Guys, I don't know how long I can manage it.

People in my workplace are downplaying or dismissive of my Neurodivergence and want to impose their opinions on me which is angry and frustrating.I had lost both of my parents and technically I am on my own even though I have relatives but I couldn't depend on them for all of it.

This thing has been going on for more than three weeks and I don't feel like working at the Neurotypical Work Environment.I want to work at the Inclusive Work environment where they respect Neurodivergent people. It is too much of a burden on my mental health of being downplayed my neurodivergence so that I couldn't eat for a day or hurt my head.

I felt lonely and alone. I need someone to talk to me.

I closed on a home in March. It’s now July and my mental health has gone to crap and I believe I have entered a state of what I suspect is autistic burnout. My job offers long term disability to cover 60% of my income and I’m considering using it but worried about the reduced income and staying on top of my payments or becoming house poor. But at the same time my current circumstances have led to dark thoughts that would mean I wouldn’t get to enjoy my new house at all. Has anyone ever done this? I’d love any advice

Selon vous, est t'il possible pour une personne neurodivergente de grandir dans une société neurotypique sans avoir un taux de traumatismes beaucoup plus élevés que la moyenne arrivé a 20 ans, surtout si cette dernière a été diagnostiquée seulement adulte ou bien diagnostiquée enfant mais quand même forcée a masquer de manière brutale des le plus jeune age ?

Sitting at the neighborhood pool right now because I have to. Does anyone actually enjoy this? Crowded, sitting in a chair baking in the sun. It’s miserable.

Hi folks :)

I’m posting to hear y’all’s experiences, and hopefully get some strategies/advice surrounding neurodivergent/neurotypical couples. My partner (29M, neurodivergent) and myself (25F, neurotypical) have been together for almost 7 years, engaged for 2. To preface, he’s my absolute best friend and I love him dearly. We’ve lived together for 6 years and sometimes I actually forget that we’re two separate humans.

We’ve been together since 18 and 22 (met when we were both in college) and moved in together at 19 and 23. I’d been living on my own since 16 but that was his first time living away from his childhood home, which I thought explained some of his tendencies. He didn’t know he was neurodivergent in the first few years of our relationship.. He had an ADHD diagnosis as a young boy and was unreasonably heavily medicated with stimulants, making him distrustful (rightfully so) of psychiatry/psychology. I’ve had a slew of mental health issues since my early teens, and am well medicated and thriving. I think that talking so openly about my experiences allowed him to have enough trust in the mental health system to seek help when he was having a particularly rough time with work/life, and he was re-diagnosed with ADHD at 26 and started on an SNRI; he’s having a much better experience on it than he did on a horse’s dose of Adderall at 6.

In those 3 years medicated, he’s doing MILES better at work. But when he comes home, he struggles so hard with anything even remotely related to executive functioning: planning, prioritizing, memory, task initiation, impulse control, emotional control, the works. Before his diagnosis, I thought it was a combination of not learning many life skills growing up and the excitement of living independently for the first time. I tried (and continue to try whenever he asks) to teach him how to cook, clean, manage money, plan activities and maintain a social/family life, but nothing has ever really stuck. Again, I love him to death, but he is financially irresponsible and makes massive impulse purchases, has terrible road rage and has to angrily vent about minor problems daily, habitually smokes about an ounce of weed a week from the moment he gets home until when he goes to sleep, has a pretty unhealthy diet and does 0 physical activity, does not have many friends and rarely sees his family (or mine), and still struggles with basic life skills like cooking, cleaning or self care.

We go through a cycle every 4-6 weeks where I come to him exhausted or deeply unhappy in some way, we talk, we both get emotional, he promises sweeping changes (that I’ve started gently cautioning against and instead suggesting to start small but alas), everything is PERFECT for a few days, and we end up right where we started. This has happened since our first year living together and an ADHD diagnosis provides a lot of context, but it’s still wrecking us. I’ve built up so much resentment over the past 6 years feeling like his external brain, project manager, scheduler, social circle and parent all-in-one. I’m wondering if this is what the rest of our life is going to look like? We started couples counselling last week, but I fear that we’re too far gone. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been checked out for months.

I went back to school, got a real degree, completely changed my career and am happier than ever in my professional life. In my personal life, I have many hobbies and passions and spend a good amount of time with family and friends. He has been very successful in his career, he’s so fucking smart, but spends his free time smoking and gaming. He WANTS to do more and I know it kills him that he just never gets around to it, and it makes me so sad knowing how much regret and shame he carries. Our situation was feasible when I had more time to pick up the extra weight of running our lives, but now I have a couple job offers on the table where this dynamic just won’t be humanly possible. I don’t really know what a reasonable expectation for personal growth is for neurodivergent adults, but I want him to be able to grow with me.

To be clear, I’m by no means perfect. I smoke (albeit a LOT less) and hop on the game for way too long sometimes. I forget or procrastinate things, make careless mistakes, we’re all human and I get that. I also have my own shit going on upstairs, but I try as best as I can to manage my mental health and understand that I’ll likely need to actively do that for the rest of my life. He’s also not my first rodeo with neurodivergence; I work with neurodivergent teens but in my experience with my students, usually one or two strategies from the pile end up working for them, which hasn’t been the case here. The majority of my best friends also have autism, ADHD or both. This is, however, my first time being in a long-term relationship with someone who is neurodivergent.

Anyways, happy to provide more context or info if needed (if the wall of text wasn’t enough lmaooo). I genuinely hope to hear your experiences of being neurodiverse with a neurotypical partner or vice versa (whether it worked out or not), and any strategies you might have in supporting a partner with ADHD in their personal growth and development.

Love.

I’ll start:
• “People with Asperger’s syndrome are all mathematicians.”
• “Autistic people can’t live independently.”
• “Calm people can’t have ADHD.”

The majority of information I see out there is on adhd or autism, but a professional told me neurodivergence is an umbrella term that encompasses many things. anyone have info on neurodivergence when it’s unrelated to adhd or autism? also have shared traits of “giftedness” in the way I relate to the world and the things around me. Just want to better understand myself in this weird world.

I dont wanna self-diagnose or anything of that sort. I just want some honest advice because I’m confused about whether the issues i have are adhd or smth else. For a long time I’ve had issues with constantly losing important things like my phone, glasses, pencils, homework, and clothes, and I forget tasks almost immediately unless I write them down. I really struggle to focus on boring or repetitive tasks even when I want to do them although sometimes i dont, and I tend to procrastinate a lot and it makes me do things like projects last minute. My rooms always messy,i cant organize things, an i cant sit down and plan anything without getting bored or im just lost in my own world while im doing things.Whenever im reading smth i have to rearread it to understand it and i still dot understand. It messes up my grades when i forget hw and when we have tests and that really important especially cuz of the ap classes i take.I used to have a speech impediment when I was younger and did speech therapy for a few years but the signs are still sometimes there, stuttering being there the most. I’ve taken some online ADHD screeners and scored high, but I know that’s not official, so I’m just trying to see if people who actually have ADHD think this sounds similar to their experience or if it could be something else like stress or habits.

I’m getting confused . I understand neurodiverse are groups of different people in different groups together. But how can this be true if social constructs . Aren’t all things like this if they aren’t tested positive or negative so social constructs ?

Hi everyone.
I’m a 28 year old guy. Life’s been okay overall, but I’ve always struggled with making friends and connecting with people.

Ima mechanical engineer, and my job involves a lot of complex work, so it takes up a huge chunk of my mental energy. By the end of the day I’m usually pretty drained which doesn’t exactly help my social life.

Lately I’ve been feeling the pressure of being 28. It feels like everyone else has close friends, relationships, or is getting married, and I’m still trying to figure out how to meet people and build those connections.

Not really sure what I’m looking for with this post. Maybe advice, maybe people who can relate. Just wondering if anyone else has felt the same.

Hihi! I'm trying to write a few characters and a few of them have some mental disorders (ASPD, NPD, Autism,
ADHD and DID/OSDD/UDD)
I wanted some tips and on how to write these characters?
Any criticism and ideas are greatly appreciated!

I'm autistic. I've seen firsthand the stigma that is associated with being neurodivergent. People have a hard time understanding and accepting things that are different. The idea of neurodiversity is to fight that stigma by normalizing being neurodivergent. There's nothing wrong with having a brain that is wired differently. This is a lesson that everyone needs to internalize — including neurodivergent people themselves. Too often neurodivergent people wish they were someone else, wish that their brains were "normal." The intention of this guide is to show how you can accept and even celebrate neurodiversity, and it uses philosophy to do it.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a way of doing philosophy that treats ideas as tools. The test of a tool is whether it works when you put it to use. That's the approach I take here. As you read, you'll notice I borrow freely from different philosophies, because these are the tools that have worked for me. Maybe one or two will work for you. Keep what works and leave the rest.

Choose to Be Lucky

Did you know you can choose to be lucky? That's because lucky is a mindset. It's something you can learn. Stoicism shows us how.

Stoicism is a philosophy that originated in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics started from a hard premise: the world is governed by fate. Most of what happens to you — where you were born, the body you live in, the way your mind is wired — was never up to you. You can rage against that, or you can do the harder and stranger thing the Stoics asked of themselves. You can welcome it. Marcus Aurelius, one of the most famous Stoics, set the bar high: to welcome with affection whatever fate sends — not merely to tolerate your life, but to want it.

Welcoming your fate is not resignation, and it is not pretending. It asks you to stop wishing your life had been a different life, and to turn toward the one you actually have.

So how do you welcome being neurodivergent?

Start with what's yours. You didn't choose your wiring; no one chooses theirs. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what is up to us and what isn't, and almost nothing drains a person faster than spending their strength on the wrong side of that line. Why am I like this? is mostly unanswerable, and grieving it can eat a whole lifetime. Given that I am, what now? is a question you can actually act on. Your neurology is not up to you. Your response to it is.

Consider the example of a poker player. She didn't choose her cards — they were dealt to her. There is no way she could know what the dealer would give her. She has no control over that. What she can control is how skillfully she plays the hand.

The Stoics had another practice to help get into the lucky mindset. Instead of dreaming about how things could've turned out better, they compared their life to inferior situations they imagined and concluded that things weren't so bad. This is known as negative visualization. Briefly considering how your circumstances could be worse can help you feel lucky.

But there are also genuine advantages, things you would never have found on an easier road.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the unexpected advantages of being dyslexic. One thing he found was that by the time many dyslexic people finish school, they've failed so many times that failure has simply stopped frightening them, so they look at a situation and see much more of the upside than the downside. Because they're so accustomed to the downside. The downside doesn't faze them. They've lived there. For some, dyslexia isn't the thing they succeed in spite of. It's part of why they succeed at all.

The very thing that made your path harder also built something in you that an easier path never would have, a tolerance for difficulty that becomes a real advantage. You are accustomed to the downside. It doesn't faze you. That is not a small thing.

Marcus put the principle in a line that a modern Stoic, Ryan Holiday, later used for a book title: The Obstacle Is the Way. The thing standing in your way can become the way itself. The obstacle isn't the detour from the path. Handled well, it is the path.

None of this happens on its own. The advantage was never in having the obstacle; it's in what you do with it, again and again, when quitting would be easier. Holiday's instruction is about as plain as advice gets — persist and resist. Persist in the work that is yours to do. Resist the pull toward distraction, toward discouragement, toward disorder. The persistence is the part that converts a hard fate into a strong one.

So, you become lucky the way you become anything — by practice. By meeting your fate with affection instead of argument. By looking for the advantages hidden inside it and the strength it built in you, and then putting that strength to use. The world handed you this wiring without asking your permission. What you make of it is the part that is up to you.

Loosen Up

Anxiety is common in neurodivergent people. It's important to remember that things generally go better when we loosen up a little bit. The challenge is to figure out how to do that. Stoicism and Buddhism have some actionable advice.

The first thing to do is to focus on your own opinions, not other people's. As Marcus wrote: It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. A lot of anxiety comes from worrying too much about what others think of you. You should focus on what you think of you.

That brings us back to one of the key ideas in Stoicism. You should focus on what you control. You can't control other people's opinions. You can't control the economy. You can't control the weather. You can only really control your effort, your attitude. That's where you should focus your energy.

A couple of other things you don't control are the past and the future. You only have the present, so that's where you should focus your effort.

If you find yourself worrying about things you don't control, remind yourself that, This is nothing to you. But what if you are having some serious anxiety, and you can't just disregard it? This is where Buddhism comes into play. Buddhism gives you another tool in your toolbox to deal with anxiety: mindfulness meditation.

What mindfulness meditation does is create some space in your mind to allow you to observe your anxiety and not get carried away by it. As you focus on your breath and remember that emotions come and go, you'll be able to navigate your way through the emotion.

Here are the general steps for meditation:

1. Sit comfortably. You can close your eyes or you can leave them open and adjust your gaze to a neutral point on the ground.
2. Bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and out. Pick a spot where it's most prominent: your chest, your belly, or your nostrils. To help maintain focus, you can make a quiet mental note on the in-breath and out-breath, like in and out.
3. The third step is the key. As soon as you try to do this, your mind is almost certainly going to mutiny. You'll start having all sorts of random thoughts. No big deal. This is totally normal. The whole game is simply to notice when you are distracted, and begin again.

These steps can help you survive anxiety.

One additional thing you can do after you start your meditation with these steps is you can shift your focus to the anxiety and observe it without judging it. Try to keep the part of your mind that labels things as "good" or "bad" quiet and just observe the anxiety. What is the texture of the anxiety? Does it have a shape and color? How would you describe it? As you observe it without judgment, it becomes less a part of you. It has less influence over you. Eventually, it will subside. Through mindfulness meditation you can transform unhealthy emotions into healthy ones.

Conclusion

This guide asks that you stop fighting the wiring you were given and start working with it. But acceptance does not mean forcing yourself to endure every environment exactly as it is. Working with your wiring may mean asking for accommodations, protecting yourself from sensory overload, building routines, using medication, seeking therapy, or leaving situations that continually harm you.

This guide also offers a set of tools to help you work with your wiring. Stoicism teaches you to draw the line between what is yours and what is not, to welcome your fate instead of arguing with it, and to find the advantage hidden inside the obstacle. Buddhism gives you a way to sit with anxiety until it loosens its grip. You did not choose your neurology. You still have a say in how you understand it, work with it, and build your life around it. That part is up to you.

Notes

Introduction

My favorite definition of neurodiversity comes from NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman:

>Neurodiversity: the notion that conditions like autism, dyslexia, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should be regarded as naturally occurring cognitive variations with distinctive strengths that have contributed to the evolution of technology and culture rather than mere checklists of deficits and dysfunctions. Though the spectrum model of autism and the concept of neurodiversity are widely believed to be products of our postmodern world, they turn out to be very old ideas, proposed by Hans Asperger in his first public lecture on autism in 1938. The idea of neurodiversity has inspired the creation of a rapidly growing civil rights movement based on the simple idea that the most astute interpreters of autistic behavior are autistic people themselves.

Some people argue that this condition or that condition should or should not be included in neurodiversity. I have a very broad interpretation of neurodiversity.

In NeuroDiversity, Judy Singer originally defined neurodiversity very broadly:

>While my focus was on AS, I considered that the scope of neurodiversity was far broader. It could encompass the near-absurdist splintering of the then DSM IV.

Pragmatism

From Reconstruction in Philosophy by John Dewey:

>If ideas, meanings, conceptions, notions, theories, systems are instrumental to an active reorganization of the given environment, to a removal of some specific trouble and perplexity, then the test of their validity and value lies in accomplishing this work. If they succeed in their office, they are reliable, sound, valid, good, true.

Choose to Be Lucky

The Art of Living by Sharon Lebell is a contemporary interpretation of Epictetus's most important teachings. It has this:

>As you think, so you become. Avoid superstitiously investing events with power or meanings they don't have. Keep your head. Our busy minds are forever jumping to conclusions, manufacturing and interpreting signs that aren't there. Assume, instead, that everything that happens to you does so for some good. That if you decided to be lucky, you are lucky. All events contain an advantage for you — if you look for it!

How to Live a Good Life by Massimo Pigliucci, et al., has a good introduction to Stoicism.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Gregory Hays, has a lot of wisdom, including these passages about fate:

>To welcome with affection what is sent by fate.

And this:

>That every event is the right one. Look closely and you'll see. Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out in the scales.

Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus, translated by Robert Dobbin, has the card-player metaphor:

>Model yourself on card players. The chips don't matter, and the cards don't matter; how can I know what the deal will be? But making careful and skilful use of the deal — that's where my responsibility begins. So in life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices. Don't ever speak of 'good' or 'bad', 'advantage' or 'harm', and so on, of anything that is not your responsibility.

William B. Irvine covers negative visualization in his book The Stoic Challenge.

The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday is a must-read. The phrase "persist and resist" is originally from Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus.

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell has the stories of people who have thrived with dyslexia.

Loosen Up

The quotation from Marcus Aurelius is from Meditations, translated by Gregory Hays.

The Epictetus quotation and paraphrase are from The Complete Works by Epictetus, translated Robin Waterfield. It clearly explains what is up to us:

>Some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are judgment, inclination, desire, aversion -- in short, whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are our bodies, possessions, reputations, public offices -- in short, whatever isn’t our own doing. ... So take up the practice right now of telling every disagreeable impression, 'You're an impression, and not at all what you appear to be.' Then go on to examine it and assess it by these criteria of yours, and first and foremost by this one: whether it has to do with the things that are up to us or the things that are not up to us. And if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, have at hand the reminder that it’s nothing to you.

Instructions for meditating are from Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics and 10% Happier by Dan Harris; Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright; and You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh.

In No Mud, No Lotus, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about how to transform suffering:

>With mindfulness, you can recognize the presence of the suffering in you and in the world. And it's with that same energy that you tenderly embrace the suffering. By being aware of your in-breath and out-breath you generate the energy of mindfulness, so you can continue to cradle the suffering. Practitioners of mindfulness can help and support each other in recognizing, embracing, and transforming suffering.

Conclusion

Meditations, translated by Robin Waterfield, discusses Marcus Aurelius’s insomnia and his use of medicine to help him sleep.

I'm actually so pissed off and hurt by this. I try telling this friend of mine that it's not "so easy" to just move on from the hurt I witnessed in my life. I had bad experiences with friends that made me second guess everyone's opinions and this friend is just telling me to "just move on" over it.

First off, genuinely fuck you. 🥀

You, YOU do not have any right to say that if you can't seem to walk a mile in my shoes. Did you go to mental institutions multiple times in your life? Did you have trauma caused by your supposed "dad?" No. You didn't. So don't even try giving me "advice" that I know isn't going to magically make my life better.

I don't even have the energy to deal with them right now. I had to deal with assholes in my game chat when I just wanted to play with my sister to feel better. But this just reasonably pissed me off even more.

If they leave, then I fucking knew it. Knew that I was better off without friends who don't seem to fucking get it. I'm not asking for advice, I'm just speaking the damn truth and I just don't seem to be heard.

So this just genuinely pissed me off. I'm just not going to say anything else to them. If they end up leaving or saying something worse to try and "fix me", then they just weren't worth my time or me defending myself. Trying to fix a friendship that might just end up the same as my last ones. /Genuinely 🥀

Hii!!! Unfortunately I really really don’t want to mask but I know if I want to get a good job eventually I’ll have to learn. I really have no idea how to conform to neurotypicals nor society and I’ve never really had any interest in learning to mask until now.

So! Continuing on! I got diagnosed with type 2 adhd but I really think I have combined (which I wouldn’t be surprised since that’s the most common if I remember correctly…)
And I’m super scared that will affect how people perceive me in the real world when I get a job and I really can’t afford to get turned down for the job that I want with how much effort I’m putting in for this.

And before you say anything about masking doesn’t help hide that you seem different from your regular neurotypical. I’m aware. And I know it can cause anxiety as well but I really only want to mask when I absolutely need to since I will be working with others.

I’m really bad at staying still, controlling what I say (especially if someone says something that I take offense to like ex: homophobia), and I’m super duper over the top expressive with my body language and personality.

And I really regret not knowing how to mask earlier. And I don’t really have any ways to like calm down my adhd really? I mean I have fidgets but I’m not sure if Delta Airlines would be lenient with that. :/

And I’m scared about going to work on one of bad days where my stims get really horrible that nothing calms me down. (It rarely happens but it can happen out of the blue moon and I’d rat not get into the specifics of my stims since it’s really embarrassing for me) Or if I get into old habits and let my thoughts overwhelm me when I think to much into things.

And I would do anything for this job, even at a bit of my own expense (Yes I’m aware that’s kinda self destructive of me to say) since I really can’t find me being happy in any other part of the workforce without going to collage and with how I preform in school I don’t think I could keep up with how much work collage gives me. I’m already drained from regular high school… (I despise of this dreaded school system UGHH)

I’m also really scared I’m going to lash out (I usually have great control of my emotions but when I get overstimulated that’s a different story) at someone with being around people that long with not much sleep or alone time. Or that If I told my hirer that I have adhd amongst other things, that I would’t be taken seriously or accommodated.

(Also sorry if it seems I’m attention seeking. I really do have adhd. I’m not trying to fake it at all, plus I don’t know why anyone would want to have adhd. I mean there are definitely good parts of neurodivergence for me and if I had to choose it again I would because that’s all I know but that definitely doesn’t mean that the bad doesn’t outweigh the good.)

Hello dear community, has anyone of you ever tried tracking the behaviour of your ND kids systematically to draw out any trends? How did you do it? Or do you just recount incidents from memory and share with the therapists and they are able to draw out trends?

I have tried using a notebook and a digital log but can never manage to keep it up to date. Any tips and tricks would be very welcome. Thanks a lot in advance!

How do I find people for relationships? Like, I get so anxious speaking to people in a just a talking way, like out of work mode. I'm scared to run out of things to say, I can't do what my therapist suggested because that would just be weirder than talking to them. (She suggested I just go to the store and randomly strike conversations.) I'm working so often that my social battery is always drained. And my last relationship turned sour because I couldn't deal with saliva. My family just went to "oh. well, the start of relationships is a lot of kissing so you'll just have to deal with it." but I can't. I really want to be normal. Have friends, find a boyfriend, get married at some point. But I was informed that I probably will never have the same kind of attachment to people as other people do. I want to live(like have relationships, have fun, and exist in a good way), but I'm just barely alive wanting nothing to do with existence if it means I'll probably never find another human who I can share my life with.

(Edit: Oh I should mention this was another idea by my therapist that I should either vent, seek advice, or talk with others who are autistic. So, I figured this was the best route.)

41 year old queer person here (he/they).
Back in Feb I was struggling so much with my mental health that I was incapable of doing even basic things, couldn’t do basic work tasks, was in a frozen state most of the time or doomscrolling to avoid the horror of being completely incapacitated, I was waking up feeling more exhausted every day and desperately pushing through each day then each hour then each minute to the point that I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was self medicating with weed as it was the only thing that seemed to pull me out of the frozen state but it was temporary and wasn’t sustainable so went to the GP. I’ve had a prolonged period (around 3 years) of bereavements, close family members with cancer and intense work stress - I felt like I was running on fumes. I’d completely isolated myself and was barely hanging on. The GP prescribed sertraline - was very reluctant to taking it as I haven’t fared well on that kind of medication in the past. The sertraline make me feel like I was on drugs all day every day without the happy feelings and whilst I started to have energy again and the fatigue wasn’t as crippling, I started to spiral because the brain fog hadn’t lifted and I was still unable to function but it felt like my brain now had the energy to worry more about it.

After a crappy and unsupportive interaction with my boss about 2 weeks after starting sertraline, I took time off and started to spiral trying to figure out how to fix myself. I had just been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and was referred for ADHD assessment (felt fairly sure it was there just never got assessed) but the spiral was completely out of control and I didn’t sleep for 4 days. I had what the GP thinks was a sertraline induced manic episode with psychosis. GP was referring me to the crisis team but they wouldn’t touch me because it was “a medication issue” and I got passed between them for days. It felt like my brain completely shut down. Completely dissociated and was awake but not conscious at all. The crisis team finally started taking me seriously and started to come to my home every 2 days and then passed me on to the Community Treatment Team. They have been mostly terrible and not supportive at all. I feel like they’re just biding time until they can say I’m “better”. The month following my “breakdown” I had crazy symptoms: extreme exhaustion, physical heaviness, brain fog, muscle pain/cramps, restless legs, very little broken sleep, identity issues, intense need to fight back, speech issues/stammer, trouble word-finding, returning depression with panic/overwhelm, obsessive rumination loops, hyper-sensitive to sounds/smells/feelings etc, temperature spikes and over-heating in emotional situations, eating/self-care feels impossible, seasickness-like imbalance, memory issues, forgetfulness, slow-thinking, mood up and down like a yoyo and suicidal ideation.

I got my ADHD diagnosis soon after and she said she believes I also have Autism. Always considered myself as having “quirks” but was seen as a fairly high achiever for a lot of my life so never took it further. but during the breakdown/mania my brain felt like the most powerful thing in the world and it was like my whole life opened up in my brain and I could see repeating patterns of behaviour my whole life like moving constantly and never being able to stick a job more than a few years and I was able to pinpoint everything that pointed towards my neurodivergence.

The CTT finally sent me a queer case worker with AuDHD and after seeing me for around a month she suggested that she believes it’s severe Autistic/ADHD burnout and after reading more about it I was overcome with emotion because it finally felt like someone understood what was wrong with me after begging for an explanation for 2 months.

At this point, it’s been 4 months since the breakdown. They’ve given me mirtazapine (I have also been on amitriptyline for years) and I’m waiting on an autism diagnosis. But I’m now suffering with the most severe fatigue of my life. Executive dysfunction is the worst it’s ever been. Self care feels completely impossible. Need daily support. I feel like this is bone deep and it’s going to last forever (logically I know that’s not the case but can’t help be be overtaken by the thought). Struggling with monumental grief that the person I was before feels like they’re long gone and I’m not sure what is left in this shell. I keep getting told to listen to my body and rest but I feel like I’m just rotting away. After 2-3 solid months of mostly being in bed and being unable to initiate basic self care it’s really getting to me. It’s made me feel a lot better to read people’s stories on here and see people have went through similar stuff and come out the other side but ngl it’s been ROUGH and I could do with hearing from people who have faced something similar and are out the other side. Especially those who have been through the NHS MH system. I have historically been a highly sociable, intelligent and high achieving person my whole life and I suddenly feel incapable of the most basic of things.

Sorry to get so HEAVY but I felt like this would be a good place to let it all out because the mental health teams in the UK are not made for ND queer people - that much is plainly clear! Any support or guidance on how to handle this awful part of recovery would be very much appreciated 🫶

​

I'm 28m and new here. I've been struggling socially for most of my life, but over the past year it's gotten a lot worse. I used to have a decent group of online friends but I've found it really hard to maintain those friendships.

I am an engineer and work in the oil sector and interact with a lot of people every day, but I rarely feel like they really get me or share the same interests. It's hard to find people I genuinely click with.

Outside of work, I love reading books, watching movies, and getting lost in documentaries. I'd really love to make more neurodivergent friends.

I've tried turning acquaintances into actual friends, but the conversations always seem to fizzle out no matter how much effort I put in.

Has anyone else been in the same position? Any tips for finding your people as an adult?