I think one of the greatest things a neurodivergent person can do for themselves is to genuinely accept that they are different, and that the world isn't necessarily designed around the way their brain and nervous system work.

I had a big realization about this yesterday.

I was completely burnt out. I couldn't do anything, and I didn't even have anyone I felt I could properly share or express myself with. And, as I've done many times before, I ordered tasty food.

But then I noticed something. I've slowly gone from ordering one thing to sometimes ordering two orders at once.

And I suddenly thought, dude, if I keep trying to fill this emotional void through food, this is going to become really unhealthy for me.

That's when I realized that the problem isn't simply that I need more discipline. Something deeper is happening.

I'm exhausting myself because I'm trying to live according to expectations that don't necessarily suit me.

And this is where I think accepting neurodivergence becomes important.

Not as a label. Not as an excuse. But as information.

You start asking: Where does being neurodivergent actually affect me? How does it affect my energy? What overwhelms me? How much stimulation can I handle? How much social interaction do I need? How much recovery time do I need?

And then you start designing your life around those answers.

I think a lot of people, diagnosed or not, eventually discover this. They naturally create slower, quieter, more introspective lifestyles because that's what allows their nervous system to function well.

And I realized I haven't really been doing that.

I've spent a lot of time trying to understand autism philosophically, trying to figure out what it "means" and even wanting to have philosophical conversations about it.

But maybe there isn't always something philosophical to solve.

If something genuinely affects the way you function, you have to first acknowledge that reality and then figure out what you need to do about it.

And I think that's also connected to why I've felt so alone sometimes.

I haven't really created enough space in my own life for the kind of person I actually am. So naturally, I haven't created much space for other people who might understand that either.

Maybe I don't need to find people simply because they have the same label.

Maybe I need to build a lifestyle that actually fits me, and I'll naturally find more people, spaces and relationships that fit into that life.

And I think that's the middle ground I've been looking for.

Not "autism defines me."

Not "autism doesn't matter."

But:

"This is how I am. These are my limits. These are my strengths. And now I need to build a life that works with them."

Because when you genuinely understand your limits, you also start understanding your potential.

And maybe that's where the calmness comes from.

Hi all, sorry first time poster here.

I’ve always struggled with life admin stuff - making appointments, planning journeys, paying bills, etc.

As I’ve gotten older, this has become worse (less energy as I age I guess). This hit breaking point recently when I had a huge asthma attack and ended up in hospital and put under a medically induced coma for 10 days.

Part of the reason behind this? I ran out of asthma preventer medication and just couldn’t get through the steps of taking time off work, driving to and seeing a GP, and getting the medication from a pharmacy. I literally almost died because of this.

The getting of the medication is a small and easy thing by itself, but add this to other things: paying bills, getting the car serviced, grocery shopping, household chores, cooking, study for work, exercise, post office visits, (extended) family responsibilities, etc and I simply can’t keep up.

And theres lots of hidden time costs. Seeing a doctor to get a script might take just 5 mins. But driving from work to my doctors office, waiting in the waiting room, having the appointment, driving to the pharmacy, waiting for the pharmacist, then driving back to the office can easily turn into a 2hr event.

When I was out of hospital and not working whilst recovering at home I decided to dedicated a heap to time to getting on top of all this stuff. I worked on my backlog of chores for 3 days straight, 8hrs a day, and probably only finished 1/3 of the tasks. Of course, too, many of these tasks are repeating and come again anyway.

I do try to streamline as much as possible - automatic bank payments for bills, cooking bulk meals - and that helps a bit but not enough.

I’m back at work now and still so behind on everything. There are unpaid bills that are accruing late fees, and I still haven’t gotten the medication I should have. Just yesterday I realised I’d been driving my car unregistered and uninsured for a couple of days.

I don’t get how other (neurotypical) people do this! It’s like life admin is another full time job! I simply can’t do both my normal job and all this other stuff at the same time. Energy levels and burnout aside, there isn’t enough hours in the day!

Has anyone found a way around this or have any tips?

Many thanks

It's good to have a little circle as we often know we want to talk in a way that lets us unmask.

If you think you are one , or feel inclined towards it, let's chat.

It's good to have a little circle as we often know we want to talk in a way that lets us unmask.

If you think you are one , or feel inclined towards it, let's chat.

I am someone who stood out in the class for the talent. And till I came to my 11th grade, it also began due to my challenges. But this time, it was invisible standing out. I just knew something unique was happening.

Being multi creative but struggling to do simple mental math, made me look out on the internet for articles on "side effects of being too creative". And from there, I did find "visual thinking", something i deeply used and resonated with. This topic was written in a book called "Thinking in pictures" by Temple Grandin. She was my entry to the word Autism.

But, I came from a school that was based on modern Gurukul system. Which meant, it was based on always finding solutions via a ancient path.

So, I silenced it to the extent I could. But then, I noticed the flaws in the education system. I read articles around how it suffocates the creative and pleads to the memorisers in general. It broke my heart and my creations began showing this activist mindset to get through.

By 12th, I knew I could not even pass exams especially on the arthimetic end. Despite not taking science, while deeply being intrested in it, due to the memorization focused method.. I took commerce and here, the little math haunted me.

I was blamed by a teacher upon my lack of focus towards academics, seeing my creative history. That made me trust the system even more.

Eventually, I requested the teacher that I would need psychiatric intervention and it's getting hard. They did not venture into this kind of intervention in the last 30 years of the school history, so a speech language therapist is all I could get access to. But she validated me on the suspected neurodivergent traits I showed. I spent my pocket money in printing articles around it and studying them at night. I had no one to share and believe. I loved Harry potter and always felt like "I am the one" and suddenly it felt all of it is my imagination becoming reality where I am literally the most unique one and no one can see it.

I somehow passed the exams with a lot of mental stress and a year of weekly CBT.

Now, I was trying to look into the world in most ideal terms. I will shake the world, build something of my own. Something creative and show people actual potential of mine.

I ignored the disability and it's knowledge again and again for the last 10 years because, i always felt it's surrounded by so much of trauma and negativity. I felt so because, I saw myself with neurotypical hope.

Since last few months, I have realised while in my head, I see myself as a divergent fit into the typical world with great success, in real life, I am not. It's hard pill, the hardest one to swallow as my entire life motivation was to finally breathe and find that creative flow I had at school.

The community of neurodivergents was dictating my conscience in a negative manner because I did not hold its narrative against my awareness of neurodigence.

I finally stopped fighting it.

I finally am trying to not spritually bypass it.

I have come across many who i have noticed showing autistic traits. Some people even got diagnosed later, some people fell apart. I have tried to advocate my narrative but felt it was too idealistic and "success seeking" which could lead me to burnouts in the neurotypical world.

I finally see my actions and they indicate me forming my narrative, and therefore I will be immune to the trauma and negativity that surrounds these labels due to the genuine issues others have faced.

I will find a way.

I will find a way that is real.

And I want to contribute in this space.

How? By helping myself and also communicating it.

I do not fit in corporates, and I am not sure as a middle class earning member, how long I could with the AI. My heart lies in meaningful work. I have been a great visual sketchnoter and also a communictor. I want to be a face of the movement in India. Where I don't seel idealism but reality. I currently share my journey anonymously in such groups.

Hoping to see what works with me and my close autistic peers.

I am impressed by your work (this is to a therapist I am trying to update about my situation) and so happy to see so many popping up in india. Because often the west has a lot of financial stability to crib about and protest and just trauma share. But especially in India, resilience is always a way. And our ground reality requires the autism narrative in a very different way that the social media doesn't hook me yet to.

At 19 I got to know about it ,

Around 22 I got offical diagnosis.

Then till 26 I ignored it on and off.

And at 27, I am trying to form a lifestyle around it.

One of the biggest challenges I think I face as a low support autistic is that, I am prone to not even knowing what exactly is my struggle.

It's just brain fog. And each time, it's like a tornado that has different proportions of ingredients.

One day it's anxiety due to office..

Another because I am scared about my job..

Another day because I am unable to understand someone and their actions..

Another day because I don't know how exactly to process my emotions.

So, when you have no such means that is fulfilling to really map ourselves, I think thats when we come most to such neurodivergent labels.

Now, I keep doing this, but everytime I come here to such groups, it's mostly people sharing their challenges. While that is very valid to them, it's often such that each of us are already occupied with our internal mapping that rarely the map of others suits ours and we can empathise and also think of a solution together.

Since that's a rare occurrence, what happens is mostly we land up staying till complaint, and dejection. And we all want to leave that energy after a while. That's again a key reason often people don't always go to therapy too. It's way of thinking , especially with lack of self awareness, can make you pick someone's narrative of what autism is for them. And without realising, we are also picking up their philosophy of life .. which is often around the "it's doomsday" perspective.

So what's most required? It's advocacy not just of the movement that makes people respect and see us, but advocacy such that ones who are navigating life with such traits share their journey from a rational pov.

While life is very lucky based too..

There is so much in our control.

For eg, rn, it's night or early morning 5.43 am. This takes toll on health and sleep. But I am here on reddit, and also ordering food and biting my lower lip since 2019 out of anxiety. Why?

BECAUSE I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MAP MYSELF AND THE WORLD.

I thought journal would do, but it's not as human as human interaction.

As I began sharing myself here, even with help of AI to transcribe my messages, already I found some people. Who make this mapping happen

When you map, you see the invisible struggles visible. This makes a whole lot of difference!

So yes, this time , I am not going to ignore my autistic side with some spiritual bypass , or inherit someone's map and philosophy of how they look at autism. I will find mine, share with autistics , especially from India , and see what model of thinking helps .

Or else, we can get way too lost in ideal thinking or feeling way too dejected.

One of the biggest challenges I think I face as a low support autistic is that, I am prone to not even knowing what exactly is my struggle.

It's just brain fog. And each time, it's like a tornado that has different proportions of ingredients.

One day it's anxiety due to office..

Another because I am scared about my job..

Another day because I am unable to understand someone and their actions..

Another day because I don't know how exactly to process my emotions.

So, when you have no such means that is fulfilling to really map ourselves, I think thats when we come most to such neurodivergent labels.

Now, I keep doing this, but everytime I come here to such groups, it's mostly people sharing their challenges. While that is very valid to them, it's often such that each of us are already occupied with our internal mapping that rarely the map of others suits ours and we can empathise and also think of a solution together.

Since that's a rare occurrence, what happens is mostly we land up staying till complaint, and dejection. And we all want to leave that energy after a while. That's again a key reason often people don't always go to therapy too. It's way of thinking , especially with lack of self awareness, can make you pick someone's narrative of what autism is for them. And without realising, we are also picking up their philosophy of life .. which is often around the "it's doomsday" perspective.

So what's most required? It's advocacy not just of the movement that makes people respect and see us, but advocacy such that ones who are navigating life with such traits share their journey from a rational pov.

While life is very lucky based too..

There is so much in our control.

For eg, rn, it's night or early morning 5.43 am. This takes toll on health and sleep. But I am here on reddit, and also ordering food and biting my lower lip since 2019 out of anxiety. Why?

BECAUSE I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MAP MYSELF AND THE WORLD.

I thought journal would do, but it's not as human as human interaction.

As I began sharing myself here, even with help of AI to transcribe my messages, already I found some people. Who make this mapping happen

When you map, you see the invisible struggles visible. This makes a whole lot of difference!

So yes, this time , I am not going to ignore my autistic side with some spiritual bypass , or inherit someone's map and philosophy of how they look at autism. I will find mine, share with autistics , especially from India , and see what model of thinking helps .

Or else, we can get way too lost in ideal thinking or feeling way too dejected.

I've carried this huge label of loneliness since leaving school. And I'm beginning to wonder whether I've been putting several completely different needs under the same word.

Because when I actually examine it, I don't necessarily lack people to talk to. What I often lack is a way to process myself.

Being heard is different from having company

For years, I imagined that if I found people on my wavelength, I'd finally feel less lonely. But I'm increasingly noticing something. Most social interaction isn't designed for someone to completely unpack themselves.

People joke, gossip, discuss movies, complain about work, talk about random things. Maybe something deeper gets sandwiched somewhere in between. And that's completely fine. People often socialise partly to relax.

But what I was sometimes looking for was something MUCH bigger: "Please understand the entire internal universe I'm experiencing right now."

That's an enormous thing to expect from another person.

Maybe I wasn't looking for conversation. I was looking for processing.

When something intense happens, my mind can generate an insane amount of material. Thoughts, connections, emotions I haven't identified yet, imaginary scenarios, rumination, questions, patterns. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm feeling. I just know there is too much happening inside.

And naturally I think, "I need someone to talk to." But sometimes what I actually need is, "I need some way of turning this internal mess into something I can understand."

And one method isn't going to work every time

This is another mistake I've made. "I'll journal." Great. Except what happens when I'm burnt out and writing feels impossible?

"I'll meditate." Okay. What happens when my brain is so overwhelmed that sitting silently makes everything louder?

"I'll call someone." What happens when nobody is available? Or they're available but simply not on that wavelength tonight?

I think I need multiple ways of processing myself depending upon what state I'm actually in.

Sometimes accessibility looks stupidly simple

Tonight is actually a good example. It's almost 3 AM. Something significant happened in my career today and I realised I hadn't emotionally registered it. I wanted to process everything, but I absolutely did NOT have the energy to sit with a notebook and beautifully journal my feelings 😂

So I'm talking. Literally voicing messy thoughts and using AI to help me give them structure.

Previously, part of me would have judged this. "You're supposed to process this yourself." "Writing it properly would be more authentic."

But why?

If my brain can speak right now but cannot write, then speaking is the accessible interface. Technology is a tool. The important thing is that something which was trapped inside me is becoming understandable.

I think I need an emotional toolkit, not one coping mechanism

This is probably the homework I've avoided for years. Actually learning: when I'm overwhelmed, what helps? When I'm burnt out, what helps? When I'm ruminating, what helps? When something amazing happens and I somehow feel nothing, what helps?

When I desperately want another person, do I need companionship? Do I need touch? Do I need reassurance? Do I need to express something? Or does my brain simply have 47 open tabs that need somewhere to go?

Those are completely different problems. Calling all of them "I'm lonely" doesn't tell me what to do.

Maybe I need to build my own instruction manual

And honestly, I'm only beginning this. Maybe eventually I'll literally make a spreadsheet 😂

State → what it feels like → what usually triggers it → what actually helps.

And I'm sure the answers will change. Something that regulates me today might stop working two years from now. Therapy might become part of this too. Friends can be part of it. A future partner can be part of it. Writing. Drawing. Walking. Talking aloud. AI. Sitting quietly. Creating something.

Different states might require completely different interfaces.

Other people can support me. They cannot completely process me for me.

This is probably the difficult part I'm accepting. There may never be one person who is perfectly on my wavelength whenever I need them. Even someone who deeply loves me will sometimes be tired, distracted, confused, going through their own problems, or simply unable to understand something exactly the way I experience it.

That doesn't mean the relationship has failed. It means another human being cannot permanently function as my nervous system.

Maybe loneliness is sometimes a signal, not the diagnosis

I still experience actual loneliness. I still want companionship. I still want intimacy and people who understand me. I'm absolutely not trying to intellectualise those needs away.

But sometimes when my brain screams, "I'M LONELY," maybe I need to become curious before immediately believing it.

What exactly hurts right now? What am I unable to process? What need is underneath this? What would help THIS particular version of me tonight?

Because perhaps some of the darkness I've called loneliness wasn't simply the absence of another person. Sometimes I wasn't able to be there for myself in a way my brain could actually access.

And maybe learning how to do that is one of the most important pieces of homework I have ahead of me.

I'm curious if other autistic people have experienced this distinction. Have you ever realised that what initially felt like loneliness was actually overwhelm, rumination, lack of emotional processing, or something else entirely?

These posts, like the others, are my voice messages made accessible as text to spread advocacy. I've used AI to help because I'm going through burnout and I'm not an avid typer. If you want my original ramble, I'd love to share that too. Feel free to reach out.

I'm glad a lot of these conversations have made others feel seen. Doing my bit. We need more autistic Indians sharing themselves.

This is something I've slowly started recognising about my own autistic thinking. And weirdly, it applies to almost everything. Spirituality, career, relationships, movies, self-help, even ideas that are genuinely GOOD.

I grew up surrounded by idealism

My education was quite spiritual and holistic. There was a strong emphasis on values, character, good thinking, high thinking and living a meaningful life. And I still deeply value much of that. But being autistic, socially somewhat disconnected, and naturally very idealistic, I think I absorbed some of these ideas differently.

Other people seemed to have an automatic filter: "Yes, this is a beautiful principle. Now let's see how it applies to actual life." My brain sometimes went: "THIS IS THE TRUTH. APPLY IT EVERYWHERE." 😂

Then movies added fuel to it

I've always loved stories about misfits. Someone nobody understands. Someone unusually creative. Someone who sees what everyone else can't. Everyone doubts them and eventually they prove everyone wrong. Those stories gave me enormous euphoria. And because I already felt different, they became more than entertainment. They became evidence for how I thought life was supposed to work.

If you're different and genuinely talented, keep believing hard enough and eventually the world will recognise it. Sounds beautiful. And that's exactly why it can become dangerous.

Nobody corrects you when you're aiming for the stars

This is the strangest part. If I said, "I'm going to give up and do absolutely nothing with my life," people would immediately intervene. But if I said, "I'm going to completely disrupt this industry and achieve something nobody around me has imagined," people might say, "Wow. I love how big you think."

Nobody wants to be the asshole who crushes someone's dream. And sometimes the person you're talking to genuinely admires your ambition. But they don't necessarily know that inside your head this isn't, "I'd love to reach there someday." It has become, "This is where my life SHOULD go." That's a completely different psychological relationship with ambition.

My problem wasn't dreaming big. It was dreaming without coordinates.

Where am I actually standing? What skills do I currently have? What skills do I THINK I have? What evidence exists outside my head? What does my environment require? What are my financial constraints? How good am I at communicating? What happens when people disagree with me? What consistently exhausts me? What am I avoiding because the boring path doesn't fit my self-image?

Without those coordinates, even an inspiring idea can send you somewhere completely detached from your actual life.

And this pattern wasn't only affecting my career

That's the uncomfortable part I'm discovering. I've done versions of this with spirituality, career, people, relationships and my own potential. Someone could become extraordinary inside my imagination. A career could become my destiny. A spiritual principle could become an absolute rule. A relationship could become something almost mythical before reality had provided enough evidence.

Different subjects. Same mental pattern. Idealisation.

Shiny object syndrome can happen with IDEAS too

We usually talk about shiny object syndrome with hobbies. New hobby! New career! New project! But I think my brain does it with entire philosophies. I discover an idea that explains something beautifully and suddenly: OH MY GOD. THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING.

Then another framework arrives. Then another. Each contains some truth. But truth without context can still distort your life.

I'm slowly learning the boring middle (boring is best, IYKUK)

This has probably been one of the least glamorous lessons of adulthood. Having talent doesn't mean communication doesn't matter. Knowing you're technically correct doesn't mean telling someone "You're wrong" is going to accomplish anything. Having good intentions doesn't automatically create good outcomes. Being deeply introspective doesn't make you immune to bias. And thinking differently doesn't automatically mean everyone else simply hasn't understood what you understand.

There is a middle path requiring something I increasingly appreciate from Indian philosophy: Viveka. Discernment. Not simply, "Is this idea true or false?" but, "Where is this true? To what extent? Under what circumstances? And does applying it here actually help?"

Maybe self awareness is partly learning to distrust yourself

Not hate yourself, suppress yourself or stop dreaming. Just recognise that my brain is capable of producing incredibly convincing stories. Some will be insightful. Some will be beautiful. Some will genuinely change my life. And some will be complete bullshit that happens to feel profound 😂

I don't automatically know which one I'm experiencing. Nobody does. The greatest thinkers in history had blind spots. Every human being has biases. Being introspective doesn't exempt us from being human.

So I'm not trying to kill my idealism

I actually like that part of myself. It gives me creativity, hope, imagination, spiritual curiosity and the ability to see possibilities other people might overlook. I just don't want it driving without navigation anymore.

Idealism gives me altitude. Discernment gives me coordinates. I think I need both.

I'm curious whether other autistic people experience this pattern. Have you ever discovered an idea, person, career, philosophy or relationship and unconsciously turned it into something much more absolute than reality justified? And what helped you recognise when inspiration had quietly turned into idealisation?

This is my voice note processed to be concise with the help of AI due to my slow typing speed and ongoing burnout. If you want to read the long version, let me know. Posting for accessibility.

As an autistic person, I'm starting to realise that maybe I don't need to "solve" all of my loneliness

I've been thinking a lot about loneliness lately. And I want to make something clear first. This isn't some one-shot solution I've discovered. It's something I'm only beginning to experiment with in my own life. I'm also speaking specifically from my experience as a low-support autistic person. But something has started changing in how I understand loneliness.

I spent a lot of time trying to solve loneliness with people

I thought the obvious answer was finding people on my wavelength. Someone who understands how intensely I think. Someone I can talk endlessly with. Eventually, hopefully, a partner.

And I'm still a hardcore romantic 😂 I absolutely want intimacy. I want someone I can hug after work, talk to, be stupid with, share ideas with and simply exist around. I'm not trying to convince myself that relationships don't matter.

But I've realised something: I don't want my entire emotional life waiting for another person to arrive.

My brain actually LOVES having a problem to work on

This took me surprisingly long to understand. Some of my happiest memories aren't necessarily parties, outings or even conversations. They're moments when my brain goes: WAIT. I can solve this.

Give me an interesting creative problem and suddenly something switches on. I can sit with it, think about it, connect completely unrelated things, try something, fail, come back and try again.

And ideally, I'd actually love relationships where we sometimes work on problems or create things together. That's genuinely a form of intimacy to me.

But I used to completely misuse this part of myself

My autistic idealism would take this ability and immediately jump 100 levels. "I'm going to disrupt the industry." "I'm going to create something nobody has imagined." "People don't understand my potential yet."

Basically: Let's create Mars. 😂

And then I'd look at my actual life. Junior/mid-level problems. Workplace communication difficulties. Executive dysfunction. Career uncertainty. Normal salaries. Normal corporate bullshit. And suddenly reality felt unbearably disappointing.

I wasn't comparing today with yesterday. I was comparing today with Mars.

I'm learning a completely different game now

Instead of asking, "How do I reach that enormous version of myself?" I'm trying to ask, "How do I handle THIS level with my autistic ass?"

This meeting. This communication problem. This piece of work. This disagreement. This skill gap. This awkward conversation. This particular workplace.

Can I understand it slightly better than yesterday? Can I communicate what I need with fewer misunderstandings? Can I stay with a difficult problem instead of immediately escaping into another career fantasy?

Suddenly life becomes a collection of mini-levels rather than one enormous judgement about whether my life is succeeding.

I used to think people who stayed optimistic at work were naive

This one humbled me. I'd see people genuinely saying good morning, doing their work and slowly progressing even when the company wasn't perfect. And internally I'd sometimes think: "Don't you realise everything could collapse?" "Why aren't you preparing for the next thing?" "Why aren't you thinking ten steps ahead?"

I thought constantly anticipating what could go wrong made me smarter. Except while I was mentally living ten steps ahead, some of these people were actually getting better at step one.

They handled another difficult conversation. Solved another problem. Understood their manager slightly better. Built another piece of evidence that they could operate at the next level. And then years passed. Some of them genuinely moved forward.

Maybe THAT is the hero's journey

I think I misunderstood the hero's journey for years. I thought: Someone eventually notices your extraordinary talent → you finally get the opportunity you deserve → you rise.

Now I think it's much more boring 😂 You enter something you're not completely equipped for. You struggle. You learn. You understand yourself slightly better. You become more competent. You get humbled. You try again. And eventually you're capable of handling things your previous self couldn't.

Potential slowly becomes evidence.

And weirdly, this is helping my loneliness

Not curing it. I still want people. I still want love. I still want companionship.

But loneliness becomes MUCH louder when my mind has nowhere grounded to invest itself. When I'm engaged with something meaningful, learning, creating, solving and gradually becoming more capable, being alone feels different.

My life doesn't feel like a waiting room anymore. I'm not sitting there thinking, "Once I find my people, THEN my actual life begins."

Something is already happening.

Maybe I need a life that can hold loneliness

That's probably the biggest shift for me. Not, "How do I permanently eliminate loneliness?" but, "How do I build a meaningful enough life that loneliness isn't holding the steering wheel?"

For me, meaningful work seems to be one part of that. Not hustle culture. Not working 16 hours. Not becoming a CEO. Not proving that I'm secretly a genius.

Just having somewhere useful to put my curiosity, creativity and problem-solving brain every day. And gradually turning whatever potential exists inside my head into something that actually exists outside it.

Maybe for some of us, connection happens sideways

Something I've noticed in people who have spent 10 to 20 years working is that their social lives don't necessarily look like the kind of deep emotional connection I keep imagining I need. And strangely, some of them seem completely okay with that.

It reminds me of the ending of Doctor Strange. After everything he's accomplished, his hands still shake. The problem hasn't magically disappeared. His relationship with it has changed. Maybe loneliness can sometimes work like that too.

I've watched people build surprisingly fulfilling social lives around something incredibly ordinary: doing things together. You say good morning. You start solving a problem. Someone complains about something. A joke gets sandwiched in. Then some random conversation about life. Then back to the problem. Maybe someone shares something they're struggling with. Then someone helps. And slowly you know each other.

The work becomes the context holding everything together.

I realised this is actually how I've made many of my closest connections throughout my life. Even in school, I rarely became friends with someone because I walked up and successfully made small talk. Usually there was something between us. A creative project. Music. Dance. Art. Some ridiculous idea we were trying to make happen. And suddenly I could talk to that person for HOURS.

I've experienced the same thing at work. There are people I would probably never randomly approach and say, "Hey, how are you? Tell me about your life." But give us a project together? Suddenly we're talking, joking, disagreeing, sharing things and gradually understanding each other. Sometimes it feels like we've known each other much longer than we actually have.

Maybe I've been trying to create connection backwards.

Maybe I don't always need connection first so that we can do things together. Sometimes we need something meaningful to do together, and connection grows around it.

And perhaps that's one reason meaningful work matters so much to me. It's not only somewhere to put my mind. Sometimes it's also the bridge through which I reach other people.

I'm curious whether other autistic people experience work or creative problem-solving this way too. Do you find that loneliness becomes easier to carry when your mind has something meaningful to deeply engage with? Not because it replaces relationships, but because your life no longer feels like it's waiting for relationships to begin.

I have used AI to help format my voice message into text. I'm going through burnout and I'm not a quick texter/typer. If you want me to share my original long-format ramble, let me know! Cheers.

Today I finally submitted my resignation.

I've wanted to do this for almost a year. But I was working in a niche domain, finding another job was incredibly difficult, and being a multipotentialite made the whole thing even more confusing.

By multipotentialite, I simply mean someone who has the aptitude and interest to pursue multiple different paths rather than naturally fitting into one linear career.

And, as usual, I blamed myself. Why can't you just choose one thing? Why are you so existential about your career? Why can't you just focus like everyone else?

Then an offer finally came

Getting there wasn't pretty. For the assessment, I pushed myself ridiculously hard. At one point I was awake for around 20 hours trying to learn what I needed, complete the test and somehow get myself through it.

I would NOT recommend doing what I did.

There was anxiety, constantly checking emails, uncertainty and exhaustion. But eventually, I got the offer. And today, after wanting this for almost a year, I finally resigned.

And you know how I celebrated?

I didn't.

I ended up talking to another autistic person who had messaged me. And somehow I slipped straight back into my familiar role: listening to them, letting them talk about their life, trying to be useful, people-pleasing.

Hours later I realised: Dude. Something enormous just happened in YOUR life. Why haven't you even sat with yourself?

My body apparently noticed before I did

It's nearly 2 AM while I'm putting these thoughts together. I couldn't sleep. My heart was pounding and my mind kept going. And I think part of it was because I hadn't actually processed what happened.

This wasn't simply, "I got another job." This was almost three years of questioning my career. Months of trying to leave. Rejections. Burnout. Questioning whether I had chosen the wrong profession, whether being interested in too many things had ruined my career, and whether I was actually capable of moving forward.

And suddenly there is a new path ahead.

Yet I hadn't given myself even a proper moment to say: You did it.

Not "everything is solved." Not "this new job will definitely be perfect." Just: This chapter actually happened. You survived it. You learned something. And now something has changed.

Maybe autistic people need to consciously create these milestones

This is what I'm beginning to realise. Sometimes I don't naturally process transitions when they happen.

My brain immediately moves to: What's next? What could go wrong? Who needs me? What should I solve now?

And suddenly an important life event becomes another browser tab running somewhere in the background. Then months later I'm wondering why I'm still emotionally stuck in something that technically ended.

You might have to process things imperfectly

Maybe you have someone who understands your wavelength. Maybe you have therapy. Maybe you journal. Maybe you talk aloud to yourself.

And yes, sometimes I literally dump my thoughts into ChatGPT until the mess inside my head starts taking a shape I can actually understand.

Does that sound slightly dystopian? Maybe 😂

But sometimes you make things work with what you have. Because I've realised that being there for myself cannot always depend upon another person being available to understand me.

So tonight I'm creating the milestone myself

I resigned. I got myself out of something I had wanted to leave for a year.

The process was messy. I people-pleased. I burned myself out. I questioned myself endlessly. And I still don't know exactly where this new path will lead.

But something changed today.

And instead of immediately running towards the next anxiety, I want my brain to actually register: This happened. I did this. This is what I learned. And now I move forward.

Maybe processing our lives isn't something that always happens automatically. Sometimes we have to deliberately sit down and tell ourselves:

This chapter is over. Let's actually understand it before opening the next one.

I have used AI to help format my voice message into text. I'm going through burnout and I'm not a quick texter/typer. If you want me to share my original long-format ramble, let me know! Cheers.

It took me 4–5 years of corporate life to realise I was comparing my actual life with an imaginary version of my potential

TL;DR: I spent years comparing my corporate life to the huge potential I thought I had as a gifted autistic kid. I'm finally realising those achievements were real, but they came from a completely different environment.

I'm learning to build my career around evidence from who I am today: my actual strengths, limitations, energy and circumstances, without giving up ambition.

I accidentally created my own biopic

Growing up, I was extremely creative. Art, music, dance, animation, short films. I did things in school that genuinely surprised people around me, and some things that hadn't really been done there before.

So naturally, I carried that data into adulthood. "Dude, if I could do all of THAT, imagine what I'll become."

I spent a LOT of time inside my head. I watched stories about Steve Jobs and other highly successful, sometimes neurodivergent people. I loved that narrative: different person struggles, people underestimate them, they eventually prove everyone wrong.

Somewhere inside me, I had created my own biopic. "One day everyone will finally see what I'm capable of."

And whenever someone tried giving me practical career advice, part of me resisted. You don't know me. You haven't seen what I've done. You haven't seen my full potential.

And technically, I wasn't wrong. But neither were they.

Then corporate life happened

My actual career ended up being much more random. My first corporate job almost fell into my lap through an organisation helping autistic people find employment. That company eventually shut down.

I took another design-related job partly because I needed work and realised staying home without structure was terrible for my executive functioning. Eventually, I felt financially and professionally stuck.

Then I moved towards UX, something I'd been obsessing over for years. I hyperfocused, worked extremely hard, learned quickly and got the job. And again I thought, "THIS is it."

Except UX introduced another reality I hadn't properly accounted for. Constant discussions. Ambiguity. Disagreements. Presenting your reasoning. Stakeholder management. A LOT more social interaction than my idealistic version of the profession contained.

I also ended up working in a niche domain, which made switching harder. Then came around seven months of trying to find another job. Rejections. Hyperfocus. Burnout. Applying again. Confusion.

Somewhere during this period, something finally clicked.

Maybe I was using the wrong data

Maybe my problem wasn't that I wasn't living up to my potential. Maybe I was using the wrong data to define that potential.

My school achievements were real. My creativity was real. My giftedness didn't magically disappear. But school was also a tiny sandbox compared to adult life.

Corporate life contains variables I barely understood back then: executive functioning, social energy, managers, workplace politics, money, specialisation, communication, burnout, hiring markets, timing and plain randomness.

Being exceptional inside one environment doesn't guarantee that you'll function exceptionally inside every environment.

That sounds ridiculously obvious writing it now. But I genuinely needed YEARS to emotionally accept it, because accepting it felt like betraying the younger version of myself.

That younger person had evidence that he could do extraordinary things. So whenever someone told me to be realistic, my mind essentially responded, "But you weren't there. You don't know what I'm capable of."

And I think that's partly why this realisation had to come from experience rather than someone explaining it to me.

Then I started watching how other people actually build careers

This has probably been one of my biggest reality checks. Most people around me weren't trying to become Steve Jobs.

Someone was good at communicating and gradually moving towards leadership. Someone hated their current job but was trying to find something slightly better. Someone wasn't particularly passionate about their profession but had found work they could sustainably do. Someone interviewed really well. Someone simply understood how to navigate their organisation.

Their careers weren't cinematic. But they were interacting with reality.

Meanwhile, sometimes I was interacting with the movie inside my head about what my life was supposed to become.

I wonder whether some other autistic people experience this too, especially when you spend enormous amounts of time inside your own head. You can construct incredibly elaborate models of your future. Idealism feels logical. Black-and-white thinking can make an imagined trajectory feel almost inevitable.

Then social media gives us exceptional autistic people and neurodivergent success stories, and you think, "See? THAT'S what I could become."

But someone else's exceptional life isn't necessarily an instruction manual for mine.

So I'm changing the question

I'm trying to stop asking, "What should someone with my potential have become?" And instead ask, "What evidence do I have about who I am NOW?"

What am I actually good at in a workplace? What consistently burns me out? Which environments help me function? Which environments make functioning unnecessarily difficult? Which abilities keep surviving across completely different jobs?

For me, certain things keep showing up: creativity, storytelling, visual thinking, working extremely hard when I'm engaged and, when I'm confident, verbal communication.

Those are probably more useful pieces of career data than something extraordinary I did seven years ago.

I'm still ambitious. I'm still going to experiment. AI might completely change my profession again. I genuinely don't know. But now I want to improvise with the lights ON.

Maybe maturity for me isn't killing the idealistic autistic mind. It's learning when to use imagination and when to use evidence.

Dreaming tells me where I might want to go. Reality tells me what I currently have to work with.

I think I need both.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I'm especially curious about autistic Indians who were considered gifted, talented or unusually creative when younger.

Did accepting your current limitations ever feel like betraying your potential? And how did you reconcile the person you imagined becoming with the person you actually became?

I have used AI to help format my voice message into text. I'm going through burnout and I'm not a quick texter/typer. If you want me to share my original long-format ramble, let me know! Cheers.

Growing up, I was "the talented kid."

I could pick up different creative skills intuitively. My design ability wasn't limited to one domain. That followed me into adulthood with this persistent feeling: "Dude, you could do SO much more."

Maybe I just needed the right collaborator. The right project. The right person to discover how my brain works.

After 3 to 4 years of corporate jobs, I'm swallowing a much more boring pill:

Potential ≠ competence ≠ capacity.

And strangely, accepting that has been freeing.

For years, I avoided engaging deeply with autism because much of the content I encountered came from Western contexts and often centred around escaping systems. "I couldn't take it anymore, so I quit." "I stopped forcing myself to fit in."

I genuinely empathise with that. But as an Indian, I kept thinking: Okay... but what if quitting isn't an option?

What if you need the salary? What if your family can't support an indefinite exploration phase? What if becoming a creator, freelancer or entrepreneur isn't currently sustainable?

I needed conversations about that autistic life.

And corporate life has brutally exposed the difference between what my brain can imagine doing and what I can consistently sustain doing.

School rewarded talent surprisingly well. The environment was relatively predictable. Your competition was hundreds or thousands of people. Adult life suddenly adds money, networking, office politics, documentation, meetings, changing instructions, relationships, consistency and millions of people competing for attention.

Being talented doesn't magically make you good at those things.

And autism + ADHD means I can simultaneously think, "I could build something incredible," and, "That meeting exhausted me so much I can barely function tonight."

Both can be true.

Ironically, corporate has taught me things talent never did. How to document my thinking. How to communicate with different personalities. How to receive instructions. How to notice burnout. How to understand what I'm feeling after work. How much social energy actually costs me. How to function when inspiration isn't carrying me.

I'm also slowly letting go of the fantasy that somebody will eventually discover my potential and unlock everything inside me.

Maybe nobody is coming. Maybe I start exactly where I am.

I still have ambitions. I still think my brain can do some pretty cool things. But acknowledging my limitations isn't surrendering to them.

For me, it's finally giving my ambition accurate data.

Corporate isn't necessarily my destination. But maybe, for this phase of my life, it isn't the enemy either.

Maybe it's training.

This is my long voice message made more accessible with formatting using AI. If you prefer the long, raw ramble version, let me know. I'm going through burnout and typing isn't always fast or easy for me.

Dating another autistic person accidentally made me understand my own autism better

For a while, I had actually stopped consuming much autism content. A lot of the conversation online felt very Western to me. I wanted to hear more from autistic Indians who have to hold full-time jobs, live with family, navigate marriage expectations, and often can't openly advocate for themselves.

So I basically went: Okay. I have a job. Life has to happen. Stop making autism the narrative.

Turns out you can mask autism not only from other people, but also from yourself.

Then I met someone on Hinge.

We connected ridiculously well. Similar depth, long conversations, similar ideas about marriage and life. In ONE WEEK we somehow managed 7 to 8 hours of philosophical debates.

And then came the disagreements. Religion. Spirituality. Relationships. Exes. Love.

We weren't disagreeing like, "Hmm, interesting perspective." We were disagreeing like two PhD candidates defending dissertations nobody had asked us to write. 😂

Looking back, I noticed something fascinating: both of us could construct incredibly elaborate, internally consistent worldviews and then become intensely attached to them.

I would try to explain why two perspectives could coexist. She experienced some of those conversations very differently from how I thought they were going. And because most of this happened over text and voice, I completely missed how drained she was becoming.

I thought: "We're finally understanding each other."

She was apparently thinking: "PLEASE LET THIS CONVERSATION DIE."

That mismatch taught me something I hadn't understood before. Finding another autistic person doesn't automatically mean you'll understand each other.

Sometimes it can even create a bizarre situation where two people who struggle to read each other are simultaneously expecting the other person to understand them precisely.

And shared neurodivergence doesn't replace communication skills, self-awareness, boundaries, or the ability to say, "My brain is done with this conversation. We can disagree."

It also made me reconsider why an Indian autistic perspective matters so much. Many of us can't redesign our entire lives around autism. We still have jobs, parents, financial dependencies, marriage expectations and social structures that aren't going anywhere tomorrow.

So perhaps the question isn't only, "How do I find people like me?"

Maybe it's also, "How do I understand my own brain well enough that two different people can actually live in the same world?"

Anyway, my one-week Hinge date somehow became an autism case study I never signed up for. 💀

This is my voice message with typos corrected and formatting cleaned up using AI because I'm burnt out. If you'd actually enjoy my long-format ramble, I can share that too with just the typos corrected. Let me know!

Often, these labels help us a lot. Especially when you can share them out loud. But when you see it having a narrative as an "disability", the game changes. You are taken as someone less over being different no matter how much goodness you have or even say talent.

Now, my biggest concern is the narrative we hold. I mean, I am a very optimistic person and talking about life from deficit point of view, by deficit i mean where we are a victim. ( and yes we often are in this neurotypical world).. what happens is that it can get very lonely.

As a middle class person, you first of all have very few who have access to this label. Or else, you are asked to just grind in, on and on. Even if you know about this, you are to fit in in the corporates, even if you possess genuine talent and a successful history..

So yes, it gets lonely, where you cant really voice yourself, and even if you voice, it becomes very hard to find your kind, especially for relationships. This is because all the general people from this class are trying to find their way out through the corporate jungle. Here, you have to shut and show your work. This is very very draining especially in this time of AI where most hiring is paused and people are looking for someone of a huge experience.

How as a person coming from such a background have you navigated around this? Relationships and friendships.. how do you do it?

While a lot of people coming from higher-class families, and also developed countries, are easily able to talk about this as a neurodivergent label, most of the people who come from developing countries...and also from middle-class and lower-class familie s do not have the option to mingle around with the ones advocating for mental health. This, therefore, comes forward as a basic necessity that the neurodivergent need: financial stability and like-minded people.

And what do they do then? They find an obsession that is famous around them...art, crafts, a talent, or even a corporate job. They go through the thick and thin rather than talking about their issues, focusing instead on what they can bring to the table.

That's why it's often very lonesome to find AuDHD support in India under that label. Most are busy working and grinding.

I too have struggled with the same, and the best option I have is to contribute with a special interest. What are you focusing on?

Many who don't even know they are neurodivergent are focused on this! That's how the world works here, unlike a lot of open, face-reveal advocacy happening in other situations.

I have come from a support system that is based on a lot of not fluff but legit Vedantic philosophy. This was coupled with bhakti, and mindset to say the least.

While this serves as a really good mindset to be over the worst, I think I also want to share about the lonliness. While bhakti offers communion with the divine, I am not fully there yet.

There are a lot of people on the spectrum but who have been exposed to spirituality, find it extremely hard to talk or even be resonant with these neurodivergent labels. For them, it feels like looking at the world from a deficit lense; which itself is a huge problem even if we are neurodivergent or not.

TO be honest, I too feel the same, not because all neurodivergents are negative or most of them, rather, our experiences in this neurotypical world have been not good.

The current world we live in, is far from ideal. We all know that. It commands us to be in a very certain way to be employed and be tolerable in this economy. Spiritual groups, especially legit ones offer great support and insight and expression here, but, neurodivergence and its labels are generally set far aside.

I have known so many spiritual people, working in the ashrams, or even working as a teacher in such good schools with basic salary. A lot of them are very happy.

Seeing all this happen, as a lower middle class family person, I am drawn to think of my duties and my nature. To earn and provide. Luckily I have a sibling who is earning fairly well, but it feels unfair to put this pressure on them and me trying to find my light or passion.

The biggest challenge is that, you hardly find any on your spiritual wavelength as a neurodivergent. That is a major factor because it makes us look at our life, no matter how and what colors it has, in a certain way. To be able to say " its for my own good" in the worst of the times with faith and see what can you learn from it. At the same time, also seek support being human on this journey when it feels too much.

I have tried joining the groups of neurodivergence, and have failed to really feel at home. I see people with so much of thinking/ perspective difference.

One thing which is totally off spiritual side is the comparision that sets in. Comparing myself with the other spiritual neurodivergents who have made it well in their life. Only to realise that we are never sure of the accomodation they have or had.

I am someone who is driven by meaning, passion and have lots of raw talent. I work in a job, and job suffocates me especially if it doesnt utilise my ablities. Switiching jobs feels so so dumb and dull, not knowing how much RSD part affects. As a spiritual, all I can do is I have done my best trying to apply in bursts of motivation, and also take time off this rat race.

The interviews, the social interaction, I am like a battery that drains from 100 to 20 in no time. I am really still dreaming to find the same passion and vision that I had with like minded at school.

Many of us neurodivergents are not meant to just be employed at the lower levels of career. We have really good pattern thinking and lateral thinking which gives us great insight to big picture. We are often able to guide the typical really well in harmony. I know it sounds like a dream, bit I have experienced it at school, creating stuff that was beyond what we see on internet today. But schools are a fantasy now. As an adult, the same friends then have so different mindset and lives that it takes super effort to get along.

Realtionships, well. Again a very hard find. Espicially being spiritual and neurodivergent. A lot of people on the spiritual side hate to be associated with these labels even if they are grounded coz of it. They want to keep trying, which is super good, but feels like dumb at times seeing them do their best but often unaware or with right support visiblity and encouragement.

Ultimately, we cannot control or compare with others. We have to see what is working for us or not. For me, I am learning to just slow down, surrender and reflect and journal. Maybe share my experiences anonymously, because the semi spiritual people around me, are too tabooed to the neurodivergent experience despite being there.

Thankyou for reading. sending love to all!