Lately, I need to be attending more meetings at work. Longer meetings as well.

I use an icepack to recover from the forebrain exhaustion I feel, but I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on improving my social stamina.

Prep techniques? Supplements?

Thanks fam

I accept you as you are, as long as you fit into the mold I have created for you in my mind.

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Back to work. At least Bert is adapting to inside life.

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You know, the same way one might forget to eat food. I keep a bottle of migraine zappers for this exact occasion when I wake up in the middle of the night with my head exploding and I'm like "oh. right. I'm dependant on a substance. nice fumble, dweeb"

What’s your AQ?

Last day of vacation. Boo! But double decker voids!

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I’m INCREDIBLY nihilistic. I just don’t see the point in anything. Is this a common trait in autists?

Is it transphobic of me to completely filter out trans-related topics from all the media I consume? It’s just that there are so many topics I follow that I have to decide which ones I actually want to pay attention to. It’s not even that I have anything against the topic; I’ve just always been completely uninterested in it, because the concept of gender has simply never held any significance for me. It’s never been something that carried much weight for me; even in social interactions, I’ve always perceived the person I’m talking to simply as an individual – everything else was secondary.

Some context:

My mother divorced my dad (who then lost custody of me due to abuse). We lived well below the poverty line with many days my only food being free lunch from my school. My mother then passed from cancer when I turned 17.

When my mother passed I moved in with my autistic friends family (Ive known her since elementary school). I had already been shot down by her in middle school when she explained to me "Im autistic so I dont feel those emotions." So I never thought anything would happen between us. Fast forward a year later and after spending tons of time together she asks "what are we", two days later and were offically dating.

My now partner has autism and bipolar and her parents while trying their best have always thought of her as nothing more then a little kid dispite her now being 20, and arent exactly the best at managing autism. Because of this she doesnt want her parents to know about us dating until we have our own place

Heres where my problems are:

The first week felt unreal. She asked for me to sleep in her room every night, wanted tons of cuddles and even wanted to try kissing- something she said she'd never do. Shes was also researching apartments every day and always talking about wanting to move out as soon as possible.

Unfortunately she also wanted to watch the sopranos. And I didnt realize just how much that show reflected my home life growing up triggering me whenever I watched an episode. It was manageable, but then problems at work were getting worse, her family arent abusive but their also not fun people to live with and problems started arising with them. Combining everything I started feeling very triggered and just couldnt return her love. I discussed it with her and tried to reasure that it wasnt her but Id be lying if I said I wasnt pretty distant.

Now things are better again, I changed departments at work, had to stop watching the sopranos instead of trying to power through the episodes. But now she doesn't want to be touched, barely talks to me, and starts getting incredibly anxious when I ask her any questions.

She tells me she still loves me but shes just having a bad episode, and I want to believe her. But her mannerisms are almost parallel to my ex's before she broke up with me. I feel like a disgusting creep begging for the attention of a girl who doesnt want to be with me. Im worried ill get the same conversation my ex had with me. "You were convient", "I didnt really love you but I had nobody else". I feel like I destroyed our relationship by going distant, and that every attempt to fix it pushes her further away.

The only thing keeping me questioning is every now and then she'll let me hug her again and curl up into my arms (she hates being hugged by anyone even family). I discussed everything with her but it just made her anxious and start freaking out. When I asked her about moving out she now says "Im not in a rush."

Sorry for this massive post but Im in my head and genuinly am lost for direction here. Did I ruin everything? How do I even approach talking when she just gets anxious and shuts down whenever I bring anything up? I would just like someone elses opinions or prespective on the matter because I known Im stuck only thinking from my own prespective on the situation

We managed to go get brunch yesterday. It was the only thing I managed.

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Looking after yourself is important, at least as important as attending to your responsibilities.

My work has had so much pressure lately: persistent threat of mass layoffs, a massive reorganization, a new boss, a change in team dynamics that has seen some of the shittiness in others rise to the surface, new duties, needing to prove my worth at work all over again, make new relationships.

I haven't been sleeping properly, my other latent health issues are acting up.

Screw work for today. Nobody will die if I don't go. I'm just gonna chill.

I just want to remind everyone who needs to take a break to do it if they can. I realize its not an option available to everyone.. I've lived most of my life in that mode but I'm able to do it for now.

Sorry, this is a bit of a rant...

I had to assemble an IKEA flatpack cabinet today.

I always find this process painful because, to me, the instructions are always lacking (and a lot of other flatpack kits have followed IKEA's trend of picture-only guides). How hard is it to put a name below each component on the parts page (so I know what this weird thing is when it appears on page 22!), or indicate what's the top/front/back/etc.?

Today it would have been really helpful to know which edge was the top and front for the sides of this kit, rather than flipping back-and-forth through the manual to work it out. The irony is that they got so close to realising this was a factor, since the instructions did actually have two procedures (depending on whether your ceiling was high enough to stand the cabinet up after assembly or whether you needed to assemble it in-situ).

Is it just me and does everyone else just find it easy to follow the instructions, or do a lot of other people struggle with them too?

We did the entire hike! Woo! It was about 3 miles which is a good distance for us.

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Looks like we're having biscuits for breakfast, provided by Aggie.

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Going hiking today if everything works out! And by hiking I mean walk along a paved trail. We don't mind the unpaved ones but it has been extremely wet here.

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I think my aunt (60s) has autism but is afraid to get tested. I'd like to make it as easy as possible for her. she has aetna insurance (medicare)

I don't mind paying costs out of pocket - I just want her to get help. But I am overwhelmed looking for a place to start.

Has anyone done this? Where should I begin?

Actually slept in today. Yay for me. Cats were not excited about this.

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