u/SkwerlPawz

I’m autistic and my special interest is arthropods and lately I’ve been really into lobsters. So many people only see them as a food though. I wouldn’t be surprised if people read the title of this post and thought I was talking about loving to eat lobsters (which I don’t, I’ve never eaten one and never will). Whenever I try to look up pictures of lobsters, no matter how I search it, I always see pictures of dead lobsters, and it’s so sad and it just reminds me of how cruel people are to them.

I’m in Maine right now for vacation and it’s driving me crazy that all of the lobster merch is of bright red lobsters that are clearly modeled after the boiled ones rather than their beautiful natural colors. I really want to buy lobster paraphernalia while I’m here, but I want it to be modeled after ALIVE lobsters. I don’t want a stuffed animal that looks like a fucking corpse. And what really disturbed me was I was in a shop and I saw a graphic of a cartoon lobster watching its friend boiling in a pot, and I don’t remember exactly what the dialogue said but it was just the lobster freaking out that its friend was being boiled. I saw that graphic on mugs, keychains, t-shirts, etc., and I don’t understand how anyone can find such a sick “joke” funny. The entire “joke” is that a hypothetical lobster is facing existential horror, wtf??

And the worst thing is seeing lobsters in tanks with their claws tied knowing they’ll be brutally killed, or seeing fishermen dragging around nets with a bunch of lobsters in them. I wish I could save them all. I just wanna fill my life with lobster related stuff without having to see dead ones all the time. With cats, hamsters, and other animals, you aren’t constantly having their corpses shoved in your face, you don’t have to think about the awful ways they die. Not with lobsters. Why did I have to be given such overactive empathy with a special interest like this? I am so sick of it. And don’t even get me started on the horrors I witness & experience pertaining to my love of other “creepy crawly” arthropods like insects and myriapods and stuff. People are so mean to me about my special interest, too. It’s so fucking pathetic that I’m still basically being bullied as a 19-year old. I just want to surround myself with wholesomeness and LIVE arthropods, not death and sadness.

Idk if this requires a TW or not but I put one anyways just to be safe.

A while back, I didn’t want to recover at all, I was too scared of gaining weight, but I was starting to realize how much my ed conflicted with my own morals about non-conformity. Then a small part of me wanted to recover, but it wasn’t enough to overpower the disordered thinking, so I’d post about my ed in the appropriate subreddits (on an old account I ended up deleting) secretly kinda hoping that someone would say something to kinda snap me out of it. That did not happen. I started going into a cycle of starving and then eating normally or binging and then starving again because I became as much as I still wanted to stick with my routine and lose as much weight as possible I became painfully aware of how much I really should recover, so I was very back and forth on whether I wanted to recover or not. Eventually though I found a physical hobby that I actually enjoyed (not saying what it is so y’all don’t make fun of me) and wanted to become good at that required muscular strength, which pushed me to actually commit to recovery.

It was going okay for a bit. Then it all started to fall apart and feel hopeless. I was having so much trouble eating enough protein though, and I know I have to eat protein to gain muscle, and also it wasn’t long until I stopped hyperfixating on the hobby, and while I still do really want to become good at it it feels like I never will because I can’t get myself to practice enough and when I do practice I get worn out so quickly that I can barely enjoy it and I keep getting hurt despite doing the proper stretches and I don’t know how to distinguish a healthy amount of pain from like a warning from my body that I need to rest, plus I’m still so bad at it and I can help but feel like I’ll never get good.

I do want to recover for other reasons, but I don’t know if I can do it. I keep getting back on the scale and obsessing over how much I weigh, my mom’s been on a health kick and I physically cannot get myself to eat a lot of the food she’s been buying because it’s so nasty, and I don’t make much money so spending my own money on food feels like a huge waste since it’s not technically necessary since I have food at home (even though I can’t eat a lot of this crap if I try), and I unintentionally lost a lot of weight from that parasite that’s been going around and I think the parasite has passed but the weight loss made my obsession with my weight a lot worse and I’m terrified of my weight going back to what it was before the parasite. Also I keep seeing videos of guys online talking about women’s body types that make them undesirable and I don’t know why that even matters to me since I’m not attracted to men but it just keeps making me think how much I hate my body. Not to mention the fact that it’s summertime and I carry most of my weight in my stomach so I feel disgusted with myself whenever I wear a bathing suit (I don’t wear bikinis but the water makes them tight against my skin).

I do want to recover so I can stop missing out on food related events, stop damaging the body God gave me, not have brain fog that makes college even more difficult, etc., but it’s just so much easier to lose weight from not eating, and my stupid adhd brain is way too obsessed with taking the easy way out of everything even when I know it has serious disadvantages. I’m scared I’ll never recover. I hate that I’m letting the beauty standards that I hate and disagree with so much dictate how I live my life. I‘ve had a disordered mindset in terms of eating & losing weight since I was 10 (even though I was skinny back then and was stupid to have even been thinking about losing weight) and even when I haven’t actively been starving myself I still can get rid of the mindset and I don’t know if it’ll ever go away. I want so badly to be skinny but I cannot diet and exercise healthily when I try, probably cause of my adhd (dopamine seeking through food + executive dysfunction making it feel impossible to exercise consistently). I have a therapist but I feel like there’s more important stuff to address with him and I don’t feel comfortable telling him about my ed, especially since he’s asked before if I’m eating well and I lied to him and said yes and I’m ashamed to admit to him that I was lying. This shit sucks

I don’t want to go into detail about what happened because I’m in public rn and actively trying not to cry and I think I will cry if I think about the specifics but yesterday I was talking to someone that I really wanted to make a good first impression on and he was talking a lot pretty quickly, so I had some go-to responses prepared (“yeah”, “mhm”, “ohhh”, etc.) so he would see that I was engaged in the conversation, because I didn’t really feel like I had time to process what he was saying and come up with a response before he went back to speaking but I also didn’t want him to feel like he was talking to a wall. But then he said something and without thinking I just said “yeah”, only to then realize that he had implied something about myself that wasn’t true, and I had just confirmed it. I started internally freaking out wondering how I would explain that I just accidentally lied, but then I didn’t even have much time to think about it before he continued on with the conversation and I felt like I needed to choose listening to him over figuring out how to clear that up (which in hindsight I should’ve prioritized clearing up the lie, but I didn’t have time to think about it and figured not listening to him would be ruder). He kept asking questions about it and I found it increasingly harder to dig myself out of that hole, and the relatively small lie snowballed into an even bigger one, and it wasn’t even a reasonable thing to lie about because there was nothing wrong with the truth but I’m gonna look like a crazy person if he finds out the truth which he probably will and probably not from me because I’m too much of a wimp to own up to it.

 I hate lies of all sorts with very few exceptions (ensuring safety, harmless pranks/jokes, etc.), even telling kids that Santa exists seems wrong to me, and I feel like such a shitty person and a hypocrite that I lie anyways despite being so against even the “white”-est of lies. And I hate being neurodivergent so much despite trying desperately to look on the bright side about it, so if my autism isn’t even making me a more honest person, I’d really just rather I don’t have it, and it’s hard to live with wishing such a major part of me didn’t exist. And it’s not like a one time thing either, I often find myself in situations like this because of my slow processing, feeling the need to lie because of shame about my symptoms, and just generally being too scared to tell the truth or feeling like I can’t tell the truth because I find it so hard to say things that will make people disappointed. 

Something that keeps happening is people will ask if I like a show or a band or whatever, and most of the time the answer is no because I have a hard time getting myself into new media and when I do get into stuff it’s usually either very niche or very targeted towards children (I’m an adult). But I desperately want friends and I feel like I need to make a connection somehow, so I end up lying half the time because otherwise I’m afraid we won’t find anything to talk about and I’ll miss out on the chance to make what could’ve been a good friend. I justify it in my head by telling myself that I’ll check it out later, that way it’ll at least kind of become a truth, but I have a huge list of tv shows, movies, and bands to get into, and I just can’t get myself to even give any of this stuff a chance because I’d much rather rewatch the same 3 movies & shows and listen to music that I already like and don’t need to get adjusted to (I almost never like a band until I’m very familiar with them). I keep telling myself I need to get into the stuff on my list tho so that if I see these people again I’ll no longer be lying to them. To be honest though I don’t even know if this would be a good strategy IF I could get into the stuff I plan to get into, but it’s the only strategy I know of that doesn’t make me look like the awkward weirdo I am that people don’t like. Also sometimes I exaggerate things because I know I’m oversensitive and I‘m embarrassed to admit to reacting so strongly to such minor things, but it’s harder to hide my reaction than the actual severity of the situation most of the time.

I’ve never been able to admit to this lying issue because I feel so ashamed and I don’t want people to see me as a liar. But I can’t keep carrying this guilt. I just wanna be liked by anyone without sacrificing my morals. And I can’t tell how much of this is me being a bad or manipulative person and how much of it is because fitting into society as an autistic person means being inauthentic, and admitting to being the lazy stupid fuck I am is gonna put me even farther behind everyone else. I want to be truthful but I also desperately wanna be liked. I’m fucking lonely. So idk what to do

I’m a recent convert and ngl this has been one of my main worries. I know it sounds stupid but as an entomology major it is important to me

I used to have such intense, long lasting hyperfixations. It didn’t matter how much I’d be struggling with executive dysfunction, once I started hyperfixating, I started making so much art, writing so many analyses, and other stuff depending on what the hyperfixation was. I would get so much done, and hyperfixating on stuff has shaped my me as a person and grown my skills & knowledge so much. 

But now when I hyperfixate, the obsession dies down before I can even do anything cool with it, yk? Like, I started hyperfixating on a character from a show I like and I bought all the materials to make a doll and got halfway through before I lost interest. I do still wanna finish the doll since I already put so much time, effort & money into it, but I cannot get the motivation now. I wasn’t even hyperfixated long enough to get settled into the fandom community online.

Idk why this is happening. Hyperfocus, hyperfixations, and special interests are the only things I actually like about being neurodivergent, and I really don’t wanna lose that and just become someone I hate every aspect of…pls help

I’ve always loved animal costumes since I was a little kid. However, now that I’m an adult, people are so quick to assume that it’s a sexual thing, which I hadn’t even considered as a possibility until I posted a video of myself in a squirrel costume I made for Purim last year. It was literally just a mask, tail, paw gloves, and a thick sweater that had a squirrel print on it. How tf is that sexual?! Are people really getting turned on by squirrels??

I really like making animal related crafts, especially ones related to my special interest, squirrels. I want to make and wear kemonomimi ears & tails, because I keep seeing the kemonomimi fashion style online and I think it’s cool af, but I’m scared to because of how much I’ve already been sexualized for my interest in squirrel costumes. I get sexualized enough just for being a conventionally attractive woman, I do not need any more of this shit. i guess no whimsy for me :\

I wanna start making gear to sell on Etsy, and my favorite gear makers use 3D printers & airbrushes, but that’s quite the investment considering how much they cost, and idk how much I’d even make by selling gear on Etsy. Is it worth it? I’m a 19 year old college student and I only make $70 a week, I have like $200 in my bank account rn. The 3D printer I want is $500 and the airbrushes I was looking at were like $100–$250, not to mention the cost of a compressor, airbrush cleaner, etc.

I know logically that it doesn’t even fully make sense. I value other people when they’re not being productive in the slightest, yet I only base my own worth on how productive I am. Ironically, I think it makes me less productive, because that sort of pressure just makes me shut down and not do anything. So many people make out changing your mindset to just be as easy as correcting your thoughts, but forcing myself to think a certain way does not change my mindset. I’ve tried. It feels like I’m lying to myself no matter how much I try to tell myself I’m not. I feel so trapped lately. I’m sick of hating myself, doomscrolling even though I hate it and want to stop, I’m sick of not being able to find an ADHD prescription that works, and I’m sick of feeling worthless, guilty, and unlovable for how little I get done. This is gonna sound pathetic, but I’m genuinely so desperate for help. The stuff my therapists says doesn’t help, trying his advice doesn’t help (or I just can’t get myself motivated enough to try his advice because of executive dysfunction), I tried going to the counselor at my college campus today (I was having a panic attack because I failed a class due to a lot of missing work) and he didn’t address any of my actual fears about how ADHD is ruining my life, he just helped me to get accommodations in place (which I appreciate, but also I did explicitly tell him that I didn’t think that would be enough since I‘ve had accommodations throughout all of my school years and still struggled, but he just said to talk about it with my therapist, and I felt like he just wanted me out of there as soon as possible tbh), and no one else in my life has any advice for me. i hate this so much please please help all of this doomscrolling is just making me missrable and i cant stop and none of those screentime apps do shit to help

I’m currently skinny-fat because my safe foods are very much not healthy + I use food as stimulation because of my audhd. I want to be thin, and I think it would be good to gain some muscle, too, because I’ve been getting into quadrobics recently, which is a physical activity (so I’d imagine muscle would help with it). Every time I‘ve “dieted“ it has just been anorexia, because I’d rather starve than eat healthy. I can’t be starving myself if I’m going to have an active hobby though (ofc there are so many other reasons not to!! but for some reason this is the only reason that my stupid brain accepts as valid), and if I wanna build some muscle, I need protein. My diet consists of VERY little protein. I’m scared that I‘ll just go back to starving myself if I can’t figure out soon how to eat healthy. Please help

I just got my bontail, and I wanna make a squirrel sleeve, but also I really want a new clip on tail (my current one doesn’t look very squirrel-y) for more casual wear, so I’m wondering if I could off two birds with one stone and make something that functions as both a bontail sleeve and a keychain tail? It would save a lot of time and effort considering squirrel tails are pretty hard to replicate (at least in my opinion)

Yesterday I officially became Jewish after several years of studying, attending shul, and exploring Judaism & Jewish culture! I would like to share a bit about my experience if anyone’s interested :)

I finished the Intro to Judaism classes back in February, but it took a while for me to talk to my rabbi about proceeding with my conversion because my rabbi was pretty busy with other stuff, and also I have trouble reaching out to people because of my anxiety, and I was worried I’d come across as pushy or rude (I’m autistic so I do have to be extremely careful about how I come across). When we eventually met up to talk about it, one of the things we discussed was the possibility of writing a spiritual autobiography for the beit din to read. I am much better at writing than I am at speaking, so I was very glad to have this option, and as soon as I got home I got to work. It was actually really nice to reflect about everything that got me to this point—I already do a lot of reflection in my mind, but something about writing it out like a story just hit different. I sent it to my rabbi right before Passover started, but it took a while for us to discuss it and schedule the beit din meeting & mikveh because of the timing. Eventually though we decided on July 1st, and I was counting down the days until it finally came.

On the morning of the big day, I very carefully followed the instructions I had been sent. I got there early, and the lady who owned the mikveh gave me a tour. Something about that place smelled wonderful, particularly in the room the mikveh was in, and I have no idea what it was. Once all of the rabbis got there we went into a different room and started talking. I had been told by several people that meeting with the beit din would be more-so a conversation than a test or anything, but I was still nervous because I’m not very good at conversing. I’m not gonna lie, I feel like my answers weren’t as good as they could’ve been if I had given myself more time to think, but it was actually quite a nice discussion, and they brought up some topics that I was especially passionate about, which was awesome. One of the rabbis said that I had already covered a lot of what they usually ask people in my spiritual autobiography, and he said it was beautifully written, which I was happy about. Also I got to ask questions to the rabbis, and it was nice hearing all of their different answers.

Then my rabbi asked me to stand outside the door while they talked. I didn’t intentionally listen in on their conversation, but I did catch bits and pieces of it. I heard one of them say “…which I don’t love, but…” which made me worried that he was talking about something I did/said and that I had did something wrong. Ngl I’m still worried about that, but even if it is the case, it couldn’t have been anything too bad since they called me back in and had me answer some yes or no questions, and after that we recited the shema and then proceeded to the mikveh portion. At this point I realized I should be happy/excited, I’d been approved by the rabbis, and I was happy I think, but I was also still kinda taking it all in. It wasn’t until I entered the changing room to wash off again & change into the robe that I finally really processed everything and got super excited. It was probably for the best that I didn’t get super happy until I was alone in there, because I was flapping my hands like a lunatic and I probably looked really stupid.

When I was ready, the mikveh lady took me into the room with the mikveh, prepared me for how it would work, and sang a beautiful song about Abraham and Sarah leaving their pasts behind in the book of Genesis. The water was so nice and warm, and when I was done the rabbis sang “Siman Tov u’Mazal Tov“ to me, and the lady let me stay in the mikveh for as long as I wanted, which ended up being a while because the water felt really nice. I once again got really happy and excited as it sunk in that I was officially Jewish now! Eventually I went back to the waiting room area where I got my certificate of conversion, which I plan to frame.

When I told my Jewish friends that I’m officially Jewish now, they were super happy for me!! My non-Jewish friends & family were a lot more nonchalant about it though which made me feel kinda embarrassed for having such a huge reaction compared to them😅 I started to question if I was reacting too strongly until I talked to my friend whose mother had converted and she told me about how hard her mom studied & stressed to complete her conversion, and I realized that I also have so much to be happy and proud of myself for. Sure, I’ve been living Jewishly for a while, but this is still a huge deal and opens up lots of new opportunities for me! So I allowed myself to be as excited as I wanted to be.

Part of me is worried that I don’t deserve this and that I’ll be an embarrassment to the Jewish community, but I’m trying not to let that ruin my joy. Tomorrow evening will begin my first Shabbat being Jewish, which I’m super excited for, and in the meantime I’m gonna hang my mezuzah and make a tallis for myself!

Also I’m just now realizing that I’m pretty sure I never actually verified this—since I’m the only Jew in my household, do I only need to put a mezuzah outside of my bedroom? Or should I also put one on the main doorway? Or is this optional?

I’ve tried Concerta, Strattera, and as of today, Methylphenidate. It’s been 5 hours since I took it and I have noticed ZERO difference. I still couldn’t focus in school, and I haven’t gotten done anything I planned to. I can’t fucking live like this. I want to be a biologist, but I can barely even handle college. I know I have so much potential, but I’m wasting it all because I just fucking doom scroll all day. I tried deleting all of my social medias multiple times and I STILL wasn’t able to get anything done, and if anything it was worse because I was snacking more and I gained weight, which makes me feel worse than doomscrolling does (even though I know logically that my weight doesn’t determine my worth, and that my desire to be thin reflects societal standards more than my actual values, I still really hate gaining weight no matter how much I try not to care).

I have SO MUCH I want to do with my life, but I can’t even brush my teeth most nights. I’ve tried every piece of advice I‘ve been given for managing my ADHD, yet I’m still wasting every day rotting on the couch instead. This is one of the last things I wanna be doing, and it’s so frustrating that I can't just get myself to stop already. It feels like such a waste of money going to therapy every week and asking how to manage executive dysfunction, getting advice, having full intention of at least trying it, and then not even being able to get myself to try most of his advice because my executive functioning is so bad.

And even when I’m genuinely interested in something, I still can’t fucking focus. I just end up zoning out. Every story I’ve heard about trying ADHD meds is either “my first or second prescription changed my life!” or “I tried different meds for years, none of them work for me”, and I really don’t wanna be the latter. I just wanna be a normal fucking person, or at least somewhat close to that. I want to partake in my hobbies again. Or at least pass college

In high school I hung out mostly with guys because I found it harder to talk to other girls (probably cause I’m a lesbian, idk), and I’d see my guy friends roughhousing and I really wanted to do the same but every time I tried to join they just got all awkward and didn’t engage in it with me. I didn’t really understand why because I saw myself as much stronger than I actually was at the time, but now that I’m older I realize that they probably just didn’t wanna hurt me because I’m smaller and have less muscle mass, which is understandable. However, I do wish that at least other girls would roughhouse with me, but I feel like it’s one of those things that would be kinda weird/awkward to initiate verbally

i posted a tiktok where I’m wearing short sleeves (because it’s hot as hell here), and my arms were not at all the focus of the video, but somebody commented asking me to put a trigger warning in videos where my scars are visible. My scars are deep and there’s a lot of them, but the most recent ones are 2 years old. They said they felt triggered by it, and I don’t wanna trigger anybody, but also I really do not wanna draw attention to my scars or have to think about them every time I go to upload a video where it’s too hot for me to be covering my arms & legs. And it just doesn’t feel fair that I shouldn’t be able to show my arms & legs because of something I did 2 years ago. They’re being very persistent about the fact that I should add tws when my scars are visible and idk if they’re right or not. What should I do?

I have the money for a bontail, but if I can get similar quality from making a hypermotion tail with foam and stuff it would definitely be nice to not have to spend so much. I really want the movement to be realistic though!

also, aside from a mask and a tail, what are some ways I can look more squirrel-y? I’m a caucasian squirrel

I tried quadrobics for the first time the other day and it was so freeing and fun, I didn’t even realize it was causing any pain until I was done. Now I have a constant ache in my spine and pelvis, and sitting hurts, and talking/singing sometimes kinda hurts too. Is this normal? I did stretch beforehand

When my rabbi asked if there was anyone besides him that I wanted to be on the beit din, I could only think of one rabbi, so he told me he’d find a third for me. I just got an email confirming the details for the mikveh & meeting with the beit din, and it turns out the third rabbi is gonna be the dad of my ex from high school.

I’m fine with that, but I’m worried that it might be awkward for him? I’ve legally changed my first name since I met him, and I look drastically different now (I was identifying as a trans guy when I met him) so he might not recognize me at first, but also his son is the reason I started learning about Judaism in the first place, so that might be brought up, and idk if that’ll be weird for him. I’m very bad at navigating social situations, so I have no idea if I’m overthinking this or if it’s a legitimate concern that I should bring up. I don’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable.

Also I just wanna say I’m very excited and nervous to take this next step!! I’m so grateful for my rabbi, my family, my friends, and everyone else who has helped me on this journey :)