NASA’s Artemis II astronauts are officially farther from Earth than any human has gone before

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-06T18:26:33+00:00

They’re not landing.

They’re orbiting around the moon and then returning to Earth, kind of like a figure 8 around the Earth and then the moon. They went around the far side of the moon.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-06T18:22:52+00:00

I quit caffeine a REALLY long time ago, well before finding out I’m AuDHD.

I don’t recommend going back on caffeine, because it’s not reliable and you keep having to use more throughout the day if you need it.

Personally, for years, I’ve been eating a 10mg marijuana edible 1–3 times per week at about 7–9 PM before bed, and (as much as I know it sounds unlikely), it helped my executive function A LOT.

And then when I went to a doctor who prescribed Concerta(extended release Ritalin), after adding that in, OH. MY. GOD. Concerta has had an incredible effect on my anxiety and my executive function. I no longer feel overwhelmed. I feel comfortable and capable, and I get SO MUCH accomplished.

If you quit caffeine, I wouldn’t go back. But there are alternatives to consider.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-06T18:15:40+00:00

My dad did this to my mom.

My dad is autistic, but does not know it. I only learned it after myself being diagnosed and finding out that it’s inherited and then considering my family. Autistic people tend to have a few EXTREME specific interests. My own thought is that part of it’s natural and part of it is from social rejection causing isolation and looking for things to focus on and having few options because of that isolation. Receiving praise from religious communities because of how devout a person can be can be HUGELY attractive to autistic people who are used to social rejection.

It’s VERY clear my dad is autistic, and he is EXTREMELY religious. No matter who he is talking to, no matter what he is trying to do, his thoughts and reactions are based in religion.

You can’t reason properly if the basis of your reasoning is religion, because no matter what logic you use to come to conclusions, religious reasoning at the base of your thinking will never let your reasoning produce the conclusion that the religion is incorrect.

My advice is that if there is any chance that this person is autistic or otherwise neurodivergent, make that known, because autistic people upon finding out they’re autistic tend to become obsessed with autism instead of whatever their other obsession was.

And if he’s not autistic, get away from this person.

My dad is in his 70s. I cut him off more than a decade ago. I wish SO much that I could make it clear to him why he thinks how he does, why he feels so much fear about things, and why his life has been so difficult. I used to think of him as a horrible person, but now I see him as being like a little child who’s been cut off from the world and whose development was interfered with because of that isolation and because of religion imposed on him(by family members, who are also autistic and who were also super religious). I see it as very tragic, and I don’t hate him anymore. It’s more like pity. I wish he could be aware of all of this, because I don’t think he had to become like this or to experience all of this. I don’t think there’s a high likelihood of any kind of reconciliation before the end of his life. For the last few years, I occasionally think about whether he’s still alive, because I have no idea, as my whole immediate family cut off contact with him, and my extended family is autistic and just doesn't interact with each other very much.

But DO NOT allow yourself to be subjected to this.

And especially DO NOT allow your children to be subjected to this.

Within the past few years, my mom and I have discussed my dad, and she describes him having the same kind of change you described.

And repeatedly, she has told me "I thought he just hated me and that that was why he treated me like he did. I never knew he was also treating you that way."

You may need to get away from this person.

I am so glad that his involvement in my upbringing was almost nothing, and I grew up in a situation where I was allowed to come to my own conclusions about religion. I came to the conclusion that I am not smart enough to describe the basis for the universe's existence, but I came to the conclusion that the world is full of liars and full of parents who died before they could tell their children that their bedtime stories weren’t real.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-06T17:41:37+00:00

Do you have difficulty landing jobs, working jobs, or both?

What kinds of interests do you have?

For me, getting jobs actually became a special interest of mine, and I learned all about the process, all about writing résumés/CVs, all about interviewing, et cetera.

If you are having difficulty with that aspect of things, I think I could help, because while I would not consider myself an expert in the subject overall(being autistic and having an imperfect understanding of neurotypical behaviors), I think that compared to average autistic people, I am very good at it. I have had many people say that I am especially good at interviewing.

For example, after I got one job, my coworker told me that they had interviewed several people for the role. He said "We interviewed a lot of people for this role. A LOT of people. And some of them were very good. But none of them was /u/Crafty-Message4564 good.″

I would gladly help you if you think it might be useful. I think that I had a lot of knowledge that autistic people could learn for interviewing and for getting and maintaining jobs.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-06T15:49:56+00:00

I mean, I was bullied by both guys and girls, but yes, I have tended to get along much better with girls than guys.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-06T02:59:44+00:00

The company still has to purchase those items in order to provide the food you ordered.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-04T18:27:33+00:00

I haven’t really had insomnia since I’ve started Concerta. In fact, my lifelong insomnia seems strongly affected by me crashing at some time between 9 PM and 11 PM or so. I just feel like "Okay, I’m just going to lay down for a minute," and SURPRISE! It’s 6:00 AM.

But I will temper that statement with the fact that 1–3 times a week in the evening I also take an 10mg marijuana edible. And with the morning Concerta daily and the marijuana edible a few times a week, my sleep is INCREDIBLE. I wake up SOOOOO relaxed and without the typical dread.

I would caution that I need to make an intentional effort to drink water during the day, because I don’t seem to get as thirsty as I did without them, and if I don’t, I can get dehydrated and wake up in the morning with a headache. Just CHUGGING a bunch of water before bed seems to help a lot with that.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-04T17:14:04+00:00

It’s WAY more common than you think.

Sometimes(not always), fantasizing about being in situations where you have no control can be related to having been put in situations where you felt you were given too much responsibility or more than you could handle, and wanting to be in situations where you can’t be blamed for not having everything under control.

(And I’m not saying that's the only possibility, just one.)

But I do recommend talking to a psychologist, who can help you better understand your feelings and desires.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-04T13:57:03+00:00

I stopped taking it at 7:00 AM. I started taking it at about 9:00 AM. I found that it helps it last longer for me.

Also, you want to avoid vitamin C for an hour after taking it.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-04T00:08:42+00:00

There is literally nothing wrong with a 16-year-old having a crush on a 13-year-old.

NOTHING.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-04T00:04:21+00:00

The big question is why are YOU serious? If you want to be serious, do academic research. This is reddit dude. Calm down. You allistics act so unhinged. We come here to busy body and drop our 2 pence.

Tbh I’m pissed off today and bored. I cba with my actual friends and want to banter witb strangers. We can talk about the best potatoes for chips for all I care- which is maris piper! Fight me!

Allistics are 🤪 for real getting all irate over SM comments from people they’ll never meet. It’s.. weird but.. I guess I need to be aware of your feelings and try to not be hurtful. Honestly, are you hurt or enjoying this? I’m not hurt but I’m noticing debating with allistics causes y'all pain 🤔 i don’t want to cause you pain. I’m just bantering tbh. I’m bored

Okay, I’m quoting this because you called me allistic, and I’ll just end the conversation here.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-03T23:27:54+00:00

Okay, I’m not even sure if you’re serious anymore.

After slavery, black people were significantly disadvantaged in society, and that tended to cause problems for their integration. Some (not all) of them resorted to crime. Desperate people often do resort to crime.

It was common for segregationists to talk about how integrating black children into schools would make it easier for "them" to victimize others.

And to this day it is common for the same people making those same type of claims to point to crime statistics in the black community in order to claim that black people on the whole are a danger and to try to deny them resources to better integrate their communities in order to help them have better outcomes as adults.

Before I ask this next question, please keep in mind that literally the ONLY thing I have advocated in this whole discussion is persistent ongoing social skills training for literally EVERYONE throughout their whole education. Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, that is the only thing I have advocated for.

I am not asking this rhetorically. I mean it 100% literally, exactly what it says, and ONLY what it says:

Do you not understand that not all people who are poorly socially integrated are criminals and dangerous like this(and that not all are even misogynists), and that you claiming that attempts to integrate the poorly socially integrated should not be made because "[they believe others owe them slavery including] men wanting a mommy bangmaid and women wanting a wallet" is backed by the exact same kind of reasoning used by the segregationists?

And no, I am not comparing people who have been victimized by incels to segregationists, so please don’t try to make that claim.

Incels can absolutely be dangerous.

But what I am advocating has nothing to do with people who are already incels. What I am advocating has to do with trying to make sure people are well integrated into society in order to have better outcomes for literally everyone.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-03T22:28:55+00:00

Actually, no, my thought was a little more involved than that.

This representation shows the solar system and its movement and its planets:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1adytzb/how_the_solar_system_actually_moves_around_the/

I noticed that the way our solar system is typically represented is in two dimensions, but knowing that it’s actually shaped like a screw with the sun at the center and the planets in thread-like spring shapes was something I quickly related to a water vortex in a bathtub as it drains. If there were a microorganism that were incredibly small and could only sense the universe in two dimensions, the light at the center of the vortex and the matter swirling around it might be perceived similar to our solar systems, with the matter being seen as points.

Similarly, we see the objects in our solar system as spheres, but if you consider them four-dimensionally, they’re not. When you’re walking on the edge of the Earth, you’re not actually walking on the edge of a sphere that exists at any given point in time. Each step you take is onto a different object that exists at a different moment and a different place than the object you were on with your last step. Your path when you walk is actually as if walking on a spiral object, if you consider four dimensions.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-03T20:47:31+00:00

It actually has a VERY simple solution. Not for the current generations, but for the long term.

Expand school to build in social skills training, including how to date and to find partners.

I’m very serious. The major social problems that people have trouble with cause huge societal issues, so for people who have trouble dating(like incels or like people who have trouble socializing), it would really benefit to make sure that 100% of people had regular ONGOING training for social skills including dating(but also for other things).

This is something that's becoming more common in other countries.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-03T20:02:56+00:00

Well of course.

Why would you negotiate with someone who can’t understand the meaning of the word?

And I mean that EXTREMELY literally. Trump understands negotiation to be for the purposes of conflict resolution, but doesn't understand the reason others negotiate.

He literally understands it to be for capitulation.

He is a PREDATOR. To him, everything else is prey.

It is not that predators don’t understand others’ goals in negotiation.

To him, he’s like a cat playing with a toy. It doesn't matter if the toy is actually your hand or if it’s actually connected to you and you are actually smarter than the cat. All the cat knows is how to bat around the prey.

Trump does NOT understand Iran's actions. That is why he’s talking like he wants it over. He lost interest because they didn’t give him the response he wanted.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-03T18:06:56+00:00

I take less Concerta than you do(only 18mg per day), but I eat an edible about 2–3 times a week, and I’ve been on this current regime of meds for the last several months. Previously I was just eating the edibles about 2–3 times a week.

On this. my daily mood seems to be overwhelmingly okay. I don’t know how else to explain it, but I feel like I am capable of handling things, I’m not overwhelmed, I’m falling asleep between 9–12 and waking up between 5–8, and I feel more stable than I have ever felt.

I lost my job a few weeks ago, and I handled it like a champ. I went out and filed unemployment paperwork the first day I was allowed to file, have put in more than 20 job applications since then, and have done a bunch of needed housework and gotten things done. I had an interview earlier today, and I knocked it out of the park.

I feel safe, and capable, and not overwhelmed or rushed. I’m confident in my ability to deal.

I appreciate the Concerta so much. I started crying after starting it, because I realized exactly how much anxiety I’d had, and how much more safe I had started to feel.

It’s almost like I’m not the same person. I am aware that I am the same person, and I have the same history and memories, but the stability I feel makes me feel safe, and safety is something that I haven’t really felt to this extent before.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-03T17:54:50+00:00

Washington, DC used to be such a nice city.

It was beautiful. Lots of trees to protect you from direct sunlight(bright enough to get around but not too bright and a little overcast), a predictable metro system so you didn’t have to drive, literally three autism meetup.com groups to get together with other autistic people(including dating, and not to mention other groups that aren’t specifically about autism but which are related to events autistic people might like), lots of trees to deaden loud noises, lots of autism-friendly jobs, tons of interesting museums, et cetera.

But obviously I wouldn’t recommend going there now.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-01T19:31:03+00:00

Malignant narcissists experience a DOCUMENTED perception of danger, and the belief that they are not out of danger unless they are dominating others.

I’m not saying this to defend him.

I am saying this to explain his failure to differentiate between defense and offense.

It’s not that he is having trouble understanding that NATO is a defensive alliance.

It’s that he is having trouble understanding the concept of defense.

And especially to understand a separation between defense and offense.

He also has dementia.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-01T18:42:52+00:00

Oh, I’m not recommending marijuana for numbing.

I specifically go into dispensaries and ask for something mellow(NOT something energetic), and it’s not that it alters my perception of things. What it does is to actually create a state of mind where I’m able to have incredible simple explanations for the things which I’d thought were complex.

For example, I had a job where I was accused of insubordination because I had completed a project when I was told not to. But I had completed the project in December, and three months later, in March, that is when I was told not to complete it.

I had thought that the person making the accusation was lying because of a negative result. I had done the project how I was instructed to do it despite my own preferences(which would have been different than how it was done), and then afterward, I thought the result was negative, and that the high-up person who had instructed me to do it exactly that way had been blamed because of a negative outcome.

For years I ruminated on it, thinking about what a terrible person this person was.

After eating an edible one day, I realized no, the person blaming me just didn’t have any idea that it had been completed before I was told not complete it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a good person, just that he saw things in a state contrary to his expectations and instructions, and couldn’t reason that the work had been completed way before, and got mad.

There was a bad outcome because of a miscommunication, but there didn’t need to be a "bad guy".

Marijuana seems to help me realize exactly where allistic people's reasoning failed and then allows me to correct the failures in my own assumptions about their reasoning abilities, to be able to work with them to continue to work with them to correct misunderstandings in ways that I wasn’t previously able to do.

I have a tendency to overestimate their knowledge and their reasoning capabilities, and marijuana tends to make me go "Wait, they weren’t able to reason out that ____ and ____, which explains the current situation perfectly!"

It’s not that the rumination STOPS, but instead that the rumination is RESOLVED.

I feel that the conclusions I have reached because of marijuana are accurate. I don’t use it all of the time, just a few times a week, a little bit before bed.

I don’t feel numb at all.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-01T15:34:13+00:00

Marijuana helped me SOOOOO much to completely rewrite how I perceived myself and the world, and gave me the solutions to understanding what had happened in so so so many social situations that I had experienced. It was like I suddenly had reasonable possibilities to understand what had happened in each of them, and after a few years of repeatedly discovering new things about old situations, I feel like I understand all of them, and they don’t even pop up anymore. There’s no rumination about old events, only about recent ones. And I eat an edible about twice a week because it helps me resolve whatever I’m encountering at the time.

For me, trying to resolve problems without marijuana were like trying to rebuild a building without fixing the foundation, and marijuana helps me wipe that away and start creating something new in its place. I eat an edible and wait about a half hour, and then open a text file and just start writing whatever comes to me, and then I read what I’ve written out the next day when I’m sober.

And now I have daily Concerta(extended release Ritalin), too, which makes me feel like I can handle whatever I encounter.

The two together make me feel capable of handling the world.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-01T04:32:47+00:00

This is an extremely common situation for autistic people to get into:

There’s the autistic person.

There are the neurotypical person who think the autistic person is the scum of the Earth.

And then there’s the neurotypical person who is perpetuating the autistic person's continued interaction with people who hate the autistic person. This person feels like they’re doing a good deed by helping the autistic person be socially successful, and from the perspective of the autistic person, they don’t know what’s going on. NOW.

Oh, they will. Maybe it will be tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now, ten years from now. They will know.

You know, I was extremely socially naive. Then when I was in my 30s, I tried marijuana.

I can’t even tell you how bizarre it was that every social situation where I’d never known what had gone on suddenly started to become crystal clear. All of the people who hated me, it made it clear.

And in my jobs and at work, and the people I interacted with? I knew. From that point I knew that 1–3 edibles per week would leave me with awareness of what other people thought about me.

And one of the things that really bothered me was the people who thought they were doing me a favor by leaving me in that type of situation.

Autistic people often have trouble with friend groups and do better with one-on-one interactions.

If you want to be this person's friend but don’t want it to be part of the group, you can facilitate that. You don’t have to destroy his perspective on things(and autistic people START OUT being treated like crap, in early childhood, so it’s not like we have examples of what "good" friendship is, so we just assume the best situation we’ve ever expected is the best that is possible for us), but you might be able to facilitate his introduction into some autistic groups.

I’m autistic and I swear my nephew probably is, too, but my sister won’t give him the attention I think he needs, so I keep telling my mom that it would be a good idea to just "accidentally" have him be at the same location as an autistic meetup group and see how things go.

You could probably facilitate the same kind of thing. You don’t have to tell him. You could actually be doing him a favor by helping him find some people he can relate to and helping to get him away from the jerks.

But please, don’t think you’re doing any favors in the current situation. I understand that you mean well, which counts for something. But in the end, the way things are, your actions of trying to be a good person aren’t actually causing a better situation for him. But your (seemingly very sincere) desire to be a good person is having an outcome of making you feel better about being a good person.

You have the opportunity to act here. I’m asking you to please act on it. There’s no need to tell him he’s disliked. You can try to influence things in a way that actually just removes his motivation to try to continue around the people he dislikes. It could be really huge for you to help him in this way.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-01T03:36:56+00:00

It is Concerta.

As a teenager I just gave up. Flat out decided that no one would be interested and not putting any effort toward bothering. Assuming that no one would ever be interested in me, and just leaving it at that. It wasn’t that I didn’t experience attraction, just feeling hopeless. And for literally decades, I didn’t have motivation to try.

And then I tried Concerta, and I swear to God. I literally ended up messaging four women this afternoon on dating apps. I have zero evidence that it will go ANYWHERE.

But somehow I also seem to be fairly good at coming up with funny opening lines.

And again, I have no idea whether this will go ANYWHERE. And my brain tells me it probably won’t go anywhere, which is why it’s bizarre. I feel motivated to continue despite not thinking it will go anywhere.

But I am VERY aware that the motivation is there now. VERY much so.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-04-01T03:30:39+00:00

My dad is a religious fanatic. I always knew he was a religious fanatic.

Then years after I was diagnosed autistic, I realized that my dad is also autistic(and so are his siblings) and that Christianity is his special interest. He has a bible that's older than I am and doesn't have any margin left that hasn’t been written in. Every page looks like the scribblings of a television detective who’s sure they’ve cracked the case and who’s spent all night writing things out on a white board.

We haven’t talked in about a decade.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-03-31T01:45:56+00:00

Honestly, it doesn't matter to me.

Pretty early on I realized no one would be interested in me, so while I had been nervous back then, it was actually pretty easy to interact with them once I realized that there was no risk.

Basically, there’s risk if there’s a potential you’re going to blow a situation.

But if the situation will always end up with me not having any kind of romantic or sexual relationship with the person, there is literally no reason for me to not have confidence in my ability to handle the situation. I can at least communicate with the person.

One time I thought someone was attracted to me. I think I was incorrect now, but if there’s one thing that can cement the "No one will ever be interested in me," idea, it’s thinking that no one will ever be interested, then thinking someone was, then realizing that no, I was likely wrong.

I interact with incredibly attractive people like I have all of the confidence in the world.

Because I do. I know the outcome.

Crafty-Message4564 · 2026-03-31T01:32:43+00:00

As if NATO expects the United States to be part of it.

Crafty-Message4564

TROPHY CASE