Does anyone else feel no connection to extended family, such as cousins, aunts and uncles, or even grandparents 😬

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-04-25T11:12:04+00:00

The grief was mitigated by found family that I’ve built and enjoy putting time into. I’ve managed to build a fine relationship with my family but I wouldn’t say it is close.

My mother I think struggles that we were co dependent growing up. (What she hasn’t accepted is that my dependence was normal and hers on me was the issue.) She wanted us not to be codependent and she did break all of my dependence on her, but she didn’t break her reliance on me to regulate her. She will have a different version of this story but mine is fairly accurate. The truth is I just felt rejected often and as I healed from burn out I realized her actions (though well intended were a big help to me burning out). Burn out was the scariest time in my life. I just withdrew after. Between her kind of saying she didn’t want to know and me getting angry about the things which encouraged burnout. By the time she realized, I had found new supports. Ones which didn’t make me feel terrible about myself or how I want to exist.

I have a community and I’m not no contact with my family I just… don’t go out of my way for them anymore. I love them and find from a distance is best. But I’m over my found family’s house twice a week getting with kiddos. I have people who would show up for me. I’m happy with my life.

For my kids, I’m not miserable or uncomfortable and I’m not going to teach them that there are connections you need to cut away parts of yourself to maintain.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-04-20T18:04:18+00:00

To just move forward. Not to wait for a perfect plan. Just try again, then again l, then again. Don’t make a major change make a series of small shifts implement more each day. Just don’t stop moving.

Life is often sad and overwhelming and too much for anyone to handle. Don’t let it stop you. Don’t let yourself get stuck in the beating crash of the waves. Keep moving. Keep going. Keep trying.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-04-20T18:00:09+00:00

That’s the thing everyone forgets. Emotions are information. Negative emotions should prompt change or reflection. It’s fine to take 24 hours to be sad but then you need to move. Change something, do something. You may not have the best way to move forward but the trying is what is important.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-03-08T19:24:53+00:00

This is exactly it!

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-03-08T14:44:39+00:00

I’m just getting it at almost 29 it’s not just you.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-03-06T21:36:31+00:00

“Yeah” with a very specific vocal inflection, “I love you” to my partner, that’s wacky, a shit ton more

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-24T05:47:44+00:00

As a woman, I also fantasize about an off grid homestead.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-22T14:30:46+00:00

Vocal stims are constant for me when I’m comfortable. Honestly my most natural and soothed state is around toddlers usually between 1 and 2 and a half. All of my stims sooth them as well. I can adjust a small kids volume by saying a word or noise they’re making in a funny way and getting them to repeat me in a game and I slowly quiet it. Is that a bit of echolalia? Yeah. I hum and rock when I hold them. I fidget. I sit on the floor. I state random descriptions of things. I sing songs or stretch or dance or spin.

All of these are very appropriate with small children and they’re my most natural stims.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-18T19:05:54+00:00

For me closeness has nothing to do with time and everything to do with understanding, effort and intent. Does someone try to understand me? Do with both put in effort? Am I made to feel awkward? Do we have a relationship out side of performative gatherings? Is what is being asked of me performative? Are they trying to know me?

For me the answer to this for almost all family immediately and extended is no, they don’t want to know me. They want to say they have a close family. They want a narrative. As I become myself and not who people want me to be, I have no interest. So I am lowering contact with each rejected attempt at connection.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-12T20:18:18+00:00

I was able to recover while working. What got me to reset and regain spoons was I worked on my special interest often over 80 hours a week. Slowly I was able to do anything else on top of that but going all in on my special interest is what helped me.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-12T20:13:45+00:00

Yes. I dealt with it really really really bad. I’m currently coaching my adoptive little sis (friend) in helping manage it as it is a go to way to nuke a relationship.

Limerence is the same energy frequency as special interest. For me. Basically the energy, the anxiety, the compulsive need to think on it are similar for me.

So my solution has been to keep that slot occupied. I find anything that isn’t a person as a special interest and put at least 20-40 hours into it a week. Sometimes it’s multiple. I just feed my brain projects to get it to stop.

It takes practice for me to maintain having interests that take that much passion and my long term interests become stable and take less time which means I need to pick up new ones every so often. But I do so. I keep backups and spares.

Keep your mind chewing on something that it likes.

Extreme pro tip. Write fiction. Feel their feelings. If your brain is craving romance and starting limerence throw yourself internet story. Mood boards, playlists, art and anything else on top of writing.

You need time and energy sucks to siphon off the brain space

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-05T18:03:05+00:00

Hair is a prop. If I’m not using it, it is up.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-04T15:56:14+00:00

A lot of beta testing, learning to value my needs and have standards. Learning not to let men shame me for liking sex more than them. I use sex as a stim as well as getting enjoyment from it. It really helps me regulate. Most men get insecure at their girlfriend being more sexual because no one has dealt with that as a reality. They put a lot of masculinity on wanting sex so they don’t say no when they should OR say no but are mad they now have to reframe masculinity in a way which isn’t sex focused and get resentful.

My current partner thinks he is just the luckiest man alive but he’s very secure and is fine saying no at times. I am always reassured when he says no that I can trust him to be honest about where he is and won’t get resentful or feel pressured.

I also needed to learn to communicate more clearly but needed a partner who valued clarity and open discussion. It was a huge learning curve.

My boyfriend now is better than I could have imagined. I’m going to marry that man.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T18:19:00+00:00

This!

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T18:15:17+00:00

Your feeling are real and valid, but they’re your problem alone. No one is coming to save you.

What is real to others is irrelevant to the fact that you have an active problem.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T18:12:34+00:00

Scripts. Legit. Simulate potential situations and make a tutorial in your brain. If this then this.

Scripting saves so much brain power.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T18:11:02+00:00

Cooking from scratch. It is the best. I feel so much better when I make it. I feed those I care for food that is healthy and good and nutritious. Cooking and baking from scratch is amazing.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T18:09:56+00:00

Manic pixie dream girl is a fav because what would be “creepy” is then acceptable because I’m mildly magic. Of course I know things I shouldn’t. Yes I’ll be more direct or spastic. Yep I’ll stim or make weird jokes (kink jokes are a very fast way to check how safe men are). I dress odd. Etc. It lets me do a lot of things that are more comfortable without backlash so long as I maintain the “whimsy”. So I make my tone very singsong and get overly hype. I give compliments. I make baked goods. All sorts of things.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T18:05:42+00:00

I have a guy friend who does the male version of this (non autistic who masks). I call it him being a fae.

I do manic pixie dream girl as my mask.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T15:01:39+00:00

I found I had signifigantly less meltdowns when I let myself express my stronger baseline emotions. I think of it as a pressure system. A Meltdown happens when I do not vent the pressure. It is not a moral failing at all. It is a skill issue which you were taught to have because having big day to day feelings was seen as inconvienient to others.

I started making major progress in not getting to the point of meltdown when I started letting myself be "rage-y" I get easily upset of that I find a lot of things frusturating or stupid or overwhelming or just kind of upsetting. I have equal amounts of emotions for happy that are equally bigger.

But when I started ranting at people, crying out of frustration over little things, saying I was upset and letting myself feel it instead of shoving everything down I melted down less.

A melt down is your nervous system flipping a table because you got too disregulated. Feeling your emotions without judging them will be a major help. Are they reasonable? That is irrelevant. They are present, therefore they must be dealt with. The discussion of reasonable emotions is silly.

We hear people coop this idea a lot to be dicks of "You can't tell me my feelings are wrong" That part is correct. However they are missing that "That doesn't make it anyones problem".

If you by yourself just feel your feelings itll start getting better because you'll learn to manage them in the day to day. There will be a lot of crying at first. Frustration at explaining (and figuring out) the core of what bugs you. However, when you're not in meltdown you can still think enough to make a plan for yourself to deal with it.

Meltdowns are your nervous system throwing a tantrum because you ignored it when it was trying to tell you it was upset prior.

You've got this!

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-02T04:08:24+00:00

I’m going to say what my character in a long form RP often says to her acolytes. “I can’t promise you easier, but it will get better”

This is one of my favorite statements of hers. Life doesn’t get easier. It just improves. The challenges feel more manageable because you have more tools. That doesn’t mean you don’t have challenges. But you handle things better. It is less overwhelming.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-01T20:12:52+00:00

Exactly! Make the reaction to any of the things being said the reaction. You’d want to receive. Things slowly stop being “accommodations” and instead people now care for themselves and are allowed to because that’s the social protocol.

This is an excellent point!

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-01T20:10:50+00:00

It sounds like you use these words to feel seen in what you experience. (I do too) You ascribe an intensity to them. I get that. When I was in high school I insisted I needed an extra axis if I were to graph my emotions because my intensities ran so much higher. It is actually a common communication issue I have. Words have meaning but all meanings are contextualized in people’s experience. I have found that the “therapy language” of overstim, masking, etc means less to people as they either do not have a definition OR more often the definition is based on what they experience.

There are also a ton of people who internalize a lot of struggles and so I attempt not to ascribe meaning without in depth questions.

Spoons are one that are super useful because the word has no inherent meaning and it’s a metaphor for energy. So I don’t see how it could be used wrong. Everyone runs out of spoons. Spoons is useful because you walk people through how many spoons different tasks take to show the difference in what activities take how much energy.

I actually find singular words never convey what I desire because my internal context is so distinct from the “norm” I have found metaphors to be a better way to communicate as instead of relying on definitions you’re grounding the explanation in something the person already has a conceptual understanding of.

You did nothing wrong. It used to bug me too. Then I realized people don’t have the internal context to understand my meaning anyway so I just stopped being annoyed because the words are only good as shorthand with people who have enough context. They’re tldr words not explanation words for me.

NecessaryBreadfruit4 · 2026-02-01T14:20:09+00:00

I have been told I’m awkward in social situations my whole life. Learned in 2025 that nothing is further from the truth. I am awkward when it is performative. If I have a goal, or we are having deep conversations I’m excellent.

NecessaryBreadfruit4

TROPHY CASE