u/Helpmeeff

Obv don't feel like you have to answer! You can also just put down a decade or a general range, I'm just curious what ages all the people who have found a community here are! I'm 35 (took me a second to do the math and remember)

When I was a teenager I never would have thought to search for an autism community but I hope I'm still here decades from now!

Many years before it even occured to me that I could be autistic I used to tell my mom that I didn't want to go to a mental hospital but I did want to be sent away to the country to recover.

My whole life after leaving home there were periods where everything just felt too hard and I stopped being able to handle basic stuff like eating, dressing, washing. And I felt like I was using up all my energy the moment I got it just being alive.

I didn't want to move back home but I did want to be somewhere I didn't have any responsibilities and didn't have to make my own food or dress myself for a few months.

It's so interesting now as a diagnosed adult to realize I was just describing the gold standard for recovering from autistic burnout! Rest, reduce stress and responsibilities, be somewhere quiet and limit sensory input.

Did anyone else feel like they wished they could be sent to a convalescent house where they were served meals and sat in wicker chairs by the sea wrapped in blankets?

I've heard so many good things about my time at sandrock that I finally spent $40 on it for my switch 2 but I'm only on the first day and I'm SO overwhelmed??

Grand Bazaar is my favorite SoS game because I love crafting and resource gathering! But in MTAS There are so many new terms and crafting systems thrown at me and my brain just kinda went "nope, this is work, this isn't relaxing".

I don't wanna waste $40 and miss a chance to enjoy a game so many other people love. Any tips or videos for explaining my first few days in the game so my brains stops stressing out?

Thanks!

I'm on short term disability right now for mental health and I'm realizing that this happens every time I try to work a full time job. I have a total mental and physical collapse and end up totally non functional for months while I recover. This time I'm partially hospitalized.

The past few roles I've had have been very high profile, high paying for prestigious companies. Friends and family keep trying to cheer me up by telling me "don't worry this is just temporary, you'll be back to work soon!" And I really want to tell them "actually want I want you to say is 'its okay if you don't go back to working full time, that would be okay, I love you even when you're not high functioning".

It feels like when people say "oh don't worry you're not fat!" As if it would be a bad thing to be fat. When in reality it would be so much better to hear "you're fat and that's nothing to be ashamed of, I love you!"

My husband and I were having a difficult conversation about money and he keeps asking me when I'll go back to work and he finally said "surely you don't WANT to be like this forever!" As if I was disabled because I wanted to be. And I just wasn't trying hard enough to "get better".

He apologized and we talked about how ableist that is, but it's so exhausting to be surrounded by people who all seem to think the best case scenario is that I'm not disabled anymore. Rather than that I'm disabled and that that's okay.

I only bought it because it was on sale, thinking I'd maybe spend fifteen hours on it. I hardly see anyone talk about it, and it's a Doraemon spinoff so I kinda assumed it was junky.

It might be my new favorite story of seasons game??

The art style is absolutely gorgeous. The map is huuuge. There is a really robust crafting and home/farm decorating mechanic. You can catch bugs and fish and raise them at home in addition to selling them. Make friends with woodland animals and they give you gifts. There are tons of long term, interconnected stories and in depth narratives that rival stardew valley imo. There's mining, animal breeding to get new colors, growing giant crops. It's a massive and really well made game!!

The downsides: you play as a child so there's no marriage, only friendship building and getting new villagers to move in. There are arguably TOO MANY story cutscenes but some people might like that. And the storage organization system is kinda clunky, you have to do a lot of manually moving things around.

Over all I think more folks should give it a try. I ignored it because I didn't hear it recommended but let me be the person to tell you to give it a shot especially while it's on sale for switch for $15!

I only bought it because it was on sale, thinking I'd maybe spend fifteen hours on it. I hardly see anyone talk about it, and it's a Doraemon spinoff so I kinda assumed it was junky.

It might be my new favorite story of seasons game??

The art style is absolutely gorgeous. The map is huuuge. There is a really robust crafting and home/farm decorating mechanic. You can catch bugs and fish and raise them at home in addition to selling them. Make friends with woodland animals and they give you gifts. There are tons of long term, interconnected stories and in depth narratives that rival stardew valley imo. There's mining, animal breeding to get new colors, growing giant crops. It's a massive and really well made game!!

The downsides: you play as a child so there's no marriage, only friendship building. There are arguably TOO MANY story cutscenes but some people might like that. And the storage organization system is kinda clunky, you have to do a lot of manually moving things around.

Over all I think more folks should give it a try. I ignored it because I didn't hear it recommended but let me be the person to tell you to give it a shot especially while it's on sale for switch for $15!

I'm late diagnosed autistic and realizing after many years of trying that I simply cannot work a full time job. I've tried working from home, working on my special interest field, etc and I can only make it one year at any company before I burn out so severely I end up in the hospital and spend months recovering.

I don't qualify for disability because my husband makes enough that our household income is a ove the limit. But for the eight years we've been together we've always split everything 50/50. Mortgage, groceries, insurance etc.

For the first time in my life I'm realizing I probably cannot afford to keep contributing 50% of the income if I'm going to actually love and work in a sustainable way (part time work and or freelancing).

When I've tried to talk to him about this before he gets very nervous because he doesn't feel like he makes enough to support both of us. He always asks "how long will this be going on that you can't afford your share?" And I'm feeling really ashamed and awkward that he answer is turning out to be "probably for the rest of my life".

For people who have adjusted their finances so their spouse takes up more of the expenses because you can't work, how did you have that conversation? How did you navigate the "make too much for disability, don't make enough to not be dual income"?

Thanks!

Has anyone played tinyglade while docked? I have tendonitis so I don't want to hold the SD and my PS5 controller is connected via Bluetooth. Got through all the download and setup menus but now that the game is open it's not responding to any button presses or joystick inputs.

When I try to use it just purely on the steam deck only the touchscreen part works and none of the button presses do anything.

It says on the steam page that it's verified for steam deck and I've seen people posting on here that it works. Is this just an issue with the demo?

Am I missing something?

I love all the SOS games but I just started playing Friends of the great Kingdom and I cannot get over how much higher quality the environment art looks compared to other games. I know it's partially just personal preference but I truly feel like the quality, level of detail and overall artistry of it is a cut above. And I'm surprised to be seeing that in a liscened spinoff version of SoS!

Does anyone know more info about why this one looks so damn good? Or have the social media or portfolio of the artist(s) that did the environmental art? I wanna see more of their work but it can be difficult to find Japanese artists online sometimes!

I have tendonitis so I vastly prefer the split controllers of my switch to the single controller of most other systems. I just bought a steam deck and was excited to see that you can pair joy cons to it but was wondering if anyone had experience with this playing the usual cozy games?

I'm looking at things like My Time At Sandrock, Rune Factory, Coral Island etc.

Will I have any issues using joycons on the steam deck with games like that?

Thanks!

Ofc I'm not including like Nintendo exclusive games or anything but I'm debating buying a steam deck and wondering if how many of the cozy games I have my eye on would run well on it? The "steam deck compatible" section isn't always filled out on a games steam profile.

Has anyone ever run into issues playing any cozy games on steam deck? Specifically playing with it docked and using a wireless controller?

I'm only on year 2 but there are so many villagers that are "missing" from the town and talked about in cutscenes that I keep wondering if they come back if you keep playing years down the road?

It would be so sweet if Lillia's husband or Mugi's daughter returned at some point! Or if Cliff's missing sister found him in town finally.

Do any of the people mentioned as being "out of town" ever return?

I'm a lifelong harvest moon/SOS player and really enjoying the SOS FOMT remake so far but every year I get really weirded out by the fact that the chicken themed festival is just....literally cockfighting? Like it seems so weird and sad and out of place in a cozy game where the festivals are usually about how many hearts your animal has or how well trained it is etc.

Anyone else skip the "cluck cluck clash" festival in fomt? Or feel weird about it? I love my little orb chickens I don't want to make them fight each other?? 🥺

I played AWL on GameCube SOOOO many times, I married every girl and raised my kid all the way. That was almost 20 years ago but I still prob don't want to spend $40 to play the same game on a diff console.

Is the AWL for switch different enough from the gamecube version to justify getting it? Or will it just be like replaying a better graphics version of the original game?

I've been severely depressed and miserable for over a month now, I have no interest in eating, hobbies, friends, work or being awake.

What is confusing me is that I'm also autistic and have the suspicion that this isn't just a depressive episode it's some pretty major burnout happening after a promotion at work that drastically increased my stress and socializing.

I am taking a medical leave of absence from work to go through an IOP for this month and I'm already feeling more functional after my first week off.

My question is: do you treat burnout differently than depression? I know for depression you're supposed to stay active and maintain plans even when you don't want to. But I feel like what helps me most to treat burnout is just to rest and recover.

Any suggestions on how to tackle depression vs burnout and how I should talk to my therapist about this? My diagnosis for my leave of absence is "depression" so she's been pushing me to get up, do more make plans. But I wonder if I should also just be resting more? Or if that's just me being depressed.

Thanks!

I've been severely depressed and miserable for over a month now, I have no interest in eating, hobbies, friends, work or being awake.

What is confusing me is that I'm also autistic and have the suspicion that this isn't just a depressive episode it's some pretty major burnout happening after a promotion at work that drastically increased my stress and socializing.

I am taking a medical leave of absence from work to go through an IOP for this month and I'm already feeling more functional after my first week off.

My question is: do you treat burnout differently than depression? I know for depression you're supposed to stay active and maintain plans even when you don't want to. But I feel like what helps me most to treat burnout is just to rest and recover.

Any suggestions on how to tackle depression vs burnout and how I should talk to my therapist about this? My diagnosis for my leave of absence is "depression" so she's been pushing me to get up, do more make plans. But I wonder if I should also just be resting more? Or if that's just me being depressed.

Thanks!

I've been his patient for several years with increasing levels of care and higher doses of meds needed for my depression. I finally broke down last session and asked if he would refer me to an Intensive Outpatient program because I woke up every day not wanting to be here anymore. I pay for short term disability insurance through my job and asked him if he would sign my SD paperwork and he made some excuse and said that the "intake for the outpatient program would handle that".

Now I'm being told there is a several week waiting list for the outpatient program and he is refusing to sign my paperwork himself because "we don't sign people out of work just for being depressed. They have to be in some kind of program".

I feel completely betrayed by him and really hopeless about trying to fight through this process when I don't even have the energy to eat and get dressed every day.

I haven't worked here long enough to get FMLA

I've been calling out sick the last two days and realized I'm actually sick enough I need to start the process of filing short term disability. I called the doctor's office and they said it would be a week or two until someone could fill out my short term disability insurance paperwork.

I know my job isn't protected since I don't have FMLA

If my job fires me for taking a leave of absence and filing for SD can I get unemployment?

Spelling mistake in the title should say HR rep

I've been telling my manager that I'm out sick but the reality is I'm severely depressed and on a waiting list to enter an intensive outpatient program. I've asked my HR person for the steps and paperwork I need to initiate a short term disability leave (I pay for SD insurance that my job offers) for the past two days but she hasn't responded.

I'm feeling really uncomfortable continuing to lie to my team about being sick but don't feel comfortable telling everyone I'm so depressed I can't work. But without HR answering I don't know what I'm supposed to do?

Is HR the ones that tell your manager? Do I just keep taking days off work even though they're not technically a leave of absence yet?

ETA: I am not eligible for FMLA because I've only been here ten months