I’m here for that type of family memory.
I’m here for that type of family memory.
How likely is it that the people you were tight with were neurodivergent as well? Looking back, I had a huge friend group of probably 25-30 in high school (though I was only close with like 2 of them, and cordial/friendly with the rest) and this left me “off the scent” of discovering my Autism until my 30s. Looking back, I would be surprised if a single person in t hat group wasn’t Autistic or ADHD at least, if not several other things too. We were just lucky enough that we all found each other and didn’t judge. We considered each other “The Island Of Misfit Toys” or the “weird” kids, which I believe tracks well.
I also found myself to be very polarizing. Either I was super friendly with people or I was literally openly mocked with little in between.
I also had an isolating phase when I joined the military. I had maybe one to two friends at the best times, and none through most of the rest of the time.
Later in life (late 20s), I “perfected” my mask and got back on the social side of life but I wasn’t happy. Only recently have I learned what Autistic masking is and how to stop doing it, and I’m fairly close with about 6 people now, which is the most real friends I have ever had.
Might be time to do a little research my friend.
The extremely oversimplified and short version of it is, a trauma mask is something that kicks in automatically to protect you. Autistic masking is a form of trauma masking and it is fully automatic and usually not known to the person that they are doing it. We learn the skills to get through most normal social situations, but beyond that there is little development. So we do all the neurotypical things to blend in and it works until people realize that it’s fake, and then they feel like they’ve been deceived and they don’t like us.
The fix for this is, as you go on a journey of self-discovery and learn how to stop masking you will present yourself as your authentic self, and attract the right kind of friends. It is a difficult journey, and especially because almost always we don’t realize that we’re doing it at all. I don’t know if you believe that your neurodivergent or autistic, but I also believe that there are other neurotypes that are able to trauma mask similarly to autistic masking. You may find good company in an autistic community because they will understand how that works. There’s also something oddly comforting knowing that you’re in a group of “weird” people and it will help you get your real self out.
I am by no means an expert on this but I found out that I am autistic after over 30 years of living on this earth. Everything before that was fueled by masking and it has currently become the new most interesting thing that I know of. If I can help with advice or information, or if I can help by just listening, feel free to shoot me a DM!
If you’re autistic, there’s a good chance that autistic masking is the root cause here. If you have social anxiety especially, your mask will kick in automatically (subconsciously) and come off as fake to most people, and they will not like you for it. A quick test for this is, are you good at making a good first impression or short time of friendship and then it kinda falls off with time? If yes, masking is likely in play. I highly recommend the book Unmasking Autism even if you’re not autistic. It applies to others as well and it is excellent.
The short term (maybe long term…?) solution is to make autistic friends. They’ll understand “the weird” and it should be much simpler. Try searching around your local area for autism or neurodivergent clubs and see how you feel around other similarly-minded people.
Awesome. How do you like having a Whippet? I have always liked them an Greyhounds from afar.
Destiny 2 should be in that list. It’s all meta builds.
I’ll also mention the opposite. I got back into Rocket League. I originally had about 300hrs in it and stopped playing for a couple years. I have put maybe another 30hrs in since coming back and it’s exactly as I left it. Maybe a couple menus have changed but it was very simple to get back into.
Thanks for the cool pic! Is this your pup (guessing from username)?
My new phone background!
I’m someone who grew up near the Canadian border in the northeast and I now live in the southwest. This speaks to me… I have got used to authentic Mexican food now but for the first couple years everything hurt to eat. It was just so good that you push through to keep eating it!
Similar to what other have said, I’m allergic to gluten. I helped my nephew with a middle school project where he had to build a tower from dry spaghetti sticks and marshmallows, and about five minutes in my fingertips were extremely itchy.
I also know my version of this is very mild compared to some.
ITT: OP has not discovered the name for this feeling is “depression”.
A lot of us are rooting for you OP, even if you don’t want to hear it.
I know it’s not technically what you said, but I did envision a baby with a Michael Clarke Duncan voice, and I found it pretty funny!
Aaaand that’s my new phone background.
Poor guy just trying to live his life.
Good luck on your travels! The road to enlightenment is lifelong, not a race. I wish you the best!
Ok well if you are neurodivergent, a couple things:
Autism self diagnosis is valid if you do your research. University of WA recently did a study that figured that out.
ADHD typically needs a diagnosis from a professional to be sure, but it’s not super hard to guess if you have it. Some symptoms of ADHD can be caused by other conditions (anxiety especially) so navigate that one with caution.
If you are neurodivergent, typically the answer is routines rather than habits. I find them much easier to implement. Just decide the task you want to make into a routine, decide the steps you want to do it in, and then decide to always do it that way, or at least until you want to optimize or tweak it. A simple routine I do is “keys, wallet, phone, ear buds” while tapping my pockets on the way out of the door.
Not sure if you are per se, but this is a commonly felt sentiment in the neurodivergent community. Especially ADHD and Autistic peeps.
The northeast USA looks a lot like this in early fall. Any chance it’s up there?
I work in a PC repair shop and I run my tool stick on this way. By the way, you can just put a folder in your Ventoy and store non-iso files so you can have portable apps and so on.
Edit: ADHD did ADHD things. Here’s some more stuff. A lot of it is Windows-centric because that’s what we specialize in. ISOs:
Utilities: