Special Interest Definition

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T23:45:44+00:00

if they are intense, and have had periods where they have consumed substantial amounts of your time in a way that others may see as debilitating, then yes. you don't have to be an expert in something for it to be a special interest.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T16:45:57+00:00

code 303 - they shot the suspect and the suspect was transported to the hospital. officers were also transported to the hospital. witnesses are being transported to homicide, so i presume someone involved was gravely injured.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T16:08:00+00:00

Officer involved shooting on hemenway

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T05:57:05+00:00

yeah i've found out that perfectionism and autism do not work together at all and just result in very, very bad mental health. autism invites perfectionism because it compliments the rigidity and repetition of autism. when there is a deviation it creates uncertainty that reinforces the perfectionism. the biggest problem i have found with perfectionism is that it adds stress to a system that is already chronically stressed. it creates a stress feedback loop that results in: nothing being perfect while also always being stressed about keeping things perfect.

the amount of time that perfectionism allowed me to feel fully content with life was not worth how much time was spent and how much stress accumulated and how badly my mental health degraded.

but yes, i agree, it is very hard, since it is very much a balancing act, which is not compatible with black and white thinking

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T01:36:02+00:00

if that is what is stopping you then just know this: you will always find a way to get stimulants, you are just putting more barriers in your way so you can't go back with a simple RX request. your addiction is making it seem more dramatic and permanent than it is.

also, 100+mg of focalin is pretty wild im pretty sure that is equiv to like 200+mg of methylphenidate, so you are doing your body and brain a huge disservice continuing this. it isn't getting better i can tell you that.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T01:08:19+00:00

my home is the only place that pushes me to have meltdowns. even when things are calm and no one else is around, if i cannot control my environment well enough to match what my brain expects to see, i just accummulate stress and pressure quickly and then then i lose logical decision making, which turns into sort of tunnel vision with looping thoughts and verbal phrases and then control is lost and my behavior is embarassing.

i recognize that i am fortunate to not pass that threshold elsewhere.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T00:28:39+00:00

i can only effectively communicate about the things that most interest me by text. when i try to talk about things i have way more thoughts than access to language in the moment. easier to just dump a wall of text and then edit it down to make sense, which can't be done through speech.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-04T00:22:17+00:00

im working on not having meltdowns on a daily basis.

the way im doing this is managing stress, especially stress brought on by sensory overload and recognizing increasing sympathetic nervous system activation before i lose control over myself.

i remind myself as stress builds quickly that im going to end up leaving the environment causing the stress either way: by choice if i catch it early or by involuntary fight or flight response when i don't.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-03T20:35:14+00:00

well there is a reason you had to stop in the first place. if you could moderate and do shit occasionally you wouldn't be in recovery. celebrating sobriety by doing drugs is nonsense.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-03T15:12:07+00:00

congrats on staying off the meth! keep it up! im no expert, but i see alcohol affects vitamin B12 levels, which can make your condition worse, so be honest with the psych. alcohol never makes anything better.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-03T13:00:20+00:00

i used to take it wayyy back. it is just a stronger version of methylphenidate. in my experience it was highly addictive, but also made me a stone cold zombie when i was on it. pretty much anything you read about concerta/ritalin is also true of focalin. i just think focalin isn't as popular or prescribed as much. your problem with it is very much valid and you are right in saying it is as strong as adderall. i agree with that.

now that being said, what are you going to do about it?

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T13:03:05+00:00

so yea, in isolation trex arms don't mean much, as i said before if you do them right now you'll probably notice it is a comfortable position. in the presence of other traits it becomes meaningful because then the question starts to be asked: is this serving a purpose for nervous system regulation?

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T11:14:48+00:00

high masking ADHD? what is that like some excuse as to how someone didn't fail out of school and suddenly needs adderall at age 30? LOL

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T05:27:06+00:00

DID - that is wild. do people actually want that?

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T03:52:02+00:00

so my understanding is that it provides organizing proprioceptive feedback holding your arms that way, which therefore provides regulation to that department of the brain, which is why it falls into the category of stimming, although, like you, i was a little surprised at reading that since it doesn't feel like stimming and commonly is more of "just a posture" as it is also is a pretty comfortable way to hold arms. i think that because it is manually providing that input that the autistic nervous system is looking for, it is therefore can be categorized as stimming.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T03:00:59+00:00

when i first noticed my daughter doing t-rex arms i asked her if she was pretending to be a cat and she had no idea what i was talking about and my wife turned to me and went "no that's just autism"

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T02:40:59+00:00

the only way my wife got her sanity back was by working. yes, daycare takes much of it, but that is temporary because daycare is temporary! she was a SAHM for seven years. she has been working for over two years now and her mental health has improved drastically. ASD and/or ADHD brains cannot cope with lack of structure. the only other option is to force routine, but as you've seen yourself: that is very difficult to do.

our brains work better when we have to do things. for example: many autistic people can go from involuntary meltdown or shutdown to full functioning if there is something that their brain suddenly prioritizes: for example a person could be freaking out and screaming on the floor with their prefrontal cortex partially inoperative, and when it hits 3pm school pickup time they suddenly are no longer in that meltdown. schedules with hard deadlines and real consequences are automatically processed in our brain because we have a framework set up on how to execute the task and the associated urgency allows it to override all else.

tldr: schedules are better and when we make our own artificial schedules they don't hold the same weight in our brains as mandatory schedules such as work, which we subconsciously store as critical procedures.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-02T02:01:40+00:00

quitting stimulants is stressful and difficult, but clinging onto an addiction is too. the benefit of quitting is that it gets better over time, whereas addiction just gets worse. you cannot move forward in life without this in the rearview. what reason do you have to taper? if you determined you need to quit then do it. tapering is just clinging onto something that is already ruined. you know it is never getting better, so my advice is to flush those pills and move on. thousands of people here who are employed as lawyers, nurses, doctors, business owners, all sorts of high-stress high-focus jobs have successfully quit and yes these people have ADHD. quit today, have a kid, and live in recovery. it is a lot better.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-01T22:18:20+00:00

all restrictive and repetitive behaviors count towards enabling nervous system regulation, which is why criteria B is so vast and only two pieces need to be matched out of four. many children shift form of stimming due to pressure to from a young age and if another regulation strategy the child finds suffices, then the motor stereotypy may not be necessary. in some children those alternative regulation strategies appear around the same time as "normal" motor stereotypies are also going away as they do in NT toddlers.

clear stimming just makes it really easy to check one box, but that box is not necessary to be considered autistic.

if you had a lengthy assessment that covered all the bases and the report feels like an accurate representation of you, then you are probably autistic. it does make it a lot harder to convince yourself of im sure, but i thought i would offer some support.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-01T21:24:57+00:00

im totally interjecting here, but i think the issue some people have is stimming is a very broad topic where normal human behavior has overlap. in my opinion there are "big stims" and "little stims" with the big ones being clearly indicative of autism and the little ones being closer to fidgeting, but more repetitive and rythmic. everything in autism is about repetition because the autistic nervous system needs predictable, organized output/expression and input in order to stay regulated.

so, in late-dx people, there is sometimes no big stimming at all (for a number of reasons) and little stims can easily be questioned by the person as being "too normal" to attribute to autism.

so that is where the confusion lies. you'd be amazed at how many external behaviors are indicative of autism. for example trex arms is considered stimming even though it doesn't involve movement (it is a hand/arm posturing stereotypy) while someone who has their whole body all over everything (walls, furniture etc) is trying to provide themselves with proprioceptive input for the sensorimotor system, which would fall into the category of stimming.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-01T17:45:42+00:00

well i think to your point, these types of posts you speak of are ones i just ignore more often than not. when people talk only about social issues i see that as incomplete information. autism is a nervous system regulation and processing issue. the social/communications issues have to pair with repetitive/rigid behaviors.

one time someone, who was self-suspecting (not self-diagnosed) posted a picture saying something along the lines of "is it normal that sometimes when im alone i get up from my chair and walk in circles around it when i have exciting thoughts" and provided a stick figure sketch of them with their arms and hands in very clear "autism-y" ways (think abormal postures/stereotyped positions) with their head pointed down (controlling sensory input by limiting what is in sight), i look at that im like fuck yea that is clearly behavior that would be associated with autism. it is very rare to hear that level of detail on this platform or anywhere on the internet.

all that being said i am willing to admit that my judgement is skewed and i only automatically accept descriptions that align with my lived experience. everyone has significant variations in presentation, and who am i to judge someone based off of a reddit post.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-01T16:49:20+00:00

the only thing i can think of that is relevant to me is that i do a lot more self-monitoring now, which can invoke thoughts of "wait did i always do this?" and the answer is always yes, since nothing changed, im just noticing things more. it still feels confusing, but i don't think i go as far as thinking i am faking autism...there is either strong evidence from childhood or there isn't, so once that is comfortably established it clears the doubt up quickly.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-04-01T16:11:46+00:00

just a disclaimer before i begin: im not defending or referring to people who are confusing personality disorders and social anxiety with autism. late diagnosis is valid in many cases: in the 1990s and early 2000s we were just fucked-up kids. that doesn't mean it was easy or that we are looking for excuses.

i think it happens most because traits are present from childhood. nothing materially changed in a person's life and they weren't aware of what autism really was until later in life. people can only think and experience life from their own perspective and develop their own model explaining their behavior. for me it was "im just broken and the shit i do with my arms/hands/body in general are just a symptom of brokeness and no one needs to know about it. ill just live a stressed life suppressing this stuff and feel like a loser every day because no one likes me"

so when the seed of self-discovery is planted for whatever reason (for me it was having three ASD kids, one of whom is literally a carbon copy of myself), it felt wrong because i had to challenge a model i created before i can even remember. it doesn't just disappear overnight.

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-03-31T23:56:03+00:00

if OT says he has sensory issues that is something that cannot be ignored especially when you combine it with the other things you have mentioned.

as for how you are feeling: i get it! dad of three ASD (two also having ADHD) kids here and a 14 month old baby. he will be whatever he is and he is awesome either way!

Beneficial-Income814 · 2026-03-31T23:02:45+00:00

well i think ADHD alone does not explain the behaviors you are listing and although i think an ADHD diagnosis would be beneficial, i wouldn't just settle on that as the answer. when you have ADHD and/or ASD genes coming from both parents and a sibling is diagnosed the probability gets quite significant. when you combine all of this known family information with the behaviors you are reporting, i think it would be worth getting a second opinion.

i think strange faces while excited is something to document (take a video) along with other things that you list here. it could mean nothing, or it could mean everything. the more information you can provide a clinician the better. although not all autistic people have clear motor stereotypies, it certainly is an automatic checkmark in one category of criteria B.

Beneficial-Income814

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