Emotional pain, sensory issues, autism
audhd
I’ve been trying to explain two autistic / AuDHD experiences that I have to a non-autistic loved one for a couple of years now, but I’m finding it really hard!
1. The first: difficulty with uncertainty.
I explain this like it is an anxiety that diminishes the more information I gain that reduces the levels of uncertainty. But the word “anxiety” makes my loved one interpret it as always being about fear, just like anxiety usually means more generally. E.g. fear, on any level, even minor, of a potential negative event happening in the future. But I am not always afraid or worried, so this interpretation doesn’t work. It’s purely the uncertainty itself I find hard to deal with, and I can experience this around things I enjoy and when know there will be no negative outcomes at all. It relates strongly to disliking surprises. E.g. if I am walking from A to B and someone suddenly bumps into me, I HATE that! But if I choose to walk in a busy crowd, I expect people to bump into me and it’s totally fine. I hate being uncertain whether someone will bump into me or not, too.
2. The second topic can be totally separate or experienced together with the first: anticipation!
I have also tried to explain this as like a form of anxiety, but I have frequently felt this anticipation before hugely and purely positive events! It relates to something coming up soon that I am not familiar with. Familiarity in this sense usually only happens when I have either done things so frequently in my life that I can’t forget it, or I’ve experienced it about 3 or so times in the last month. This means revisiting a favourite restaurant that I haven’t been to for a year would cause this type of anticipation. The anticipation often stops me from being able to sleep the night before and my mind is often running through how the event might unfold, planning and so on, even if all the plans are already made and all preparation already done. As I said before, this often happens with purely positive events, so it’s so strange to explain it!
I suspect that these two experiences are very common for autistic people, and the latter, anticipation, probably affects lots of neurodivergent people. I wondered if my ADHD is influencing the anticipation, for example, and maybe I’m just wanting to remember what I need to do for the event since I likely can’t use a routine for something unfamiliar to me? I don’t know! In this case, perhaps anticipation WOULD be classic anxiety since it relates to fear of forgetting something important or losing track of time. But sometimes it’s just an impatient feeling.
What do you think?
Does anyone else experience these two things? Perhaps in a different way to me? If so, how would you describe it to someone who has never experienced it?
- but also, I just feel like a burden and I've now been 'sold' to my wife a lie. I'm not who or what she was expecting when she married me.
I feel like I'd lied to her about who I am (even if I didn't know the truth) .
Share a strategy (any kind) you use to calm yourself down when you are catastrophizing, and why you think it works for you.
#MentalHealth #AuDHD #ADHD #ActuallyAutistic @autistics #ChronicIllness #Disability #AskFedi #Boost4Reach #ChronicPain
"A major new review has put hundreds of alternative autism treatments under the microscope—and most didn’t hold up. Scientists analysed decades of research and found little reliable evidence that popular approaches like probiotics, acupuncture, or music therapy truly work. Alarmingly, safety was often ignored, with many treatments never properly evaluated for side effects."
#Autism
#ADHD
#AuDHD
#neurodiversity
#neurodivergence
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/12/251227082722.htm
What AuDHD preferences, coping strategies and military methods have in common
Edited 117d ago
Question for my #AuDHD friends in the #WritingCommunity ...
Do you find listening to music while you write helps your focus/quiets the mind so you can focus on your writing? Or is it too much?
I switch between the two. Sometimes it really helps and sometimes its too much.
@actuallyautistic
Dear Fediverse, connect me with fellow neurodivergent people. 🎲
it’s like finding out you’re in a werewolf family, you grow up normal and civilized, and in adulthood you learn that your family was attacked, infected and destroyed by some pathogen. It got my siblings, and some of my children, making snarling, unthinking beasts of them and if I thought there was a cure I would surely seek it for them, equal and opposite
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#ND #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @autistics
Edited 125d ago
Since I found out that I am autistic 4 years ago, especially during the last months, I came to a much better understanding of myself, my neurodivergence, my sexuality and the different parts of my personality.
After having a very difficult time during the last week, including working through several trauma responses, there has been an important step of personal growth for me. I feel more clonnected to myself, authentic and whole.
For that reason I decided to change my online-name and IRL nickname from Kaci to Kitti.
This helps me to leave hurtful experiences I had in the past behind, embrace all parts of my personality and start a new chapter of my life.
Edited 241d ago
So, for those who believe, it’s Good Friday, commemorating the very first #AutismAwarenessMonth
😀
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#ActuallyAutistic #ND #AuDHD @autistics
Well that's it. Just resigned from my job, for better or worse. Still in #AutisticBurnout (caused by work stress) after a total of nearly 4 months off sick. I went back in the autumn, after 2 months off, thinking I'd got better, but despite explaining I needed accommodations in communications, nothing improved, and after about 5 weeks I fell back down the hole and had to go off sick again. Prior to this, I had not taken ANY sick leave for over 10 years, and have never had this long off.
About 5 other people in my department have left the company during those months, so I'm not the only one feeling that the company is a hostile environment.
I've been debating whether or not I could go back at the end of my current "fit note", but was unsure how we would survive if I quit. Today we got a letter confirming we were awarded support for our #AuDHD 13YO, and that changes everything.
Not sure how it will unfold, but we will find out in good time.
@autistics
Announcement: #Voxelibre multiplayer casual game today (Sat) for 4 hours in the late afternoon to evening (North America). That's in about 8 hours from now.
Voxelibre is a free and #OpenSource #Minecraft clone. More details here:
https://docs.autis.toque.im/
Damage has been turned off. People with #Autism, #ADHD or #AuDHD are invited.
PS: There was a security announcement affecting Luanti:
https://forum.luanti.org/viewtopic.php?t=32443
I've upgraded my server to 5.15.2. **Please update your #Luanti client if possible.**
Edited 145d ago
Headlines like this always shock me, not because there's anything wrong them, but because it reminds me that families exist that all eat the same meal and it would only mean 1 pot to clean.
In my #AuDHD house there's a mix of #sensory food aversions, #ARFID, #Vegetarianism, #PDA etc., and all in all we have to cook approx 3 different meals for dinner, often using every pot in the house.
RE: https://kolektiva.social/@wrzky/116347930977021304
𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: 𝗡𝗘𝗘𝗗𝗦 𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗨𝗡𝗠𝗘𝗧. 𝟰𝟰𝟬/𝟲𝟮𝟱, 𝟭𝟴𝟱 𝗧𝗢 𝗚𝗢.
ℹ️ monthly pledges preferred due to disability; one-off support helps too.
links: https://wrzky.com/links/
Please contribute if able and amplify so this reaches people who can help. Thank you, thank you. 🙂↕️
@mutualaid @mutualaid@fedigroups.social
@disability
@autistics@chirp.social
@autistics
@actuallyadhd
#MutualAid #MutualAidRequest #audhd #autism #adhd #cptsd #DisabilityCrowdFund #disabilitymutualaid #MutualAidBoost #mutualaidsaveslives #press #activism #neurodivergence #ongoingsupport #anarchism #internationalism #groceries #medicalassistance #advocacy #marxism #disabilityjustice
UPDATE 4-MAY-2026 18:23 UTC+7
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Thank you to everyone who’s contributed so far 🙂↕️
I’m disabled with no healthcare or fixed income, and I need ongoing support to stay afloat.
If you can spare at least $5/month, it would make a real difference.
If you prefer one-off support, that helps just as much.
Please help amplify this so it reaches more people. Thank you, truly.
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when you meet a one-off crackpot like me, you have to know what it looks like from our side, that we live in a world where nobody understands anything 😳
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#ND #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @autistics
One thing that drives me bugshit is when someone has two or three minutes to tell me to shut up because they didn’t have five seconds to hear me say goodbye 😠
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people are full of shit
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#ND #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @autistics
@autistics
Announcement: #Voxelibre multiplayer casual game today (Sat) for 4 hours in the late afternoon to evening (North America). That's in about 3.5 hours from now.
Voxelibre is a free and #OpenSource #Minecraft clone. More details here: https://docs.autis.toque.im/
Damage has been turned off. People with #Autism, #ADHD or #AuDHD are invited.
This would have been helpful for me a year and some ago, but maybe it’ll be helpful for others now (and I’ll keep it close at hand for the future!)
Edited 232d ago
having a bit of a weird, busy couple of days, and there’s somethink like a party this afternoon. It’s been a minute, by which I mean several years 😬💜
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#ND #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @autistics
Autism and ADHD are just words. Words that give me the possibility to talk about myself, about my experiences and to understand myself.
They stand for something that is so much more complex, something that defines my identity. Yes, it defines my identity. If it defines a part of the identity of a person, if they prefer to wear sneakers or high heels, the fact that I struggle with wearing almost any kind of clothes, especially shoes, it’s very much part of mine. It has a strong influence on how I can express myself and my personality, how I experience the world around me and my ability to interact with it. And that is just one example of many aspects that are part of my neurodivergence, of me being AuDHD, being shaped by CPTSD.
We need simplifications to communicate, to talk about our neurodivergence, to share experiences, even if these words can’t describe this experience as a whole. They are just placeholders for something so much more complex than a diagnosis, a set of traits, a label other people put on us, but they give us a voice. They are a tool that enables us to connect with each other and getting to know each other as neurodivergent people. And we need that so much.
Edited 231d ago
Pride week at school brings up more homophobia and transphobia and being the only out teacher is
a lot.
Like “was being out at school the right thing to do and now it’s too late?” kind of thing.
The #audhd in me tells me I couldn’t do it otherwise but damn does pride week make it more difficult 😣
Edited 98d ago
Me: in hat, unable to focus and not sure why.
/frustrated😡
.
.
.
/time passes
“It’s my hat! I can’t think with this hat on!”
/changes hat
“Ugh! So much better!” 😳🤯