Hi! I’m 40m with:

• Major depressive disorder, recurrent, in partial remission
• Post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic
• Autistic disorder

The first one I’ve known about and fought, to varying degrees of success, throughout most of adulthood. Sometimes I’m fine; content, motivated, unmedicated, truckin’ along living my best life, and other times I need to ask for help. Luckily my depressive disorder manifests as a lack of executive function and disinterest in everything, so I haven’t had any struggles with self harm or ideation.

The last few years of therapy - I thought primarily only for depression - have made me realize just how much PTSD I had from growing up. I had an awful home life as a child with two parents in way over their head, way too young, and without any good healthy coping strategies of their own. I learned to survive by:

• be afraid of everything all the time
• never ask for help
• never indicate blame
• never suggest any failings in anyone other than self
• make everyone laugh as much as possible; if they think you’re funny, they are less likely to hurt you when they’re angry
• be aware of every movement and emotion people are feeling at all times, no matter what
• be afraid. don’t forget that part.
• oh, and it’s vitally important you never, ever let people know you’re afraid, because that makes them feel bad and they’ll react by justifying your fear

So when I found out I was a high functioning autistic - it finally made everything I was feeling and trying to do throughout my entire life snap into place. I must have known that at some level I had to work 10x harder than someone without my challenges to read people. It was critical that I read people correctly at all times, and any failure could end in disaster. I was exhausted all the time around other people, because I had to be at the absolute top of my game, all of the time, or else. I use italics there because the reality is that was only true for a very small subset of two people, but what you know cerebrally and what you know in your lizard brain are two very different things.

I’ll be untangling this mess for the foreseeable future, but I’m finally starting to extend myself grace and dabbling in some exposure therapy; simple things like “I’m sorry, this isn’t what I ordered” are now possible, albeit hard.

Howdo champions.

I’m Darren, 42, and only 3 1/2 years diagnosed with ADHD, so it’s been fun trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m not just kinda useless and lazy, but I’ve been actively fighting my brane’s impulses throughout my life.

Hey all. I’ve introduced myself elsewhere so I’ll keep this fairly short, I have a lot of trouble with loosely defined social concepts like gender and romance. More tightly defined ones like social norms I tend to have an easier job with. I also have aphantasia and am generally just a very odd person, which is part of why I like to identify as a bunny.

31, bipolar

I’m 31M with Dyspraxia/ASD. Diagnosed since I was very young, grew up with quite severe developmental delays and hypersensitivity etc. Nowadays I mostly get along fine.

I’ll certainly follow this community but I must admit, perhaps controversially, that I’m not fond of the term “neurodiverse”. I’m not just diverse, I have a disability. And if it were possible to cure it, I would.

I’m a retired science teacher and union president. I’ve had a history of depression. I like science fiction.

Hi! My neurodivergence is ADHD. The same goes for my wife and two kids. We participated in a little study at one point looking at children of ADHD parents.

Thanks for making this post! I (30NB) was diagnosed with cPSTD a little over a year ago and just this week my therapist is referring me for ASD screening. I find Discord utterly overwhelming and I like the reddit/lemmy kind of forum stuff over twitter/mastodon.

I’m looking forward to lemmy making progress! I’m a SWE and I wish I could contribute but I’m focusing on EMDR and general trauma processing right now 😕

We (parents, counselors, teachers etc.) are 99% certain that our eldest son is “on the spectrum”. This has been quite a journey learning about all of this.

We (everyone mentioned above, including our son) are very confident that we’ll be able to find the support that our son needs.

When I’ve asked my eldest son if he “trusts the process” (i.e. finding the support that he needs) he has responded positively.

Hey people, I’m parsnip, a person on the autism spectrum who also has dyslexia. It’s fun being me, sometimes. I’m fairly good at stuff that I specialise in but have had trouble with workplaces because of the needed socializing/networking/schmoozing. I love working with children and teaching STEM.

I’m Demondice, but I’m nowhere near as demonic as the name might suggest. 40 years old, and just going through the diagnostic process now as I’m very likely autistic. It’s a bit of an anxiety-inducing time as I worry that I’m just imagining the symptoms and I’m wasting everyone’s time. However, pretty much everyone I speak to tells me that I’m one of the most obviously autistic people they’ve ever met and find the concept of me doubting it hilarious.

Hi friends! Im 33 with ADHD, diagnosed at age 27 and it explained so much of my childhood. I go in and out if hobbies but currently am into cross stitch, Guild Wars 2, and cozy video games.

Parent of a kindergarten aged kid on the spectrum here. Undiagnosed myself, but there are lots of parallels between what my kid is going through and what I experienced as a child, so I have a strong suspicion that I’m likely neurodivergent as well. I intend to mostly follow the community for the sake of my kid to ensure that as a parent I’m doing the best possible to allow them to thrive.

16, almost 17, professionally diagnosed as Autistic!!!

Diagnosed ADHD (combined type), getting close to finding the right medication.

Undiagnosed autism, I’ve suspected for many years and am trying to get a bit more involved in the community to better understand myself.