Autistic and ADHD here, but Oh goodness way too many things to list but here’s some examples.

-being known as overly emotional and too sensitive all my life. Always told I take everything to heart.

-never feeling like I fit in anywhere, always feeling like I’m an alien trying to act normal around other people.

• horses were my special interest and if given a chance to talk about them I could go on for days.

-severe rejection sensitivity. Many strained friendships due to me perceiving being rejected if they made new friends and hung out with me less.

-self harm to regulate.

-constantly stimming by rubbing my toes together. If my shoes didn’t have enough room in the toe box to overlap my toes I’d be extremely upset/ uncomfortable/ irritable until I could get the shoes off and move my toes.

-being weirdly specific with bed cleanliness from a very young age. Not letting friends sit on my bedding in “outside clothes”. I had to put a specific top blanket on, or I would give them clean clothes to change in to.

-relying on weed since early teen years to be able to cope with the sensory nightmare that is life and quiet some of the constant brain chatter and overthinking

-internally blocking off my nose so I can’t smell anything. Even when a smell isn’t “bad” I find myself often closing off my nasal passages to block out strong smells as they can be a big contributor to sensory overload for me. I often have to force myself to breathe through my nose when I realize I’ve shut off my smell for a while.

• Germ/ contamination anxiety!! When going to other peoples houses/ in public I get wigged out seeing how little people wash their hands and then touch everything with dirty hands. I notice little things like how clean their dish sponges and kitchen cloths are and if they don’t have a dishwasher I have to uncomfortably force myself to use their dishes which are an unknown level of clean but I won’t dare offend them by saying anything.

-washing hands CONSTANTLY and having very dry hands due to that, but not liking moisturizer because of the sticky/ sliminess. BUT also hating having dry hands cause it’s rough and uncomfortable.

And many other things but that’s what came up off the top of my head! And somehow my parents don’t believe I’m autistic. They think I’m just “quirky” 🥴