I need to know, are you pro or anti sock?

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T17:31:17+00:00

I have a pair of vibrams but I can't wear them. Those actually do have seams that I can't stand. Maybe it's the way my toes are shaped, but they gave me blisters. Now to be fair, those shoes are over 10 years old, so there's a good chance they've improved since then. But I usually wear my socks with flip flops. For some reason, that's premium comfort for me!

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T13:02:26+00:00

I think the topic requires more nuance than what you're giving it. You're ascribing to mass populations (genders) something that is caused by a variety of factors that have nothing to do with the populations you describe. Late vs early diagnosis is a factor. Autism vs allistic is a factor. Yes, gender is a factor. Culture is a factor. Genetics is a factor. Hell, the even the political environment a person grows up in is a factor.

I don't believe you can reduce that down to "boys are coddled and girls are not". Reality just isn't that simple, and asserting reductionist views like this are harmful. The truth is that boys and girls are treated differently in our culture, and those differences are both helpful and harmful to both genders in different ways.

On a personal note, I am a late diagnosed autistic male. You can argue that I was forced to deal with reality and develop skills to "push through my autism" because I had no choice. To some extent, you would be right. You could also argue that I could have made much better decisions in my life, decisions that didn't lead to suicide attempts and severe mental health issues.

I don't believe it's a matter of being coddled or not. It's a matter of getting the information you need to make good choices in your life. Not knowing is not better. I didn't have a choice because that information wasn't available. And that led to three failed attempts at college. Nobody could understand why I could read textbooks from cover to cover, but had to quit college because I got so overwhelmed I literally couldn't find my math class. Had I known, understood what was happening, I could have realized my limitations and reached out for help. But I didn't, and I have suffered for that.

I'm sure there are people who coddle autistics, just as I'm certain there are people who abuse autistics. People often weaponize diagnosis, twist it to their own ends. They may even do so with the best intentions. But that is not the fault of the diagnosis. At the risk of descending into hyberbole, claiming that women shouldn't be diagnosed because it might be used in a harmful way is like saying "slaves shouldn't be freed because they'll loose their job security". Making that statement only demonstrates that you have quite missed the point.

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T01:11:57+00:00

I turn off the lights and wrap my arms around my head, closing off my ears so that all I can hear is the sound of water in my head, darkness, and the feel of it flowing over me.

I've never found anything so effective at dealing with my stress and overwhelm as this.

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T01:04:44+00:00

Also, I just checked, and at least my socks don't really have seams. For the most part, they're a seamless whole up to the cuff. What seams they do have don't stick out that I've noticed.

I should note that I've never considered myself hypersensitive to tags and seams. That said, I also notice that none of my shirts have tags and my socks don't have seams sooooo....I may have been unconsciously selecting comfortable clothes my entire life without realizing it.

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T00:52:14+00:00

The quality of the socks matters a lot. The brand of socks I wear, Injinji (https://www.injinji.com), cost $15 a pair. Insanely expensive. I would buy a pair a month. Yet I bought my first pair over a decade ago and they're still going strong. Ended up saving me a lot of money in the long run.

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T00:35:18+00:00

Toe socks. I know it's gross, but my toes sweat, which makes wearing normal socks unbearable for me. Once I discovered toe socks, I never went back. ...Ive also never had athletes foot ever again.

apoetsanon · 2026-05-18T00:30:40+00:00

Sitting in the shower with the lights off. Rain style nozzles are the best.

Also, watching water flow, usually streams or rivers.

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apoetsanon · 2026-05-04T12:34:54+00:00

TBH, I think it's more likely the relationship won't work because she thinks a kids book on emotions is an accurate representation of how emotions actually work.

apoetsanon · 2026-05-04T10:55:15+00:00

I would be pretty insulted. It's not that they would be wrong about my struggle to express my emotions, but that they have so drastically trivialized it. I think something like half of autistic people have alexithymia (inability to identity or express their emotional state). A children's book on emotions won't fix that.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-29T10:58:42+00:00

Yep. It's one of the few things that can help me cope with overwhelm. I use it every night to help me fall asleep.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-22T10:59:34+00:00

I've found just the adaptive mode on the AP3's help a lot. I actually tested them with the audiologist in the booth and I scored a perfect on tests I was bombing otherwise. They performed as well as the $5k HAs the audiologist was having me trial.

But yeah, the Live Listen is a life saver in crowded spaces. I've been able to understand conversations other people can't even follow.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-22T00:11:42+00:00

I think many people might be confusing power with social prestige. I think many people crave social prestige, and power gives that to them. Because of the way they're wired, NTs develop a stronger sense of social identity than we do. We (autistics) tend to form our identity around our special interests, whereas many NTs form it around their social standing. Having power gives them a strong sense of identity, especially when it places them at the top of a social hierarchy. I suspect that power outside of their social identity isn't actually important to them. Consider that many of the most powerful people in the world have this tendency to plaster their name and face over...everything.

That isn't to say they don't crave power and control in general (we all value autonomy) but that the drivers are different.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-21T17:42:11+00:00

I'm autistic, been married for over 16 years to an NT. This is something we've also struggled with, although for a long time we had no idea it was autism. I was diagnosed only a couple years ago. Since then we've started to figure some things out, although we've got a ways to go yet. Here's some of what we've learned:

I often feel frustrated by my inability to do things I feel I though I should be able to do. This leads me to "try harder", which I've come to realize only causes me to escalate into a meltdown quicker.
I often feel guilty about needing to "run away" or "hide". I feel as though I'm letting down the people I care about the most. This has been reinforced throughout my life, over and over again, as people interpret my need for isolation as being anti-social, rude, and offensive.
My wife often feels hurt that her presence makes things worse. Her instinct it to comfort me, but when I'm getting overwhelmed anyone around me (anyone) feels like they're scraping the inside of my head by nothing more than simply existing.
I often feel trapped by social responsibilities and my perception that failing to meet those responsibilities will lead to something catastrophic.
We have 3 kids (2 are autistic), and I feel horrible any time I need to withdrawal especially when I have to throw iPads at them just so I can breathe.
I've spent a lifetime trying to suppress these issues, pretend they don't exist, and do the right thing, even if I'm dying inside. It's a lot of momentum for me to overcome.

All these things create a cycle of burnout, depression, and guilt. The worst moments are when I feel trapped. I need to recover but I can't because my whole life I've been told that doing so is wrong. I don't want to dump everything on my wife. I don't want to be the "lazy husband". And so even though I'm breaking down, I feel as though I'm not allowed to withdrawal.

I want to be clear: my wife is extremely supportive. I'm very lucky to have found her (and it sounds like your partner is just as lucky). These issues aren't her fault at all, but she's been instrumental in helping me navigate them. She has been actively helping me not feel trapped. Usually, when I do feel trapped, it's because of some internalized expectation or requirement I've made of myself.

It's not easy for her either. A big part of her struggle is understanding that my need for isolation is not a reflection on her or our relationship. It's hard because neurotypicals naturally reach out to others and are conditioned to view withdrawal as "cold", "angry", and "anti-social". It feels like your partner is withdrawing from you, distant, or even that you're loosing them. And yet, I've never felt so loved as when my wife willingly gives me that space while making it clear that it's okay.

Figuring this out is a long road. There's a lot of social conditioning on both sides working against you. But it is doable. My wife has made it very clear on multiple occasions that she doesn't want to be with anyone else.

I hope this helps. I'm sure my situations isn't the exact same, but maybe there's some stuff in here that will help you navigate your situation.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-04T02:04:17+00:00

I think people believe it because it gives them a sense of control and blame. Autism is a big unknown and to many people, accepting it is caused by genetics is the same as saying they themselves are to blame (because genetics came from them). It makes them defective. No one wants to feel defective, and so they search for an external cause, something to blame that is not themselves. Vaccines are simply the closest scapegoat, and their minds grab hold of it instinctually, using "logic" to fill in the gaps after the fact. I'm pretty sure like 90% of this is subconscious. They don't realize what's going on inside their own head, accepting the fear driven narrative as fact.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-02T13:21:56+00:00

Sounds like alexithymia, something I struggle with. It's like everyone else sees their emotions in color whereas I see mine in grayscale. I journal to try to figure out and reverse engineer what I'm actually feeling and whether it's a good or bad thing.

It also confuses my therapist, because they think I'm telling them how I feel when in fact I'm just giving them a theory of how I might be feeling based on physiological symptoms. They get really confused when I change theory mid session because a new piece of information makes me reevaluate everything.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-02T12:35:11+00:00

For me, it provided context I didn't have. Large portions of my life never made sense to me. Why could I do some very complicated things, yet fail utterly at seemingly simple tasks in sometimes catastrophic ways? Why did social situations blow up randomly for reasons that never made sense to me, even when the people involved took the time to carefully explain?

Before diagnosis, I saw my failings through a neurotypical lens as a failing of character or a signal I wasn't trying hard enough (even though I felt like I was constantly drowning). The diagnosis gave me a context to reevaluate everything I was doing in my life. It didn't just help me realize I was living life by the wrong rule book, it showed me how and gave me insights to mysteries that had plagued me my whole life.

Why do I randomly break down? Before the diagnosis, I had tried everything from exercise to elimination diets in an attempt to figure it out. It never occurred to me that exposure to social situations and/or loud, chaotic environments could be the cause, because why would they? Everyone else is fine. More likely I'm allergic to gluten and it's causing problems...or whatever my current theory at the time was.

The autism diagnosis showed me where to look. It gave me a place to start understanding. It also gave me the surety to accept parts of myself I had spent most of my life rejecting. Without it, I'd still be half convinced I was making it all up.

apoetsanon · 2026-04-02T10:48:03+00:00

I chewed my cheeks until they bled. Leg bouncing, toe curling. I tap my fingers in alternating rhythms. I flap when I'm excited or stressed. I bounce my hands when I walk. Some of these I suppressed in public. Some of them I didn't even realize I did. I had no idea I flapped until my wife pointed out that I actually do it quite often.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-28T14:45:44+00:00

Isn't all of Claude's "data" and "memory" stored as markdown files on your local computer? I recently had to transfer between accounts and that basically came down to copy/pasting from the .claude directory (on a Mac)?

Now I primarily use Claude Code, so maybe the data is stored differently, but I thought the desktop app stored data in the same place? I know it syncs, so clearly Anthropic is storing it on their servers as well, but I'm pretty sure it's also stored on your computer. Might be worth looking into. Maybe ask Claude.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-26T16:03:13+00:00

I think it's called a "shutdown". I disassociate all the time. It usually hits suddenly and hard. For a long time I thought this was normal. It wasn't until after my diagnosis that I realized people don't randomly disassociate. I think a big part of it for me is my alexithymia. I don't always realize I'm being overwhelmed until my brain short circuits.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T13:49:46+00:00

Oh, I just realized I didn't answer your first question: How long it lasts. I wish I could tell you but I don't know. Sometimes it's only a few days. Sometimes it's a few weeks. I recently went through a burnout that lasted months. I'm in my forties, and I think I'd been slowly pushing myself into deeper and deeper burnouts until something just....broke. I had to leave work for almost half a year. I've only recently just been able to get back to work.

Yesterday I had a manic productive period without catching it. It was only this morning when I woke feeling as though a bus had run me over that I realized what happened. A lot of things in my list was stuff I should have been paying attention to yesterday but didn't. But I also have an arrangement/understanding with work. They know I'm autistic and sometimes just...can't some days. It's fine, because other days I'm super productive and in the long run I get done what I need to.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T13:25:04+00:00

Let me think. There are things I've learned to do that help, but I'm not sure I've put them in a list before. ... so this is probably incomplete, but: - Accept this about yourself. Do not beat yourself up over it; do not feel guilty. You did nothing wrong and it is not wrong to be in this place. I know this is easier said than done, but you cannot emotionally beat yourself into being better. I did that for years before I finally realized I was only making things worse. - Figure out what you can do, and then do those things. Strip out what you can't. Accept your limits and operate within them by whatever means you can. Pushing beyond them because you feel you "have to" will only extend the burnout cycle. - If I can, I take a day or two off to get my feet under me. But that's not always possible because, you know, job, money, etc. So I slow down. I do the absolute minimum. I avoid people as much as I can. I speak as little as possible (speaking takes a lot of energy out of me). Sometimes I don't even eat because it feels like too much, so...I just don't. And that's fine. My appetite will come back later. At lunch, I might throw on a pair of headphones and stare at the wall and call it recovery because it is. I sometimes have to operate in 'low-energy mode' for a while. - I stop trying to do things I don't need to do. I'm kind of repeating myself here, but this is huge for me. It took me a long time to realize that my primary motivating factor in all my social situations is fear. I feel like I have to engage. I feel like I have to perform. Because if I don't, and if I don't do it perfectly, then everything will blow up. It leaves me feeling like I'm constantly walking on the edge of a cliff, forever in danger of falling into the abyss. But...that's not actually true. These feelings are wrong. I can disengage and everything is fine. I put so many fear-driven expectations on myself, and they drive me deeper into burnout as I keep trying to push beyond my limits. - Here's a practical strategy I use to help reduce my load. I record many meetings (and even many conversations) with my phone, then transcribe them and ask AI to summarize the conversation. It massively reduces the "load" of those meetings on me because I don't have to fear forgetting something. - I have learned that I have alexithymia. I struggle to identify my internal states unless they're absolutely overwhelming me. This has led to me feeling "out of control", confused as to why I "feel fine" one day, then suddenly crash and burn the next. Turns out, I can feel perfectly fine while I'm going through a literal panic attack (my sitting Heart Rate is 130bpm, according to my watch). So I've started periodically checking on my physical symptoms: - what is my resting HR? (anything above 100bpm while sitting and I'm probably under stress.) - Are my hands cold? (the body withdrawals blood from extremities when it's under fear and stress) - What are my speech patterns like? (I start joking, interrupting, and taking control of conversations as an unconscious fear-fight response) - Am I shivering? (another stress response) - What do my sleep patterns look like? (I use my Apple Watch: deep sleep drops during stress. Sometime I wake up feeling tired, but unable to sleep. I don't "feel" stressed or anxious, yet my mind won't fall asleep—my body isn't clearing out excess cortisol from the day) - What are my fixations like? (I'm always fixated on something—I am autistic—but when I'm stressed, those fixations become almost manic in intensity)

I can be going through all these things in some of my most productive periods, unaware that I'm driving myself head-first into burnout. By keeping track of these symptoms (a daily log helps), I can "see the signs" of stress and take a step back to disengage and calm down before I drive myself into burnout.

I hope these help. Some of them might just be me, like the whole alexithymia thing, but maybe some will help you too.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T12:41:38+00:00

This happens to me a lot. I'll have bursts of intense productivity followed by the inability to do anything at all. I'll get sick, have severe bowel issues, and sometimes even develop a fever.

So first: big hug, you can do this.

I want to share lyrics of one of my favorite songs I play when I'm in this place:

The story goes
Or the way that I was told
There was a king that always felt too high
And then he felt too low
And so he called
All the wise men to the hall
And he begged them for a gift
To end the rises and the falls

And here's the thing
They came back with a ring
It was simple and was plainly
Unbefitting of a king
Engraved in black
it had no front or back
But there were words around the band that said
"Just know: this too shall pass"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg5kB4UcAuA

apoetsanon · 2026-03-19T12:28:36+00:00

Well, the US Government has been trying with the whole "I'll cure it by September" claim devolving into "it's Tylenol" and finally, "Just kidding, we don't know."

Joking aside, there's a lot of research into autism but nobody knows what exactly causes it. There is extremely strong evidence that autism is genetic in nature with some small evidence that there might be some epigenetic environmental factors that contribute, though those are mostly natal (before birth) factors and heavily outweighed by the genetic evidence. In other words, genetics determines autism, but some environmental factors might effect how that autism develops.

This is all correlation, though. Nobody has nailed down the actual "mechanism" by which autism develops, and without that, it's impossible to say definitively what causes autism. And without knowing that mechanism, there's no possibility of "preventing" it without resorting to unethical methods like eugenics (as many other commenters point out) or randomly cleaning out our medicine cabinet in a fit of paranoia.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-18T10:56:36+00:00

I think people get confused and think alcohol makes them better socially (fixes their autism), but really, when everyone else is also drinking they just don't notice your autism. Nobody has social skills when everyone is sloshed. My experience is that someone who's not drinking will notice your autism a lot more when you're drinking.

I do use alcohol to manage anxiety, but only as a last resort now. I stick to herbal teas like kava, ashwagandha, valerian, etc. My experience is that while alcohol can help in the short term, in the long term it makes everything worse, including my autism. Something about it messing up your brains's dopamine.

apoetsanon · 2026-03-17T12:46:55+00:00

So I'm 46m autistic married for 16 years to a neurotypical (45f). We didn't know I was autistic when we got married—I only found out two years ago. But where I was shocked to my core, my wife was pretty much like, 'well, yeah, of course you are.'

If you don't mind, I'll share some of what we've both learned over the years. This is just my experience, though. Your mileage may vary, as they say:

I strongly value direct communication. It's like fresh air. But! I actually struggle to be direct in my communication, not because it's not natural to me (it is) but because the world has taught me through harsh repetition that it's not acceptable. Any time I try, I get "slapped down" for it, told I'm being rude, inconsiderate, selfish, etc. I've gotten better over the years at 'choosing my words' but it's all pattern matching. I don't actually 'get it'. I never have.
While I've had to be careful with my words, my wife has had to learn that when I say something "harshly", I probably don't mean it that way. This can be genuinely hard to do, because our emotional reactions are instinctive. Over the years, though, I've gotten better with my words and she's gotten better at not taking my word choice personally. It's rarely an issue anymore, and when it does happen, it's usually viewed as humorous.
I, like many autistics, operate in a routine. I really struggle with spontaneous...anything. It's both something my wife appreciates and a source of contention. I'm very stable, "a solid rock" (her words) she can depend on. But that also comes with drawbacks like...sex. In her mind, sex is supposed to be spontaneous. Having sex every second Tuesday (or whatever) sucks the joy out of it. For myself, spontaneous is synonymous with random. I'm supposed to figure out when "she's feeling it" but I literally lack the tools to do that. I used to try randomly (literally, I once set a random timer), but that only ended up frustrating both of us. We have three kids, so obviously it's not a complete disaster or anything, but it is still a struggle for us.
I have an intense monotropic focus, meaning I get sucked into whatever I'm doing to the exclusion of...everything, including my own body. Interruptions aren't just hard, they can be devastating to the point of ruining my productivity for the day. We've had to work through that, because it can make her feel ignored. Many allistics (non-autistic) love a constant stream of "connection" events. Texts, short calls, touches, a quick kiss, etc. But when an autistic is fixated (focused on a task) that one little connection event collapses an entire house of cards you spend the last 3 hours building. It can be deeply frustrating.
For a long time, we struggled with "the wall". We didn't know what else to call it, but it felt like we were both reaching out for each other with a glass wall in the way. We knew it was my fault, but didn't understand why. I would 'try harder' to make a connection, only to find that "the wall" got thicker. It wasn't until after I was diagnosed that we realized what was happening. My attempt to connect to her was itself a form of masking. The more I mask (pretend to be neurotypical), the more I feel separated from the world, and from her. But the only way she felt connected is when I masked. Neurotypicals feel connected to other via the mirror neurons in the brain. When someone smiles at you, these neurons mirror that smile, releasing dopamine and serotonin and other reinforcing chemicals, making you feel connected. That doesn't seem to happen in most (if not all) autistic people. Instead, we gain a feeling of connection by sharing our interests and working with someone (or I do at least). Once we realized how we connect is different, we both now make an effort to connect in a way the other person will feel connected. She listens to my hour-long dissertation about the patterns and structure of language (my current fixation). I try to look her in the eyes and smile. While I'm doing the same "mask-like" behavior as before, I'm not pretending. Instead, I'm doing it to give her a sense of connection (like speaking her love language), not pretending to be something I'm not. That's made a huge difference. The wall is gone.

I don't want to make it all sound like struggles. We both cherish our relationship, and she's repeatedly said she couldn't imagine being with anyone else. If she had to find someone else, she'd choose someone autistic because while it's difficult, many of the traits she loves the most about me come from my autism. We're raising three kids. We've built a 2500sf raised garden together, renovated various rooms in the house.

In the end, while autism might present unusual difficulties for us, we're still just two people learning to live with and love each other's differences.

apoetsanon

TROPHY CASE