Being autistic, adhd and random stuff

[Underscore_2]

Love and commitment- now there’s two gordian knots. My bf and I have been together over three years and when he says ‘I love you’ I always respond but I’ve never quite understood what love is or how should feel. Poets are not much help.

We’ve also talked about marriage- he’s asked if I’d like to get married but the whole idea spooks me. It’s as though calling it a marriage will jinx what we have so we agree to keep things as they are. I wear a ring, bake cakes, try to look pretty Plus the way the uk is going we’ll end up with a fascist govt who’d declare our marriage invalid.

Ooo this is heavy for a Sunday morning

Wait now. You're discussing two totally different concepts under one heading. Let's forget about commitment. That's something plausible and supposedly real, so it's something else entirely .
Love, on the other hand, deserves more investigation.
Ask a hundred people to define love and I seriously doubt if any two people will provide the same answer, which leads me to the conclusion that love is what we perceive it to be, according to our conditioning, or what we want it to be, driven by our motives, or our reliance upon a continuing status quo, (or am I referring to my personal experiences here).
Upon our first encounter with what we call "love" our enquiries upon the subject most often receive responses of "you'll know what it is / you'll recognise it when you get it", or some such nonsense, so how are we to know if it is or it isn't?
We're provided with romantically idealistic scenarios and promises of happy-ever-after that we are most likely bound to aspire to. Such aspirations are not unreasonable, but the reality is, in most cases, far removed.
On the other hand, where sometimes romantic feeling might not immediately be present, we, and importantly our peers, become so accustomed to the familiarity of the relationship that "love" is correctly or erroneously assumed.
For the autistic person both scenarios present significant dangers.
Is this love or just a well rehearsed second hand dream?
Is it love or am I just situationally institutionalised?
Is love for real or is it all a convenient fallacy for something about ourselves that we can't quite explain?

 

[Underscore_2]

This thread has to be one of the hardest I've ever had to follow, for the simple reason that there is so much to stop and think about, and that's before I even contemplate making a response.
I hope that I'll be forgiven for sometimes appearing very tardy with my posts.

 

[liliput1]

This thread has to be one of the hardest I've ever had to follow, for the simple reason that there is so much to stop and think about, and that's before I even contemplate making a response.
I hope that I'll be forgiven for sometimes appearing very tardy with my posts.

You might lose some of the ADHD people because they've toddled off to a completely separate spiral but we seem to be in the minority here. Maybe didn't finish reading the full title.

 

[Strixaluco]

This thread has to be one of the hardest I've ever had to follow, for the simple reason that there is so much to stop and think about, and that's before I even contemplate making a response.
I hope that I'll be forgiven for sometimes appearing very tardy with my posts.

No stress. Even just timezones across the globe cause people answering much later.

 

[liliput1]

A civil marriage in the uk is from about $200… didn’t know that till I searched! I’ll now have google ads going mad trying to sell me stuff
A friend got divorced a year ago and she was paying a solicitor about £1500 a month for about 2 years until it was settled and that was a fairly amicable separation

From other things you said perhaps this isn't the solution for you. My partner was terrified that if something happened to her and her husband, her bigoted mother would end up with her kids and ruin their lives. We also owned property together so we spent like $7k on wills and stuff to make sure the kids would be okay. She's now NC with her mother. As are her kids. What a piece of work.

And we did that all around the time that same sex marriages were getting recognized. I'm pretty sure that we were partially responsible for convincing several same sex couples to tie the knot, between the hospital and scary parents scenarios, and the cost issue.

My divorce was amicable with a huge footnote. I basically grey-rocked her until she left me. And she was always bad at math which fucked up our finances, so the assets we split were always quite a bit less than we should have had. I offered her more than she deserved but less than any lawyer would have gotten her and she took it and ran off to the younger man she found while she was supposed to be finding herself during our trial separation.

Getting good at grey rocking though has probably cost me more than the lawyers would if I had just called it when we were done instead of letting her figure it out. But I'll dump a few of those thoughts into another reply.

 

[liliput1]

My first ex was totally convinced that marriage would destroy a relationship, because after his mom died, he spent all his teenage years with his uncle and his wife, whose relationship was off

It took him almost 10 years to follow how my parents did just fine married, to believe that it's not about the marriage why it happens.

My current partner, in turn, might need more certainty than is humanely possible before marrying... But we'll see, he felt that way about saying "I love you" as well, and it changed to a more humanely possible as well (currently it's not wise for us to combine households for financial reasons, but we're dreaming).

For me, recognising love isn't an issue. I'm not aromantic and I don't have alexithymia either. Love is a pretty strong feeling for me.

If I'm aromantic, or autistic for that matter, it's a very mild case of either.

I'm coming around to the notion that my unlucky-in-love-itis has more to do with being certain I was finally over The One Who Got Away and being wrong about that. There's a moment which I believe I finally processed the grief, but I limped along for a very long time after that. I don't think I've ever had both feet all the way into the boat since, and I think that's what enticed me to polyamory. I only needed to be one third of a partnership instead of half.

Plenty of people have clocked that I had some fuzzy notions about monogamy as far back as freshman year. I married a bi woman who said I was probably her last male companion if we didn't work out, fully prepared for some hall passes being requested (and oddly she decided to cheat on me with men instead).

My last therapist and my most recent partner were both convinced I am autistic. If I am it's only a little. A lot of my mess and 'symptoms' are coping mechanisms for other things that have lived well past their Best By date.

What I am is capital A avoidant attachment style. Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. Don't ask people questions you wouldn't want to answer. As a kid I had an open face that bullies loved, so trying to still my affect became a full time project. By the time I successfully grey-rocked my wife I ended up with Resting Bitch Face (once my last partner complained that I hadn't had a good time at a party where my face hurt from smiling. She's since been diagnosed as autistic, but still.) I'm also a highly sensitive person, so I get most of the sensory processing issues that autism brings, including the ability to analyze things all the way into the ground and continue down to sub-basement G, but I also pick up on subtle patterns that nobody else is seeing, which I've practically made a career out of. And I have a little bit of OCD that is entirely me trying to avoid looking like an idiot by plotting. I organize these tasks in this way because it makes it harder to ADHD out in the middle. I didn't start doing that until I started my career.

I don't look people in the eye when I speak because of the ADHD (visual noise like carpet helps me solve problems others are stuck on, and watching eyes makes me more likely to stumble in my speaking or forget to listen), the scrutiny (avoidance), and because I pick up micro-expressions (sensitivity) that break my heart. So I pretend not to see them, or force myself not to see them because it's easier. Easier to pretend this friendship is more than the other person thinks. Or that while they say they don't have a problem with X, even their face is disagreeing with the lie they're telling themselves, because nobody gets more angry than being called out in situations like that. I could tell every time my therapist wanted to disagree with me about autism, and that was on a teleconference call. I just ignored it and kept going. That doesn't sound especially autistic to me. But I can't argue that it doesn't look exactly like autism.

 

[Strixaluco]

My last therapist and my most recent partner were both convinced I am autistic. If I am it's only a little. A lot of my mess and 'symptoms' are coping mechanisms for other things that have lived well past their Best By date.

But you list many things that are most likely autism. I'm not even commenting in them all, as I'm chronically low on energy (social or otherwise).

Also AuDHD may sometimes seem "milder" because of push-pull between asd and adhd. Having the combo is common, if you have even one of them. It's not just having traits of both, but the synergy makes partly its own traits, and people aren't too used to recognising them.

What I am is capital A avoidant attachment style.

I'm sorry to hear that. Attachment style issues are one helluva obstacle in relationship matters - even for recognising a good potential partner.

As a kid I had an open face that bullies loved, so trying to still my affect became a full time project.

Oh this is totally something that has happened to many autistic people. One reason for masking.

I don't look people in the eye when I speak because of the ADHD (visual noise like carpet helps me solve problems others are stuck on, and watching eyes makes me more likely to stumble in my speaking or forget to listen), the scrutiny (avoidance), and because I pick up micro-expressions (sensitivity) that break my heart. So I pretend not to see them, or force myself not to see them because it's easier. Easier to pretend this friendship is more than the other person thinks. Or that while they say they don't have a problem with X, even their face is disagreeing with the lie they're telling themselves, because nobody gets more angry than being called out in situations like that. I could tell every time my therapist wanted to disagree with me about autism, and that was on a teleconference call. I just ignored it and kept going. That doesn't sound especially autistic to me. But I can't argue that it doesn't look exactly like autism.

Actually, some autistic people are hyperempaths - specifically in noticing what others feel, even to a horribly uncomfortable level. It's the imagining how someone would react to something, that is more commonly an issue. And for some, reading emotions is only an issue precisely because of them avoiding to look even near the eyes (even yawning doesn't spread if you don't look at the face!) Nothing non-autistic in what you describe, especially as no autistic person has every single trait of autism.

And stumbling in speaking or forgetting to listen is Very Autistic. It happens, because the part in our brain that reacts to eye contact reacts more strongly - in good or bad. I actually love eye contact with my partner (not everybody), but I'll even forget the topic we were discussing, let alone what I intended to say!

But that pretending part... Oh dear. Doing that ia not really helpful in finding anything that would last.

 

[liliput1]

I'm sorry to hear that. Attachment style issues are one helluva obstacle in relationship matters - even for recognising a good potential partner.

My ex is anxious attachment. And that's a pairing that is officially doomed from the start. It was learning what catastrophizing is (from a polyamory book, of all places, which I had stopped reading right before that section) that really let me let her go, but reading Secure Love finally got me to stop thinking about how things could have gone better if only. Just fire and oil there and everything will burn eventually. Because one needs all interactions to go perfectly according to an internally inconsistent logic that requires mind reading, and the other wants to stop any conversation that has the potential to get ugly and finish it later when we can be kind. Or not at all if the other person forgets.

Oh this is totally something that has happened to many autistic people. One reason for masking.


Actually, some autistic people are hyperempaths - specifically in noticing what others feel, even to a horribly uncomfortable level.

There's still open arguments about whether HSP is comorbid with autism or is in fact autism. But if you look at my "Get Your Shit Together L" todo list, 'maybe autism?' barely cracks the top five, unless you believe that all sensory processing issues are autism and then that part was #1 and attachment was #2. Because you can't even function with #1 as an individual let alone as a friend or couple. I will look at it again when I can afford a therapist but for right now that question is kinda parked. Other than eavesdropping on you all and reddit to see what resonates. Which is very hit or miss. It doesn't upend my life or priorities if the answer is yes or no. I slowly stopped tolerating stimulant based drugs around age 16. Even the medications I tolerate are non-narcotic ADHD drugs sometimes used off-label for audhd.

And stumbling in speaking or forgetting to listen is Very Autistic.

But it's also very ADHD, because it's juggling several things at once and those pathways are the very hottest of garbage.

But that pretending part... Oh dear. Doing that ia not really helpful in finding anything that would last.

Yeah you can't mask around anyone who isn't a casual friend. Masking at home is exhausting. They'll see through your bullshit and if you're not ready to talk about it (avoidant) that goes sideways pretty quick.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Yeah you can't mask around anyone who isn't a casual friend. Masking at home is exhausting. They'll see through your bullshit and if you're not ready to talk about it (avoidant) that goes sideways pretty quick.

Trust me, you can. I'm almost never not masking to some degree when I'm around anybody. But you're right, it is exhausting. Probably the least masked with my BAF and youngest brother. Middle brother's autistic and gets anxious and is an HSP. Also mask pretty heavily around my mom, less so my dad because he isn't as judgemental and quick to come down on me for tiny things. I've done it so much, I almost don't know what it's like to not have a mask on. I shift personalities so much, I'm such a social chameleon, that I mostly don't feel much of anything when nobody's around. It's kind of unsettling if I think too much about it.

 

[liliput1]

Also mask pretty heavily around my mom, less so my dad because he isn't as judgemental and quick to come down on me for tiny things.

Fair. Gender swapped for me (and perhaps more common?) I don’t think my parents know that moving cross country and going low contact with them is a plan I cooked up at like age 12 and maintained in secrecy until college was paid for. Putting my parents on the elevator the first day of college felt like the first day of my life. “Someday I can leave.” Got me through most of my teenage years.

But we’ve known I was ADHD since age 8 and sensitive since buying school clothes for the first time. So it was other stuff like depression and loneliness and wants that I was masking, not the adhd. And if you stay outside or in your room or in front of the TV or with a nose in your book the cost of masking is lower. If your parents are avoidant too then it’s cheaper still.

I’m good at one liners because I have a handful of uncles who communicate almost entirely in gentle insults. Whole family of avoidant people.

The autistic kid I know figured it out around 15-16 which is a bit rough but probably has made college easier now that we know. Also got their mom diagnosed in the process, and a grandparent.

 

[PMarky3]

Masking for me involves various levels:

0 - not masking at all. That means you are probably an old friend ASD/AuDHD too, so I can relax.
1 - mild masking - you probably know me well, I am just trying not to say or do anything too weird...
2 - moderate masking - casually monitoring output; paying attention to your reactions...
3 - strong masking - monitoring my output closely; paying consistent attention to your reactions...
4 - heavy masking - desperately trying to pretend I am normal, and hoping I can escape soon.

BAF scores a permanent 0, but it is understood there are times when one or both of us in Garbo mode, and needs to hide from the one who knows. If one of us "looks past" the other it is the sign that we just want to be left alone. There is nothing offensive or unsettling about this, it is just two NDs being ND. Her family, and the nutty members of my own family also score zero, and I can be around them a long time before I need to have some time off. With my wife, who is a normie, and old friends I run on 1 all day provided I get a rest in the afternoon. I tend to go quiet if my wife is having a hard time with me being AuDHD. If the wife is being picky, or I am with someone I do not know that well yet I run on 2. When the wife is on the offensive I try to get plenty of alone time. Most of humanity gets 2 for casual encounters cranking up to 3 if the encounter becomes lengthy. 4 is for anyone I do not know, who gets in my face, I do not trust, or is regarded as a tricky customer.

Over the years I have developed a number of survival strategies. 'Going to the office' is one, which is when I hang out at the college without the serious intention of being around anyone. Going for a nap is another way of getting alone time, as is 'going for a walk.' In my family the declaration, 'I am going for a walk...' is usually met with the question, 'do you want company?' and no-one gets in the least offended if the answer is 'no, thanks!'

 

[liliput1]

Masking for me involves various levels:

0 - not masking at all. That means you are probably an old friend ASD/AuDHD too, so I can relax.
1 - mild masking - you probably know me well, I am just trying not to say or do anything too weird...
2 - moderate masking - casually monitoring output; paying attention to your reactions...
3 - strong masking - monitoring my output closely; paying consistent attention to your reactions...
4 - heavy masking - desperately trying to pretend I am normal, and hoping I can escape soon.

BAF scores a permanent 0, but it is understood there are times when one or both of us in Garbo mode, and needs to hide from the one who knows. If one of us "looks past" the other it is the sign that we just want to be left alone. There is nothing offensive or unsettling about this, it is just two NDs being ND. Her family, and the nutty members of my own family also score zero, and I can be around them a long time before I need to have some time off. With my wife, who is a normie, and old friends I run on 1 all day provided I get a rest in the afternoon. I tend to go quiet if my wife is having a hard time with me being AuDHD. If the wife is being picky, or I am with someone I do not know that well yet I run on 2. When the wife is on the offensive I try to get plenty of alone time. Most of humanity gets 2 for casual encounters cranking up to 3 if the encounter becomes lengthy. 4 is for anyone I do not know, who gets in my face, I do not trust, or is regarded as a tricky customer.

Over the years I have developed a number of survival strategies. 'Going to the office' is one, which is when I hang out at the college without the serious intention of being around anyone. Going for a nap is another way of getting alone time, as is 'going for a walk.' In my family the declaration, 'I am going for a walk...' is usually met with the question, 'do you want company?' and no-one gets in the least offended if the answer is 'no, thanks!'

Not sure I can agree with a linear list because there are too many things that aren't exactly masking. Meditation, Flow State and Compartmentalization are all things that are different from masking, but not entirely divorced from it. Like two dimensional things that live in the same coordinate plane as masking but also in their own. And are coping mechanisms always masking? I think not because some of them stand out like a sore thumb.

I'm not as bad as @anthrodisiac thinks they are, in that I'm pretty sure I have a 0 state, but that's stuff I do with the door closed, or in the car by myself (for years I thought I liked driving, I just like being alone in the car). And for a while there I regressed a bit and 1 state was also that way. Some life changes and a new prescription made the rejection dysphoria calm down a bit and now some people get to see state 1 again.

 

[PMarky3]

Not sure I can agree with a linear list because there are too many things that aren't exactly masking. Meditation, Flow State and Compartmentalization are all things that are different from masking, but not entirely divorced from it. Like two dimensional things that live in the same coordinate plane as masking but also in their own. And are coping mechanisms always masking? I think not because some of them stand out like a sore thumb.

I'm not as bad as @anthrodisiac thinks they are, in that I'm pretty sure I have a 0 state, but that's stuff I do with the door closed, or in the car by myself (for years I thought I liked driving, I just like being alone in the car). And for a while there I regressed a bit and 1 state was also that way. Some life changes and a new prescription made the rejection dysphoria calm down a bit and now some people get to see state 1 again.

I'd tend to class meditation, flow state, and compartmentalization as being something other than masking, but yes, related. The 0 to 4 classification come from my perception of how much effort I am having to put in to the interaction.

 

[stickygirl]

Grey rocking is a new expression to me but on reading the google I recognised it as the way I used to deal with bullies at school. I remember with satisfaction how I sent one boy into a fit of frustration because I refused to respond to him provoking me. I think I got my inspiration from watching Vulcans on Star Trek ( and Data ).
I’m gonna sound like a country mouse but what is BAF because it isn’t Bring A Friend.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Grey rocking is a new expression to me but on reading the google I recognised it as the way I used to deal with bullies at school. I remember with satisfaction how I sent one boy into a fit of frustration because I refused to respond to him provoking me. I think I got my inspiration from watching Vulcans on Star Trek ( and Data ).
I’m gonna sound like a country mouse but what is BAF because it isn’t Bring A Friend.

I also don't know what it means, but my assumption was that it means Best Autistic Friend going off of the context it's been used. I'm not 100% sure, that's just my guess. You aren't alone, don't worry

 

[liliput1]

Grey rocking is a new expression to me but on reading the google I recognised it as the way I used to deal with bullies at school. I remember with satisfaction how I sent one boy into a fit of frustration because I refused to respond to him provoking me. I think I got my inspiration from watching Vulcans on Star Trek ( and Data ).

Grey Rocking is a way to get anyone with a Cluster B personality disorder to decide you're too boring to spend their time and energy on. If you reject them they may decide to go to war. If you're just useless they'll drop you like a rock. It doesn't work well on bullies usually because they already know they can get a rise out of you, so they'll just keep escalating until they get one again. Or they'll find accomplices.

I’m gonna sound like a country mouse but what is BAF because it isn’t Bring A Friend.

There are at least 3 of us here who have no idea what that means. I even sent a direct message hoping to find out. Still no idea other than it's a human, who is friends with a neurodivergent person.

 

[Underscore_2]

There are at least 3 of us here who have no idea what that means. I even sent a direct message hoping to find out. Still no idea other than it's a human, who is friends with a neurodivergent person.

make that four. Its not just BAF that confuses. Seems that some of us feel its ok to use such abreviations freely, as though they expect everyone to instantly understand them. It's very annoying, and I for one simply give up and totally disregard the whole post, making their efforts pointless.

 

[PMarky3]

make that four. Its not just BAF that confuses. Seems that some of us feel its ok to use such abreviations freely, as though they expect everyone to instantly understand them. It's very annoying, and I for one simply give up and totally disregard the whole post, making their efforts pointless.

I'll try to be a bit more careful in future.

Best Autistic Friend is how I use it. In my case, she is in her mid-twenties, AuDHD, a talented illustrator. and shares many of my interests, opinions, etc., and even some of the weird limitations that come with being on the spectrum. She is also the elder daughter of a woman who a lot of people think is my cousin, but isn't, which is a whole other level of complication. Both of them a very comforting to be around, and we get one another in the way in which most of the universe does not get us.

I struggled with grey rocking. I got it by the context - I do that a lot - but looked it up to make sure. It tends to be how I deal with people I really do not want to interact with. Wish I had known that technique at school. I would have punched a lot fewer bullies. Mind you, back then you could get away with it because the teachers and the other kids wanted to punch the living crap out of them too. Apparently, my occasional meltdowns were useful for school discipline.

 

[liliput1]

Me waking up early to finish a task that needed to be done by this morning that I started at a reasonable time but waited until yesterday to finish finish. Then realized last night it wasn't quite right so I had to tweak it.

 

[PMarky3]

Finally got to see my therapist today - which was overdue. That tidied up the emotional dirty laundry pile somewhat leaving me in a better frame of mind.

 

[Baztrachian]

And now for a tangent:

Here's my story on a ASD1 woman's first time exploration of sex. I'd treasure your comments!

https://www.literotica.com/s/beckys-big-decision-1

 

[Underscore_2]

Finally got to see my therapist today - which was overdue. That tied up the emotional dirty laundry pile somewhat leaving me in a better frame of mind.

Happy to read that you had a positive experience

 

[PMarky3]

Happy to read that you had a positive experience

I have been going to her for just over a year, and she seems to have figured out how I work. She knows how and where to prod when I am not dealing with stuff. She also seems to have a better than usual grasp of the exhausting push-pull that I suffer from having both Autism and inattentive ADHD. When it was getting to a choice of therapist or mistress, I knew enough about myself to make sure I found a non-threatening female therapist. My only nervousness was that she might be "distracting." It turned out that although she is tall and slim, which is my type physically, she was not distracting in the way I had feared. I find her pleasant and attractive, but she does not fascinate my mind in the way that would get my libido interested. So, that worked out nicely.

 

[liliput1]

Today I return a library book completely unread, and feel like a failure for doing so. But it's sitting atop a stack of three books I bought after I checked it out. While I read Dungeon Crawler Carl #8 instead which published after all of them. I don't have a problem, you have a problem. And so does your mom.

 

[Underscore_2]

Today I return a library book completely unread, and feel like a failure for doing so. But it's sitting atop a stack of three books I bought after I checked it out. While I read Dungeon Crawler Carl #8 instead which published after all of them. I don't have a problem, you have a problem. And so does your mom.

I see no problem