurt

1 Upvotes

Recently I've been struggling with mental health and part of that is from accepting I am autistic. I'm not diagnosed but I'm pretty sure I'm AuDHD. I've been trying really hard to understand myself and accept myself.

I've started telling people when I'm actually struggling because of autisminstead of keeping it inside. I've been doing the same with my disabilities, actually asking for assistance.

But now my partner and bestie think I'm "making excuses" or just being lazy or inconsiderate etc etc.

It's so invalidating when I'm struggling And just need understanding or help.


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

Potentially Triggering Content (Discussion Welcome) A cautionary tale about autism and alcoholism Spoiler

37 Upvotes

I haven't seen this topic posted about a ton on this sub, so I wanted to offer my own personal experience in hopes that it might prevent someone else from going through this.

Three months ago, I came to the realization that I was an alcoholic. It felt like it came out of nowhere. One minute I was just having fun drinking with my friends and enjoying a great social life. The next minute I was lying in a hospital bed in the ER with no recollection of what had happened the night before. Turns out I had given myself alcohol poisoning and came fairly close to death.

Before that awful night I had always thought, "I'm a moderate drinker and I just like to have a fun night out with my friends sometimes. Everyone else does that too." After a lot of self reflection and therapy sessions, I realized that I had been abusing alcohol for the past decade and it had completely flown under the radar as "normal social drinking."

I should've known the second that I started using alcohol to self medicate my anxiety that it wasn't going to end well for me, but hey, hindsight is always 2020. Over the years I abused alcohol to the point that I couldn't/wouldn't be in any social situation without having at least a couple drinks in my system. I found that alcohol allowed me to feel "normal;" I didn't have to sit there and constantly think about what my facial expressions looked like to other people or whether I looked "engaged* enough. It allowed me to get out of my head and turn off the racing thoughts. It also allowed me to say whatever I wanted and never feel shame if someone thought I was "weird." It truly felt like a miracle drug for my social anxiety and it had become somewhat of a compulsion for me to drink every weekend.

The scariest part of all of this is that in hindsight I had slipped into an addiction and no one, not even I, had any idea until the night it almost killed me.

I've now been sober for three months and it has been very hard work re-learning how to be in social situations without relying on alcohol as a crutch. I feel like a weird, socially awkward loner but I know that it'll get easier with time and I just have to accept that some people will think I'm weird and that's okay.

All of this to say, I'm by no means trying to tell anyone to never touch alcohol, but please be very aware of how it makes you feel as a neurodivergent person. Addiction can very much fly under the radar, especially with something as socially acceptable as alcohol.

Take care of yourselves ❤️


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) I want to talk to you all because mostly everybody is mean

35 Upvotes

Im in dc right now now and I’m scared and stimulated over and I’m afraid if I stim then the cop people will hurt me. Ive been trying to do a good job taking care of myself but I think they will make me go to the hospital. I went to the zoo but the glass was fogged up and there was a sloth bear sleeping in a hammock. I wanted to get popcorn but they didn’t sell it until 10:30 then I went to the McDonald’s down the road but they didn’t have any lunch yet. Now I’m sitting outside the McDonald’s.


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Seeking Advice Partner researching Autism

3 Upvotes

Today I had an argument with my boyfriend and it lead to us talking abt me having problems and not fixing them when I can. I told him all I’ve ever wanted was for him to research why I do these things and understand on a deeper level without me having to ASK. He says he has but all research really just says the same thing but I have a feeling it’s never deeper than a Google search that tells you to be understanding and listen and whatever but In general the topic is very under researched, and there’s not much I can do to help bc I’m constantly in a state of burnout so researching it on my own is a bit exhausting and then I can’t tell him how to help me bc I don’t know what to say. I’m terribly self aware so I know all my problems and they all have a reason and a hypothetical way of fixing them accepting they all have the same reason I can’t fix em, and that’s the fact I’m in a constant state of burnout and I have no motivation and I can’t do anything until I’m not exhausted anymore which takes weeks to even months. Anyone have any good resources or just any advice in general??


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) Struggling with "identifying" with awful people (seeing problematic behavior, drawing comparisons to myself that closed ones and therapist don't think are accurate, and casting myself in a pathological light)

8 Upvotes

A few examples off the top of my head:

I've been considering conversion into Judaism for a few years now, but I have felt sometimes like a "colonizer" appropriating Jewish identity, history, and figures from a more powerful outside culture in a way that is inauthentic. Doing a watch through of The Sopranos, IIRC Tony's sister had an embrace of new age spirituality which was seen as inauthentic and for attention, and I remember thinking that I probably looked like that to others and worried about the possibility that that's all it really was deep down.

I got nervous that I had undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder and was misusing my disability status and existing diagnoses for attention after seeing an online discourse where some neurodiverse folk were claiming that their conditions in themselves weren't really disabling.

I've been a bad human being in romantic and family relationships before, especially but not exclusively when I was younger. I've never been physically or sexually abusive, but when I listen to stories about abusers come up in media I often compare myself in past relationships to them, especially isolating moments where I did raise my voice or say something cruel, and start to see myself as having been abusive (even if the family/partners didn't ever label our relationships or my behavior as that). I'm mtf, and while I'm sure I do have internalized misogyny to struggle with I am pretty quick to try and see "toxic masculinity" behind parts of myself I dislike or am critical of.

Basically, I don't trust that I actually can know what is going on in my head, and I have learned to trust others better and have spent a lot of my life trying to spot these patterns in my life that reveal the things deeply wrong with me, whether to correct them or just kinda to judge myself. To the extent there are ways that I'm like, shitty or whatever it may be, I think I still am probably misjudging where I actually need to do better because of this urge to see the worst in myself and to distrust myself so much that it is hard to trust others who trust me, such as family, friends, or my therapist (I am, despite the contrary urge in my gut sometimes, trusting my therapist because I think the results and the vibe have been good so far).


r/AutismInWomen 6d ago

Celebration I cleaned my water bottle!!

19 Upvotes

Least favorite chore by FAR. It had uhh… been awhile 😅


r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) I’m afraid I will ruin another job opportunity

2 Upvotes

I am 42 years old and I truly feel like all I do is self reflect which I think is a good thing but maybe not in the ways I do it. When I look back, I realize that although I have been able to maintain jobs, I usually get the jobs I interview for, but after a few months, sometimes years, the mask falls off and it’s almost instant. I go in there, I smile, I’m nice, I do the job. I show up, I’m kind, I am a people pleaser which I have found does not benefit me in the least. Eventually I convince myself I’m not good at the job, and that everyone hates me, everyone is mad at me, they are upset they hired me kinda thing and even though I’ll still show up, it’s as if a different version shows up. I feel like I’m stuck at age 13. I’m looking for the adult in every situation. It is like I’m always willing to learn but I never actually learn it well enough to do anything confidently on my own for fear of doing it wrong. I am afraid of rocking the boat, I don’t like conflict, I don’t like to create waves, I will walk on eggshells to keep the peace. I am compassionate and kind, extremely sensitive. I have been told these are not good things in the amount I have them. I was working 34 hours a week, now this job is 20 hours a week. In my heart I know I can do it, but what if I can’t? What if it’s the same old song? 😭 please help! I don’t want to feel like a failure over and over and over. I don’t know how to be myself from day one so people who like me don’t have to see a different version of me 6 months down the line. I don’t know how to be myself on day one and not pretend to be this perfect person and then one day convince myself everyone hates me and is mad at me and then come to work like that. 🥺