Like I said I am 18 f I am having my first obgyn appointment in a few days, I have never even thought about sex, I am super almost antisocial, and sensitive to touch, like shaking hands and high 5’s make me uncomfortable let alone a hug, I’m so nervous, don’t know what to expect or all.
Also, I have like never put a tampon in or even tried so like I’m not very experienced in this realm
I don’t feel comfortable taking my dolls out into public for a number of reasons but one of them it’s really just I feel kind of uncomfortable maybe slightly embarrassed not that it’s embarrassing, but I have like a social anxiety but I was thinking like it would be very comforting to bring one to like the doctor then I’m going today
I was thinking about does anyone have like a pocket baby or like a tiny baby something that I could bring with me but have it not be obvious to others or does anyone know any artists that make any dolls? They don’t necessarily have to be reborn dolls I know that is the sub Reddit, but perhaps like art dolls that are small. I don’t know if this is making any sense.
I am working (teaching swimming) with a child who is probably around eight years old and is higher support needs probably semi verbal says some basic words or phrases, but not conversational
The parent provided a list of strategies that help their child learn things like using very basic language, singing songs, repeating the same like sentence structure such as first we do this then we do that. And I have been able to find a system that works really well for making progress right now. We just need him to become comfortable in the water and learn basic movements like kicking being relaxed for floating things of that nature. Something that I found works really well for him is to used kind of controlled ideas and numbers so like we’re gonna do something three times or we’re gonna do something for three seconds.
He has certain stems and like repetitive behaviors that help him stay regulated, which I let him do and I don’t stop him in any way of doing those things so like he loves jumping up and down, or he will flap his hands or he will repeat sounds or words over and over Like he loves saying hi. He also loves physical touch so he will touch me or tap me or he’ll like rub his face into me which I let him do because I didn’t necessarily see a problem with that. His parents are there. They see it was nothing inappropriate. He would just like rub his face on me he would you know touch my hands he would you tap me and rub his hands on me and stuff like thatand the parents saw parents didn’t have an issue anything like that.
We also do a bit of sensory seeking activities or my best attempt at that during our lessons so for example, he loves it when I pull him through the water so he hold onto me and then I will like walk backwards through the water so he is just kind of gliding while I’m holding him And he also loves to hold onto me while I jump up and down so after we finish a skill we will float on our back for like two rounds of our song, probably like 30 seconds and then he will request me to pull him back and jump, so I will jump up and down while pulling him through the water back to where we started, and then we’ll practice another skill And this has worked really well and he response really well to it
But the issue I ran into the last time that I was with him was that he started poking my eyes so when he got really excited because he finished a skill or got really excited after jumping up and down, he would take his finger and just poke it into the inner corner of my ally super far And he’s quite strong or he would finish a scale and then start like scratching my face on my eyes and it happened repeatedly over and over and I didn’t know what to do. I tried to direct them away. I tried to tell him like no eyes, no poke eyes, no touching eyes, but that didn’t work either and it really wasn’t malicious. He really was just so excited and he would repeat like blank, happy blank happy is teacher happy teacher, happy blank as in his name and he was really really happy except he would just start scratching my eyes. I have heard that You are supposed to ignore attention seeking behaviors and the mom says that he does attention seeking behaviors and it’s best to ignore them, but I feel like if he’s scratching my eyes, I have to stop him from doing that so I’m not quite sure what to do.
After my supervisor spoke with his parents, they pulled him out of the lesson because they thought that was his way of signaling. He wanted to go home, but then he kept requesting to get back in the pool so we finished probably last 5 to 7 minutes of the lesson and he stopped scratching my eyes , but he would get super excited and then he would say blank poke eyes blank poke eyes and I’ll tell him no, and he would respect that no and he didn’t poke my eyes after that. The parent also recommended that he will usually respond well to the queue of safe hands. Where are you? Make him hold his own hands and you say safe hands so that’s a strategy that I know I can try going into my next class with him,
but I just wanted to come on here and ask people what experience they have had what the best course of action for me is to do. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated as he is a lovely student. The class is really fun. I think he’s making great progress, but I wanna make sure that this issue doesn’t continue because then they might have to stop lessons.
I’m a swim instructor, but I have a question about like how kids think if this isn’t allowed please let me know where is a better place to ask this question
Had a class today with all under 5s. One kid (older 4 or maybe 5) listens really well, tries hard, and learns skills quickly… but ran into something I don’t totally understand.
I had them do a simple pattern: push off in streamline, kick a bit, count \~2 seconds, take a stroke, repeat. He kept saying “I can’t count underwater.” I told him to just count in his head, but he genuinely couldn’t do it.
He can count out loud just fine (1–5 no problem), but the second it’s internal—like counting seconds or counting strokes—he loses it. He’d either glide way too long or take too many strokes. When I asked how many he did, he’d say he didn’t know, even though he knew what he *was supposed* to do.
It didn’t feel like defiance at all—more like he truly didn’t have that “internal counting” skill yet.
Is this just a normal developmental thing at that age? Do some kids not have that internal counting/awareness yet even if they can count out loud?
Curious if anyone else has seen this or has ways to teach it differently.
I’m a swim instructor, but I have a question about like how kids think if this isn’t allowed please let me know where is a better place to ask this question
Had a class today with all under 5s. One kid (older 4 or maybe 5) listens really well, tries hard, and learns skills quickly… but ran into something I don’t totally understand.
I had them do a simple pattern: push off in streamline, kick a bit, count \~2 seconds, take a stroke, repeat. He kept saying “I can’t count underwater.” I told him to just count in his head, but he genuinely couldn’t do it.
He can count out loud just fine (1–5 no problem), but the second it’s internal—like counting seconds or counting strokes—he loses it. He’d either glide way too long or take too many strokes. When I asked how many he did, he’d say he didn’t know, even though he knew what he *was supposed* to do.
It didn’t feel like defiance at all—more like he truly didn’t have that “internal counting” skill yet.
Is this just a normal developmental thing at that age? Do some kids not have that internal counting/awareness yet even if they can count out loud?
Curious if anyone else has seen this or has ways to teach it differently.
I’m a swim instructor, but I have a question about like how kids think if this isn’t allowed please let me know where is a better place to ask this question
Had a class today with all under 5s. One kid (older 4 or maybe 5) listens really well, tries hard, and learns skills quickly… but ran into something I don’t totally understand.
I had them do a simple pattern: push off in streamline, kick a bit, count ~2 seconds, take a stroke, repeat. He kept saying “I can’t count underwater.” I told him to just count in his head, but he genuinely couldn’t do it.
He can count out loud just fine (1–5 no problem), but the second it’s internal—like counting seconds or counting strokes—he loses it. He’d either glide way too long or take too many strokes. When I asked how many he did, he’d say he didn’t know, even though he knew what he was supposed to do.
It didn’t feel like defiance at all—more like he truly didn’t have that “internal counting” skill yet.
Is this just a normal developmental thing at that age? Do some kids not have that internal counting/awareness yet even if they can count out loud?
Curious if anyone else has seen this or has ways to teach it differently.
He’s knowledgeable and decent at his job, so I do sometimes learn from him. But socially, it’s a different story.
Some examples:
He made comments about people with special needs saying they’re “always happy,” then followed it up by saying he sometimes wishes he had special needs so people would take care of him. He also said people with special needs aren’t really intelligent enough to struggle or be unhappy. It came across really disrespectful.
During a conversation about people passing out in the hot tub, diabetes came up. He said most people with diabetes “get what they deserve” because of bad choices. I mentioned Type 1 isn’t preventable, but he kept pushing the idea that it’s basically people’s fault. It felt really judgmental.
He also talks badly about coworkers behind their backs and acts like he should be training everyone because he’s better than them—even when the person he’s criticizing has been there way longer and is fully qualified.
This stuff happens a lot, and he says it casually, sometimes when other people are around.
My issue:
I don’t want to be associated with these opinions, especially if someone overhears and assumes I agree just because I’m standing there.
But I’m also not someone who’s quick with comebacks, and I don’t want to create tension at work.
So:
Do you call this out in the moment?
Is it enough to just not engage / change the subject?
How do you protect your own reputation in situations like this?
I like my job and don’t want unnecessary drama, just trying to handle this in a mature way.
Hi, I’m posting here because I feel like this might be an autism-related thing, but I’m not totally sure.
I have to write a paper for my English class about grief—what it means, how people experience it, how people cope, etc. The problem is I feel kind of unqualified to talk about it, but also… maybe not? It’s confusing.
I’ve never really experienced what people would consider “typical” grief. I’ve never lost someone I was deeply close to. But I think part of that is because I’ve never really had super close relationships in the first place.
Like I have parents and I live with them (I’m a teenager), but I’m not super emotionally close with them. I’ve lost a grandparent, but I wasn’t close to any of them—they lived in another country and didn’t really show much interest in us. So I didn’t grieve them when they died. But growing up I think I did feel something like grief over not having that relationship at all, especially seeing other kids with their grandparents.
Same with friends. I’ve had people I talked to, but never close friendships. I’ve never dated anyone, never had a pet, so I don’t have those kinds of losses either.
But here’s the part that makes this confusing:
I am a really emotional person.
I get very attached to places, routines, and just… people being around, even if I’m not actually close to them. And when that changes, I react really strongly.
For example:
When I graduated high school, I cried for weeks because I had finally gotten comfortable there and then it was just over.
When I go on family vacations, I’ll cry for days after because I miss being at work and my normal routine.
When we visit extended family, I don’t really think about them when I’m not there (like out of sight, out of mind), but the last day I’ll be crying the whole time because I don’t want to leave.
It can turn into like a couple weeks or even months of feeling really down, and then it just… disappears and I go back to normal.
It’s kind of like I get very attached to people and environments while they’re present, but I don’t maintain that emotional connection when they’re gone. And I don’t know if that’s an autism thing or just me.
The closest thing I can compare it to is like being a kid at the end of summer camp—crying because you don’t want to say goodbye, even if you weren’t actually super close to anyone there. It’s more about losing the situation and the presence than the individual people.
So I guess my questions are:
Do any other autistic people experience this kind of “intense in the moment but gone later” attachment?
Does this count as a form of grief, or is it something else?
Can you grieve things like routines, environments, or versions of your life—not just people?
If you’ve experienced more “typical” grief, how does it compare to this?
I don’t want to just make something up for the assignment, but I also don’t know how to write about grief when my experience with it feels so different.
Any perspectives would really help.
Hi! I’m autistic and working on a college psychology assignment about how movies portray mental disorders (accuracy + stigma using DSM-5 criteria).
I don’t really watch movies, so I’m trying to find ones where the main character has (or strongly seems to have) autism.
My professor wants us to pick from a list (like Rain Man), but I’d really like to hear from actual autistic people too — especially if there are better or more realistic portrayals, even if they’re obscure.
What are your favorite movies with autistic (or autism-coded) main characters?
And did you feel like the portrayal was accurate, stereotypical, relatable, etc.?
Thanks :)