u/lucillesz

I am F16, diagnosed with autism at 8 years old. today in england where I live , there was an emergency alert . emergency alerts are my biggest special interest and they have been since 2022 when I used listening to them to help me get over my severe phobia of nuclear war that was literally preventing me from leaving my bathroom . today it was the first ever emergency alert I have experienced that wasn’t a test , and for me that’s absolutely massive . it was a weather alert .

in my excitement over this alarm, I made a post. it I typed something similar to “this is one of the best days of my life.” I got a reply that I won’t detail but it made me feel really silly for being that excited over something that to most people is trivial.

I’m sure most of you have experienced autistic joy before, the all consuming happiness and stimming and sometimes even crying from the overwhelm of massive emotions, especially tied to your special interest. I typed the post whilst all that was happening. the alert being a happy thing for me is obviously very weird to some people and i completely get that but I just don’t know I feel humiliated and stupid for being happy. I also have adhd and really struggle with rejection sensitivity so that’s definitely playing a part .

does anyone have any tips on how to regulate my emotions around this and kinda keep my head up? is there any way I can support myself so it doesn’t completely devastate me? I feel so deeply upset and it’s really getting to me . any help is appreciated, and please be mindful that even if it sounds like a silly interest to you it has genuinely changed my life. thank you so much. 💗

I just want to preface this by saying I have never used Reddit for this kind of thing before, so my apologies if this is an incorrect subreddit and if anyone could direct me to a more appropriate one I would be incredibly grateful. I live in England.

I understand this may sound trivial to some of you, but as a previous victim of SA I feel like all my consent has been stripped away from me and I honestly feel ill. Word of this got out because the boy was bragging to his friends about it who told everyone he has done this to, me included. He has also done the same to multiple other girls in my class, some of which are 15 years old. I would report it to the school, however we just finished year 11 and I don’t know if I can even contact anyone at the school, or if they could do anything about it. I had known the boy in my class for 2 years and he was known to have a crush on me, but I had no idea he would have ever taken it this far.

All I want to know is if there is any laws against this? If not does it fall under any other laws similar to harassment and is there any avenue I could go down to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Thank you for any advice and sorry if this post didn’t go into enough detail.