If you have autism/ are autistic, what's your biggest challenge?

[heatemyeasteregg]

For me I just find it very difficult to relate to people. I can't understand why people get upset over things that are normal life things. I also find it hard to make friends.

Physically clumsy and awkward.

Socially awkward and can't do small talk or show any interest in things other than those which fascinate me - totally switch off, disassociate and stare into space, lost in my own little world.

Take everything literally.

Very sensory and cannot abide loud noises, places or people. Squint constantly as bright light hurts my eyes. Certain textures or materials cause discomfort.

Cannot read social cues.

Hate feeling crowded or suffocated by lots of people and am only truly happy in wide open spaces, surrounded by green and living things.

Fixated and obssesed by certain things - clocks, scientific instruments, botany, plants, insects, birds and animals, fountain pens, good grammar, the moon...

Brilliant memory for facts, figures, dates, names and languages.

Easily overwhelmed by too many things going on at once.

Hate any kind of change, need routine, structure, boundaries and no 'fuzzy' edges.

Very private, quiet, reserved and introverted.

Actively seek out the company of quirky, eccentric and unusual people and avoid those who I see as mundane, boring or lacking sensitivity.

Very rigid in my dress, behaviour, attitudes to things and maintaining my own boundaries and comfort zone.

Fearful of trying new experiences and situations.

Very difficult to live with, I'm sure...
Probably why I've never had a successful relationship or friendship.
Hate it and wish it wasn't thus!

@heaheatemyeasteregg I was formerly diagnosed last year. My youngsters are grown with families of their own. I'm a Nana to 5.

I've had a difficult life bought on through childhood dysfunction. A set of unexpected circumstances led to me getting diagnosed

At first, I didn't want to believe it. Then I realised it made sense of things I had never made sense of in a lot of intense and ongoing therapy/ self-help the last 20-plus years.

The obsessions in my mind. The sensorsy issues, patterns of thinking, and some weirdness I had never made sense of, etc.etc...

I also have forms of Dyslexia and dispraxia diagnosed now, too. They don't fit the normal, can't read, write, do numbers types. They are far more subtle and nuanced. I am on the ADHD border, too.

I started to realise when I found out a few years ago that I have aphantasia, which is not being able to visualise. I just thought it was normal to have to think and explain orally pictures as I can't conjure them up.

I can't do picturing mindfulness or imagine a scene. I have loads of photos of my family around my house because of. I don't have facial blindness. I remember faces well. I just can't visualise.

A friend told me it is often one of the symptoms of neuro diversity. That's when I spoke to my GP. It's been the last (I hope) piece in the puzzle of my mental health.

Aphantasia, for those wondering, as old not well known, I've linked below.

I don't like change. I'm blunt, I see patterns in everything. I can't stand social events and small talk etc.etc. I have a dark humour. My sense of humour. I mask a lot and realise I have all my life.

It's pretty much standard for neuro-spicy as my friend called it recently. Evidently, that is what young people are calling it now rather than neuro diverse. It is here anyway. 😏

brainsteam.co.uk/2023/11/03/living-with-aphantasia/

Not formally diagnosed but very strong suspicion of high-functioning and high-masking autism. I find people who don't do what they say they'll do very difficult to understand. I don't get bitching about someone behind their back and then being the bestie to their face (work). I also find lateness very difficult. Like the event starts at 7. You need to get there and sort yourself out so do the sum. Ffs.

Oh and I cannot bear the screech sound that children and some women make. It physically hurts me.

Sensory processing is by far the biggest challenge for me. I get extremely overloaded very easily and need to pace sensory / social demands a lot. However, doing this is life changing in terms of overall functioning.

Communicating with people who are really neurotypical, and having any patience for people who I view as wrong.

Hi, I'm finding this thread fascinating as my ex (father of my kids - we still live together due to financial reasons) is autistic. I love how you all seem to be so aware of how autism affects you, and I wish my ex was as it either have saved a lot of grief over the years.
Those of you who have kids : have your autistic traits become worse or harder to mange since having kids? I feel like my ex became significantly worse since we had kids and I'm curious if others have struggled with that as well? So many things seem to trigger him now, but he wasn't like that before the kids came along...

This is me 100%
Hate surprises or anything spontaneous. Makes me uneasy and anxious and throws me completely

I think the biggest thing is there is no particular rhyme or reason for what I like and don’t like/can cope with and what I can’t cope with.

i hate so many noises and at different volumes but equally some noises are just perfect.

often I just can’t speak, and then other times I just can’t shut up.

i don’t get much sarcasm (i usually get really obvious sarcasm, if it’s not like a bus hitting you then I’m not getting it) but I am really good at doing sarcasm.

i hate socialising, i hate people, it drains me so much, but then equally I need people, i need socialising to feel (not lonely) but less miserable/stir crazy.

same with going out/getting out of the house. Often there is no way you can get me out the house, then sometimes I really have to.

i am a major people pleaser (at the detriment to myself), but also i can be really bloody awkward and not want to do it if someone asks me.

i really like animals im familiar with (like specific ones rather than say a species) but i just can’t cope with many animals that im not.

food is fucking ridiculous. I go through ‘phases’, at secondary school age. I would only eat tuna or chocolate spread sandwiches on white bread for lunch, and either dolmio microwaveable fusilli with the dolmio bolognese sauce, or turkey dinosaurs or potato smileys with grated cheese on top. And a selection of crisps. It expanded for awhile, not by much but more than the above. But now it is much narrower again, no vegetables no fruit. Exclusively sandwiches with crisps with the odd hot meal. For 5 years I only drank Kirkland 500ml bottled water. Now I exclusively drink a specific slightly unusual squash with tap water (but only Scottish tap water), and then a small selection of fizzy juice or fruit juice.

another big thing is I just can’t do friends. I don’t know how to make them, I don’t know how to keep them. I just don’t understand. I see people with friends and all I can think is how the fuck does that work. Do they do it actively, or does it just happen, or a bit of both in different situations. Everyone mainly says I’m funny and kind etc but then I think why aren’t we friends. Why don’t we hang out ‘out of specific’ situation we know each other from. Like at school I tried by texting ‘wuu2?’ To people from school, who I sat next to in class or chatted to in the corridor, if I had their number. Never got any invitations from it, I have no idea if that’s what I was meant to do, but that’s what I thought would get me friends at 14, or at least an invitation to someone’s house. I was invited to 3 birthday parties throughout 6 years at secondary school. Primary school I was only ever invited to a few full class parties. I don’t understand what I do wrong, I don’t understand what I’m meant to do, I can’t logically do it because I’m so self conscious and I don’t want to be rejected. The sort of friends I do have, I tend to buy presents for or help them (usually to the detriment of myself), and I rarely have these sort of friends, so I try to make them like me in the only way I know how. But also if I get attached to someone, as in i like them and want to be their friend, I get annoying, like I mess with them a little bit, lightheartedly, what I think is ‘banter’ but I don’t know if they do. I can never tell whether it’s gone to far, or if I’m annoying them just a wee bit, or if they don’t mind or are laughing along. Until someone gets really pissed off and shouts at me or they get annoyed or a bit upset. And then I’m like oh shit, what the fuck, what I have I done, and I spiral, quite a lot. I can never figure out why I’m doing it, it just seems to happen, I don’t know. I don’t seem to have that awareness.

I also am very very aware of somethings but equally totally unaware of others. Like I was watching love on the spectrum with a family member, and I said they seem really awkward, I’m glad I’m nowhere near that awkward and can hide it well. And they go you’re just as awkward seeming, if not more in many situations than them. I always thought I came across really neurotypical. Even though I have never been able to fit in or that sort of thing.

my special interests, which I prefer the term obsession, are rarely about information, or recording things, that seems to be quite typical in autistic people, or at least that’s the more common view of them. Mine are about collecting things, or going somewhere. I’ve had collections of porcelain dolls, stuffed toys, Harry Potter books, Lego, books in general (I never read them, I just seem to get attached to a theme or an author, and I need them all). Sometimes I read lots of information, usually off Wikipedia or the fandom themed wikis.

i have a ridiculously good memories for somethings or at some times, but then sometimes my memory is just honestly fucking atrocious.

there are many other things I haven’t touched on, but I’ve run out of typing and thinking power, so I will end here.

My main challenges are self care and cleaning. It takes so much effort to get into the shower or clean my teeth.

Also eating healthily. I get overwhelmed at just the thought of what I'm going to have for tea. I eat shite. My gut issues are actually better if I stick to beige food.

I'm better now at sticking up for myself though. I think menopause has done that. I may not be able to look at someone when I'm challenging them and will stim like mad, but I can verbalise what the issue is and potential solution. It's taken me till my 50s to do that.

I haven’t sought a diagnosis, but I realised three years ago that I’m probably ND. It’s since become obvious that my daughter probably is too, and her school is referring her for assessment. I’m not sure if we have autism, ADHD or both.

Probably my biggest challenge is organisation and time management. I find it really difficult to keep track of time. When I remember to check it, I often get a shock and wonder where on Earth the past hour went.

I’m also a very moody person. My moods change very frequently and I can get very upset or angry over minor issues. Once the strong emotion has passed, I’m often left feeling bewildered and ashamed.

When I was younger, I was so shy and self-conscious about talking to people I didn’t know well that I’d often become monosyllabic or freeze up. Later, I realised that people don’t tend to obsess over other people’s small talk and it would be better to say something rather than fail to respond. So I “took off my safety catch” and let myself talk freely. I know from other people’s feedback that I occasionally appear to be socially skilled and even “charming”, although this takes a lot of concentration. But I’ve also been told that I’m “honest to a fault” and that I “have no filter”. I struggle to get the balance right.

Oh and when I’m talking to someone, I tend to get distracted by their jewellery. I don’t know why.

I have a formal diagnosis of OCD (obsessive ruminations) that I got when I was in my 30s. At the grand old age of 63, I finally had a couple of medical professionals telling me that that they thought I had ASD and ADHD, but I've no formal diagnosis of that.

It's no surprise - a cousin's kid got a formal diagnosis of Asperger's some years back and three great-uncles were clearly on the spectrum. My mother was considered to be 'very shy'.

Problems it's caused me? I've offended people by blurting things out. Then I've worried about offending them and have tried to explain and have made things worse.

I have a problem with eye contact. I have to force myself or to fake it.

ETA I don't like change.

Ditto I'm direct and straight to the point and I will also say the truth. Some folk don't like it but hey ho I ain't Gona dodge around all day haha. I've just got used to this is me and luckily all that know me understand. But what I see as pointless conversation i.e what make up are you wearing or wow is that really on at the cinema I personally don't involve myself rather than get irate 🤣

On an interpersonal level, it's either the fact that I don't experience emotions and/or spirituality the way most people appear to, or that I can't cope with people who do not follow procedure or say they are going to do one thing one a particular timescale and then either do something else altogether, or fail to do the agreed task at all.

I find sleep hygiene impossible to maintain, and I'm not good with feeding myself regularly.

I know that a lot of people see me as aloof, emotionally dead, uncommunicative and so on, but in my view most people are ridiculously overly-emotional, needy, suffer from emotional incontinence, and I can't for the life of me understand the desperation to "talk" constantly. I honestly have no spiritual side whatsoever, to the point whereby the entire concept is so alien to me I find it ridiculous, so I really struggle to relate to anyone expressing that aspect of their own self. I struggle to take it, and them, seriously. I always feel "surely this is a wind-up? Nobody with functional common sense and basic powers of logic can believe in such airy-fairy batshit nonsense?", which seems to put people's gas at a peep. 😐

I struggle to take it, and them, seriously. I always feel "surely this is a wind-up? Nobody with functional common sense and basic powers of logic can believe in such airy-fairy batshit nonsense?

This made me lol!!! This is me!! People talk about respecting other people's beliefs and I'm like, 'really??". I can't respect anyone who actually believes that! It's not nice of me, but it's true!

I'm not autistic but I don't think I'm nt either. Sometimes I just think I've got a bigger bullshit detector.

Exactly this. I always understand what I'm meant to say/do in certain situations, and most of the time I can do it, but sometimes I just....... can't. Even if I really want to (I'm not actually devoid of all emotion, and I do care about other people) and especially if I'm not sure how the other person will react. So I'll spend a whole day worrying, and "surreptitiously" avoiding someone, and then it will turn out that it wasn't surreptitious at all, and it was apparently very clear I was avoiding them!

And then I'll be exhausted from gearing myself up all day for this "difficult conversation", but everyone only sees me not doing it (yesterday it was asking a colleague how her interview had gone, but obviously I didn't know how it had gone, so I couldn't predict how the conversation would go. But it would have been really rude not to ask/mention it).

Oh, and of course, eye contact. Which again I don't feel is very obvious, or a big deal, but apparently it's super obvious to everyone else if you're not doing it properly. Sigh.

Everything blackcats wrote. Newly diagnosed (AuDHD) at 38.

I am fairly successful work wise but that’s because I’m self employed. Interestingly a lot of the people who end up working/volunteering for me (charity) seem to be neurodivergent.

A lady I used to work with told everyone she had it. She was extremely intelligent nice lady and had some good points to make about some bad practice unfortunately people put her complaint down to her autism and it was used against her by people who didn't understand it.

Just learn to preface. So if it's work, say "my initial reaction - purely on a logical basis - is.....(whatever the thing is) but how can we finesse that into a positive message/ examine other angles/ seek feedback/whatever."

If it's with friends, say "Okay - unfiltered brain dump: blahdiblah".

If it's social but but friends, learn to be politely noncommittal about EVERYTHING.

I struggle with people's actions not matching their words. I hate hypocrisy, but I'm talking about the low level difference between what people say and do. I'm sure my words and actions don't contradict each other.

Making friends. I can be pleasant with acquaintances but it rarely goes further..

Conversation. I rarely get to speak my thoughts. I often have to suppress them , not because they are unsuitable, but lack of opportunity. Hence joining mumsnet.

Fine motor skills like handwriting, sewing, bike riding etc. I've thought I've had dyspraxia for a long time.

I'm so sensitive to light.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria.

I've never pursued a diagnosis.

American psychiatrists drumming up business.

"We are all on a spectrum" = maximum customers

Mirroring and mimicking - I pick up traces of other people the way some people pick up accents and when it’s people I don’t like, it makes me feel a bit contaminated. I need stretches of time alone to feel like myself.

Being in the extended company of my in laws makes me feel broken and worthless. In day to day life I muddle along just fine but they’re so different, and judgemental and in their paradigm I’m just a mass of huge character flaws. But then I go to speak to my dc or dh and hear my mil’s phrases or intonation in my voice. It’s like I’m a bit porous.

I also don’t move easily between locations. It’s as if my body is searching out the feelings of a different place. So I’m standing on the carpet in my living room, and my feet are remembering the tiles in the holiday apartment we were in the day before. It gives me a weird disconnected feeling.

And that inalienable drive towards truthfulness - hypocrisy and lies feel discordant. Even things that aren’t exactly lies but the things that aren’t correct. Some people spend a lot of words trying to justify things or convince themselves they were right to do something, that was clearly wrong. I don’t really understand why they can’t just accept they’ve been selfish (or whatever) and move on. Instead they verbally twist their reality and gaslight everyone else (and yet I’m the weird person)

For me it's keeping up the near constant masking. Spending all my time I'm coming over as odd, said something to upset someone, or did something else to mean I'm just not likeable. The rejection sensitive dysphoria as well - constantly worrying that people are actively excluding me because I'm not nice to be around. It's exhausting.

Plus dealing with the corporate 'bring your authentic self to work' and similar bullshit. No one wants me to bring unmasked me to work - it would be career suicide!

I'm slowly accepting I'm in autistic burnout though - been desperately trying to find an answer to how I'm feeling that is anything but that but I've pretty much come to the end of all other options!