I think the likelihood of a comment being meaningful is probably higher on this sub than other places on Reddit. I don't comment on huge subs because it seems more like people just shoot off canned responses there

I think whether exercise will help is probably dependent to some extent on whether there's anything else going on - for example, autism frequently co-occurs with POTS. In that case, only a doctor can really help you figure out the best course of action.

I'm sorry your family isn't taking this seriously. It isn't normal to collapse. Would getting your school to write home help? Going to the school nurse and explaining what's going on, for example. If you explain that you've been collapsing and blacking out, she might recommend your parents take you to a doctor. It also might help you get on the right track of getting your school looped in to what's going on so you can get more support.

I agree on not waiting this out! Exercise is a long term solution though, and potentially not the right one. This seems bigger than something you can handle on your own, but you can take action by advocating for yourself. What's happening isn't normal or ok, and an adult should be stepping up to help.

I feel the same way. I try to think about it like this - if I post something, I read and appreciate every comment, so if I leave a comment on someone else's post, they'll probably appreciate it too (especially in a support focused sub).

I still write and delete plenty of stuff. But if a post doesn't have many comments and no one has said what I have in mind, that's when I'll typically post.

Hi! This was me 10-15 years ago. It makes me so mad how much stress and how little agency people -especially autistics- have in high school.

I don't think there's anything you can just do on your own to make this go away. Nor should you. You're dealing with something really difficult and it isn't fair for your school to expect you to perform at a high level with such a significant drain on your energy and health.

The burnout you're describing is absolutely disabling. When i was in your position, I pushed through, became extremely depressed, and lost years to just recovering from burnout. As an adult looking back, I'm a little outraged things were allowed to get that bad.

All this is to say that you should not have to handle this on your own. If you're physically collapsing, it's reached a medically significant level and your parent(s) should be helping you get evaluated. If you need outside support, I really hope there is someone at your school you can go to. Collapsing could "just" be burnout (still serious and in need of addressing) but it could be other things that should be ruled out.

All of this is more important than your exams, but having a health crisis also shouldn't tank your academic prospects. I'm so sorry you're in this position. Having been in a similar place, I think the best way to take care of yourself is to ask for help and make it clear you are struggling on a physical level. I wish you didn't have to advocate for yourself - I wish someone (an adult) was already looking out for you and that you didn't have to worry about school on top of your health.

I would have been looking for something I could do, too. But advocating for your health is a legitimate and necessary thing. 💛

I love dogs. They're so cute and sweet and I love learning about dog training, but I don't want them anywhere near my house. Allergies are one factor, but smell and cleanliness are probably even more impactful. I like to visit dogs for a short amount of time. I don't like being licked or jumped on, I don't like getting hair all over me, and I always wash my hands after petting a dog or a cat or anything. Lots of rules around pets for me. It can be exhausting.

People will not take no for an answer though. If you say you don't want pets, they'll run through fifty ways to get around your objections (what about hypoallergenic breeds, etc).

It does help when you tell people you have allergies. It's not a lie for me - I do have allergies and being around pets makes me feel sick. But I think it's just as legitimate if you have sensory processing issues and can't handle pets because of that.

It would also make me incredibly anxious to break a no pet Airbnb rule. I'm sorry you were put in that position, but I admire that you stuck up for yourself.

I still feel like I need to learn each person I talk to. I need to establish basically a unique language with someone before I know what's going on and even then there are misunderstandings

This post sounds like I could have wrote it. I always had a sense of being different and was always struggling socially but I felt like my environment was pretty well suited to me in elementary school. Small school, small classes, kids that my mom connected me with.

Middle school was when things started to go downhill. I was constantly crying that everything was changing and all my friends were acting different. Academic expectations got more intense and that added a lot of stress. I just had this intensified feeling that I was different. I started looking forward to high school because I thought I could find "my people" in a new school.

Didn't happen. High school was probably the worst time of my life. I transferred schools and it didn't help. I had no friends, ate lunch alone, had horrible stomach cramps every morning, had meltdowns every afternoon... it was bad enough my mom took me to a child psychiatrist, but I was afraid that I would be taken away if I was honest so I lied and said I was just a bit anxious. I got regular talk therapy. When I started googling my issues, I found autism come up and reading about it felt like that classic "everything makes sense" moment. But I was so afraid I'd be called overly dramatic for bringing it up. I had this hope that the therapist would just see that I was autistic and tell my parents for me.

It didn't happen, and I didn't get help. Things got worse before they got better. College was hard too, and I had some lower moments than in high school, but overall it was so much easier. For me, high school was the absolute worst experience and I feel like I'm reliving it when I think back on it. Still have nightmares about it, etc.

It's worth talking to someone about. I decided i would suck it up and not let anyone know just how bad things were. The result of it is years of burnout. I don't even know what I've done the last five years, it feels like I've just been asleep.

I feel so much for you going through this! I have a "soft" diagnosis now that I got as an adult and am going through the more formal process now. I really think the autism resources I've found in places like this sub have been so helpful for me.

Also, anyone who tells you that high school is the best time of your life is completely wrong. Things can definitely get better 💛

I hate fireworks. If they're far away, like across a lake or something, and the sound is barely audible, it's fun to watch a couple go off. But being right there, it's so bright and loud and boring. I'm bringing noise cancelling headphones this year.

There are always so many bugs too.

This is a great idea. There are also a number of things I'd genuinely like to poll people on so I might even get something out of a social event for once!

I am the same way with videos. Honestly, if something like a tutorial is video based, I will leave that site and find something else. I hate that more and more stuff is video now. If a video doesn't have subtitles, I won't watch it

Forgot to add - I really haven't met anyone else like this. I have some immediate family members who I don't think ever listen to music voluntarily, but others who do.

It's hard to talk to people because they always ask about what music you like - always. It's the first thing they ask and it's all anyone talks about when you're starting college (in my experience). So right from the start, I'm already weird in their eyes. Because I can tell the truth (which is the entire spiel I have above) or I can say something I sort of like, but then I can't talk on it at much length and it's also not true, which makes me very uncomfortable.

I've gotten more comfortable saying "I don't really listen to music" and then answering follow ups if they happen. Some people definitely think there's something wrong with you if you say this, but I've been surprised at the number of people who are just like "that's fair" and move on. I get that it's weird but at this point I don't care anymore ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I was going to post about this topic! Music is under and overstimulating for me. If it's the only thing going on, like at a concert or when someone plays music in the car, it just feels so boring to me. I've tried so many times, but just sitting and listening to music makes me feel kind of claustrophobic. I remember feeling like this when I was a baby/toddler and my mom put on music tapes for me to go to sleep.

At the same time, the noise of music is really overwhelming. If anything is loud I start to feel sick, but even if it's not particularly loud in volume, a lot of times music feels very loud in my brain. I can't have music on in the background while working on something. Can't really handle hearing anything while reading, for example. If I'm drawing, I like having an audiobook or podcast, but just music is boring to me.

With all that said, I love singing. It's a little more active and I'm in control of it, so it's better. It's also kind of stimmy for me, like echolalia-ish. Things get stuck in my head very easily. But singing along to a cd is still going to leave me exhausted because it's just a lot of sound.

The music I tend to like most is either associated with some kind of narrative - like a musical or a movie soundtrack - maybe because it's a little more intellectually engaging - or something I've heard many many times. I do like Christmas music because it's nostalgic for me, and certain acoustic songs sound nice. I'll tolerate something like that until it becomes familiar, and then I'll start liking it. But would I listen to it in the car? Eh. Probably not.

Concerts are a no for me forever. Don't want to participate, don't want to attend. So boring, so overwhelming. I used to feel sick after band/chorus practice without really knowing why.

"Drama queen." I have gone to such lengths to avoid being called this that I just internalized everything. And then they tell you to "just be yourself" when you're struggling socially 🙃

I was so eager to please, too, I never wanted to make trouble for anyone. So when I did it was because I was really at my limit, and then I got called a drama queen.

Some others: too sensitive, too delicate, hysterical, fragile, Eeyore (for crying), and somehow at the same time: too shy, too quiet, wallflower, etc.

Haven't really thought before about how much those things affected me, even when many of them were said with the best of intentions (in a keep calm and carry on kind of way).

Everything is harder for me under pressure, but counting change as a cashier is a special hell. It's awful because the customers can be very condescending if they see you struggling and that just makes it worse. I was already struggling to be social and appropriate as a cashier - adding mental math to that was too much.

I struggle with this too. When other people jump onto something, they start changing it, and the experience you had before with the piece of media is forever changed. I really try not to be bothered by it - I don't want to hate something just because it's popular, but if I already am into it, and it becomes popular, things change and I don't like that

I'm sorry that happened to you :/ there are certain things I know I suppressed because of parental input - I used to walk on my toes, for example, but I got yelled at because my mom was afraid it would damage my tendons (had already happened to a sibling). One reason I feel like I'd like a more experienced professional opinion is to tease out whether the things I remember were autistic traits or not

Thanks for your perspective! Especially the medical aspect. One of the reasons I'm thinking about getting formally diagnosed (as opposed to the informal one I have now) besides constantly doubting myself is that I'm dealing with a lot of medical things right now that are commonly comorbid with autism (hEDS/HSD, POTS, etc). I don't want to be taken less seriously because I have an autism diagnosis but at the same time it feels like it's an important part of the clinical picture, in terms of what conditions doctors will consider.

Does stuff in dating count or is that different because everyone seems to struggle with it?

Everyone always says they don't like being ghosted. So, when I first met my now-husband, I told the other guys I was talking to on the app that I had started dating someone and I was going to be leaving the app. One guy just unmatched me silently, one wished me well very graciously, and one went berserk and said some pretty terrible things to me, specifically saying I shouldn't have told him I was dating someone else. The variety of responses has left me to this day very confused about whether the last guy was just mean or if I was in the wrong.

Everyone says they want people on these apps to be honest and straightforward while still being respectful. I'm confident I was very kind in my messages and that we had messages enough that some explanation was needed to not be rude. In my opinion, at least. It's just hard when you try to be polite, and some people take it as genuine politeness, and others interpret it badly.

I was diagnosed with alexithymia, so I know that by psychology standards I'm not doing something right, but before that, I would never have said that, in general, I struggle to express emotions. I cry really easily at almost anything and I was very good at leading my own therapy sessions by positing why I might be having trouble with X or Y.

But I think now those are both examples of emotional struggle? Crying because I don't know what else to express or intellectualizing rather than feeling emotions.

Now that I'm more aware of this tendency, I realize there are many times where I just don't feel anything or I know something is happening but I don't know what. I need a few hours to know whether I'm upset sometimes, or if I enjoy something.

I would still call myself a sensitive person, but at the same time, I'm really bad with emotions. Somehow, they can both be true.

Thank you for the explanation! I never would have thought of it like that. I try to say things that aren't generic so that people will know the compliments are genuine

I really didn't think I did that many rude things but this thread is making me reconsider. I definitely don't make small talk (or I'll just give very short replies) because it feels like I'm wasting their time if I do! In general, I just try to make things as efficient as possible. I'm only just considering this might not be well received?

I might have to lurk this thread and see what else I'm missing 💀

Is this really backhanded?? I would have never thought that. What is the logic of it? My best guess is that they don't know if your mom is good at cooking so you might not be saying it's good? But surely that's contextual if the person knows your mom is a great cook...

I don't do it when I'm masking, because I don't really express any emotions when I'm masking, but i do it all the time at home or even out in public if I'm with my husband (I feel safe unmasking if he's there). It's not even really a conscious action, I'll see something I love like a penguin plushie or a gnome and it just happens