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Hello, suspected ASD here. May be looking into formal dx in the future. I'm going to give context so that it might be easier to understand what/why I'm asking. I'd always felt weird/struggled socially/etc but about 2 years ago my now ex partner said he'd kind of thought I may be on the spectrum. He had a psychology degree, but regardless I took it with a grain of salt. Anyways over time I took the aspie quiz, raads, etc-- a few times, i kept forgetting to download results. Ultimately I started learning more because I was really trying to improve my life and couldn't figure out what was going wrong. I still don't necessarily know everything. But I'm beginning to "experiment" to find what may work for me.
So that leads me to asking what made a difference for you?
Any little "accommodation" or change that helps you manage certain things?example: i recently put an area in my closet with blankets and such for when i'm overwhelmed. in the past i used to just curl up on the floor in the corner / get under my bed when i was really confused or overwhelmed.
Did anything in particular help you feel more comfortable with unmasking in certain ways? Or is there anything that helped with skin picking/peeling, chewing, etc?
Anything you change that helped with relationships ?
I'm looking for ideas so I can get a good grip on things that may help me improve my life and stress less. Anything helps :0 (Quick edit for clarity, the questions under "what made a difference for you" are just there as examples cause I'm not sure how to word things, to be honest)
This is so so so helpful thank you so much.
I can agree with the routine part of emotional checking i think. I used to spiral out of control a lot and would lose weeks to months of progress because I couldn't get out of my head. Last time I got very confused, I sat down with a piece of paper and did a full page of notes on what i was experiencing. It helped me a lot by the end.
And on shame, i can definitely understand that. I typically felt a lot of what I could describe as embarrassment shame over some of my traits and such. Throughout my life and relationships a lot of it was often discouraged to the point I just stopped all together to avoid feeling those things.
I think the idea of sharing that could really be helpful, now that you mention it. I have a super hard time communicating those things and always have. I can say i've thus far been super open about possible ASD, things i do/don't understand, communication issues and things that confuse me. An important part of getting past the fear for me is most likely going to involve sharing shame/embarrassment/etc like you suggested.
Ohhh I'm absolutely gonna look into those books. I'll see if I can get some to work through self compassion and what that looks like.
Again, thanks so much for all the help :))!! And thank you for the well wishes :0
Thank you!! I'm going to try the little squishy thing to mess around with and keep my hands busy and meditation !! thank you lots :p
i've gotten a lot better at allowing myself to rock/pace/bounce but i'm definitely having some trouble with masking
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Thank you for the info! I recently started a binder that will function as a "life binder" with lots of information and sections. I'm adding a journaling section and such for that.
I think the part about naming feelings will help me a lot. I printed an emotional wheel chart to help identify those and i think the next step is gonna be having a chart that correlates body to mind in the way you're describing.
I'm currently not in a relationship but I feel like it's currently leading there with someone. That was one of the really big deciding factors that lead me to post here, actually. In past relationships I'd often end up confused and overwhelmed if I didnt understand something. That lead to arguing due to what I can only describe as meltdowns/shutdowns. Those eventually stopped me from communicating effectively out of fear of it happening again. Was there anything in particular that helped with shame/worry & communicating openly ? I'm really working hard to make sure i'm as open as possible and trying to feel comfortable 'unmasking' around this person.
Thanks for all the tips, it's definitely really helpful to me