I have both aphantasia and autism and i wanted to see how many autists also have it.

I'm asking because I may have ADHD, but it's hard for me to figure out if I do. Any ideas on how I can figure that out? I plan to eventually get assessed for ASD, and if I think ADHD may be likely, I'll get assessed for that as well.

"The results of this evaluation are indicative of autism spectrum disorder."

Never before have I been so relieved and yet so dismayed to read such a sentence.

If you had the choice to keep autism spectrum disorder or remove it completely which would you choose? This would change who you are so I have another question that adds on, let's say this is a reversible method would you see the difference?

They will never suspect a thing

I feel a little bad for asking for help again..

So I need to do something. I have no idea what though. So these are things to consider for me:

• I prefer something regular and scheduled. My Autism needs consistency, but my ADHD makes it really hard to establish and maintain.
• I need to get out of my home. I am withering here
• some (predictable) social interaction is okay. If it is too much I probably won't be able to keep up. I'd prefer something with a low upfront social cost (honestly the idea of being introduced to a new group feels overwhelming)
• I prefer a somewhat sensory friendly environment (for example the music in a gym would be really really stressful)

I would like to know what kinds of things you found in your lives that worked. Thanks!

Each time I heard about a safe food it was an ultra processed one. So I want to verify

Recently I read through the comments on a post and someone suggested OP should „just read the room“.

I have been told this since I was young and it triggers me every time.

Being unaware of social dynamics in a situation is a thing a lot of autistic people I know struggle with. „Reading the room“ in my understanding means „becoming aware of the unspoken things in a situation“.

Collins dictionary says: If you say that someone reads the room, you mean that they understand their audience and adapt what they say to suit it.

I think, although not on purpose, saying this is massively ableist and making fun of someone for „not reading the room“ is harassment imo.

Feel free to give an opposing opinion as well. I would like to hear them.

I've been experimenting with putting headphones on (not playing music, just blocking noise) in situations where there is a lot of noise and it kinda helps! Although, apparently it's not considered "socially acceptable" to wear headphones while singing along with a group of people at a youth event lol. (I did explain it to the person who was playing the music though and he said he didn't even notice and could tell I was enjoying myself so I guess I'm good)

P.S. I don't know if this is the kind of post we do in this community. I just felt like mentioning it

Hello. I'm in my mid 20s. I was mute in my early youth and had to attend speech therapy classes in preschool and early in elementary school, and I rode the short bus. I played with and spoke to my stuffed toys until I was in middle school and that was when my parents took them away. My family always said that I was an odd child, but only in recent years did they suspect that I was on the spectrum. To this day, I've never been officially diagnosed.

Hey everyone,

Last night a rabbit hole took me to an unexpected place. Gwern is undoubtedly the most comprehensive website adorned with vocabulary, statistics, programming, and a strong bias towards the Haskell language.

I found myself sucked into the site and got lost in what seemed like an endless stream of text. One page about nootropics would lead to another about properly designing scientific studies, the "Dual n back" method for increasing IQ and countless more.

From a previous post I mentioned interest in LLM inferences, but at the time I kind of only nebulously wanted an AI tool better than GPT-4. Some of so kindly brought the Georgi Gerganov Llama.cpp to my attention, for which I finally have adjusted to Linux well enough to feel comfortable downloading software in myriad ways.

Returning to the topic at hand, I have an itching feeling that some sort of ML model could be made to serve the purpose as a brain extension. I can see the uses being for picking up and maintaining technical vocabulary for an interview in pharmaceuticals, chip manufacturing, chemical processing, 3D manufacturing, and legion others.

I imagine it could be an absolute super tool for learning. I mean past the usual Ebbinghaus forgetting curve that Anki seeks to ameliorate, combined with active recall, memory palace techniques, and Anthony Metivier's lovely curated channel. He led me to Gwern in the first place. His story is very inspiring and I would recommend his book "The Victorious Mind: How to Master Memory, Meditation and Mental Well-Being".

I think this is a great place to begin discussion on this topic. Given that we are neurodivergent and many of you have also resonated with the monotropic brain theory, what are your thoughts about having a "Brain Inference" or "Brain Buddy"? Here are a couple of questions to chew on:

• What features should a program do that has the Brain Buddy incorporated in it? Could this be analogous to orgmode in Emacs? Some sort of an fzf-esque program to globally search for something you vaguely recall?
• How would we design it? What facets do we need to consider?
• What training sets could we use? How do we clean up the set to ensure the model doesn't digest falsehoods?
• How large do the models need to be w.r.t. parameters?
• How much computing power would we need?

I have to say that I truly don't believe in hell. People like this make me hope with all my heart that I'm wrong.

I can't be the only one who absolutely hates the idea of a particle having two states at once, right? Is it just a personal thing or is it tied somehow to the fact that autistic people generally have more binary thinking?

Forgive me if it's a stupid question. I'm still trying to figure out how this all works and whether I'm autistic or not.

In short this app claims to be a dating app for the Nerodivergent. Overall I am skeptical it isn't just another targeted data mining scheme that doesn't care about its users. So I am hesitant to jump in. Can anyone vouch for it?

Detailed Info dump:

For some reason despite being technically single for the past 2 decades I'm not as content with being alone as I used to be.

From what I remember about dating in my 20s dating sites where just waves of nerutypical people wanting lifestyles that I'd hate. I had nothing in common with anyone on them and gave up. I'm definitely more comfortable around other Nerodivergent people.

Normally I'd go volunteer or somthing to meet people. This isbthe healthy option. However I'm already working multiple jobs, and there doesn't appear to be many opportunities around that involve going out and meeting people.

So I'm cautiously investigating other, probably less healthy, options.

I've spent some time reflecting yesterday and I realized that. When people want you to be confident they don't want you to be actually confident, they want you to pretend you are. It is idiotic and makes no sense, but it explains a lot of situations in which I behaved the wrong way.

confidence to me means the opposite of that. it means questioning your asssumptions, approaching things from a different angle, reflect, recalculate, asking for a second opinion. Because I'll end up with greater confidence that my assertions are more truthful. But apparently doing all that makes people think I'm insecure. Shit!

“Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character”

‘Designer Makenzie De Armas discusses putting a little bit of herself into the game’

https://www.polygon.com/23850698/dnd-dungeons-dragons-autistic-character-asteria

#Asteria is “a princess turned paladine”.

‘De Armas herself is autistic, and was able to incorporate a lot of her own experiences into the character.’

#TheBookOfManyThings #MakenzieDeArmas

#DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #Autistic #OpenlyAutistic #ActuallyAutistic #Autism #AutismSpectrum #Gaming #Games #TTRPG #TableTop #RPG #THAC0

@autism @actuallyautistic @autistics @actuallyautistics @neurodivergence

I primarily ask this, because for a large part of my life, I have found it hard to build meaningful friendships with neurotypicals. I don't know any autistic people in real life, but wonder if it would be easier for me to build friendships with them?

Or maybe this has more to do with general struggles of being autistic, rather than how alike I am to others. However, I always find neurotypicals don't really go deep in conversation, but they enjoy small talk. Yet, I'm the complete opposite.

What has been your experience?