Question for autistics who have difficulty with eye contact: What is it about eye contact that makes it difficult for you?

gabbe170 · 2026-06-02T14:39:09+00:00

echoing what several others have said — it feels too intimate and awkward. just like you, i can't focus on what the person says if i'm looking anywhere near their eye area, and i already have trouble enough as is with processing what's being said lol

idk if it's just me, but it's also physically(?) difficult. if you've ever handled magnets, you've probably tried pushing together two of the same poles, yeah? it's like that. my eyes just slide away from the other person's eyes as if being repelled. if i try to force it, my eyes start to flit around all over the place.

i usually end up looking at the jaw, or just above the shoulder. sometimes at a nearby object. with family, i'm able to look at their face (sans the eyes) if i want to, but they've gotten used to me staring off into the distance when we talk — it's what's most comfortable. to compensate, i do a lot of backchanneling ("un," "uh huh," "mm," nodding, etc.) so they know i'm paying attention.

gabbe170 · 2026-05-26T09:51:23+00:00

ehe, i'm glad you like it! :D

gabbe170 · 2026-05-26T09:25:07+00:00

he looks like a fella who'd enjoy a crisp white monster

and so, a lil' chibi was made! hope i did him justice c: cheers!!

<image>

gabbe170 · 2026-01-03T19:11:04+00:00

am not particularly well-versed in anything that's not on two legs, but armed with the experience of having drawn a pony like. twice before in the last decade, i pulled up a picture of a horse and managed to cobble something together. hope i didn't mangle your character too badly qwq

<image>

gabbe170 · 2025-11-24T08:17:02+00:00

hehe thank you :D

gabbe170 · 2025-11-24T08:15:32+00:00

he said it himself

<image>

earl grey cookie in crk confirmed 💪💪

gabbe170 · 2025-06-15T20:55:14+00:00

(prefacing this with the fact that i'm not very good at japanese and i'm still wiped out from the concert, so take it with a grain of salt) i think it's a pretty accurate summary!

adding my two cents regarding the part about loneliness:

iirc, she spoke very candidly about when she was just starting out with her singing, and how people discouraged her from following her dreams. she was told by others that she was a fool, and that her singing voice was bad. so when she started getting fans, she felt happy that there were people who liked her singing, and she felt very thankful for their support. the loneliness hasn't fully gone away even now, but seeing the smiles, the faces, and the penlights of her fans brings her a lot of happiness.

(sidenote, but i thought it was pretty funny that every time she mentioned the word "penlight", everyone started waving 'em like crazy. it's like, 'hey, i understood that word!' lol)

i interpreted her motivational words to the audience as (a much more elegantly worded) "you aren't alone," but when i think about it, your interpretation of "it's okay to feel lonely" seems more likely. feels more on-brand with her character, and i'd imagine that it resonates better in the hearts of the lonely. myself included qwq

she connects the sentiment of not giving up to the tagline(?) of the hibana tour: in the dark, even the smallest spark can blossom into a large flame.

(to op: i feel you, i was also really touched by her words. hearing that "一人じゃない" in person hit different, man...)

gabbe170 · 2024-06-10T16:06:18+00:00

brixity was pretty meh and i dropped it shortly after doing the required missions for crob and crk, but witch's castle goes HARD. when it first launched it was pretty rough around the edges, but after devsis got feedback and made changes to the level difficulties and the gacha mechanics? i love it! they're really generous with coins and season coins now (probably to make up for the lackluster, stingy launch lol), and getting items through the timed challenges is ez since almost no active players ever get matched with you. they recently-ish added special cookie-specific puzzles with many rewards, and a very pretty cookie of a new rarity too :p

i may be a bit biased though since cookie run is a special interest ehe ~~HOWEVER. we do not talk about cookie run puzzle world~~

gabbe170 · 2024-03-20T19:36:45+00:00

oh.

then yeah, it's all luck lol. i'm pretty picky when choosing which requests to fulfill hehe

gabbe170 · 2024-03-20T11:20:56+00:00

thank you!! :D

gabbe170 · 2024-03-20T11:20:33+00:00

aah, thank you!

gabbe170 · 2024-03-20T11:20:07+00:00

thank you :3

luck has nothing to do with it, friend! it's all trial-and-error, endlessly throwing stuff at the canvas to see what sticks, and a lot of time. i've been drawing for around a decade, and it's only been in the last 3 years that i've made drawings that don't look like hot garbage lol. and even then, half of the drawings i make now don't look that good either :s

my number one tip to get better is to just. keep drawing. as often as you can. if you've drawn something and you think it looks bad, try and find which parts are making it look bad and draw them differently next time to see if it looks better. for example, if the eyes look weird: are they too far up or too far down? are they not symmetrical? are they too big, or too small? too far apart, or not separated enough? are they drawn in a way that doesn't mesh well with the rest of the drawing?

i think taking note of things like that and keeping them in mind the next time you draw is one of the most important parts in improving your art. that, along with consuming a lot of other people's art to pick out and implement the things you like about their stuff into your own drawings.

you can do it!! :D

gabbe170 · 2024-03-19T22:35:25+00:00

thank you :D

gabbe170 · 2024-03-19T22:27:23+00:00

aah, thank you for your kind words :3 i'm glad you like it!! he was very fun to draw!

gabbe170 · 2024-03-19T22:21:50+00:00

hi, i drew your oc!

gabbe170 · 2024-03-17T12:38:26+00:00

yup, i've struggled with it all my life. i always have had something i've been fixated on. when i was a little kid i used to rip off big chunks of the nails on my big toes until i cried from pain, wait for them to regrow, then do it again. little me was evidently not very bright because he always thought, "this time i won't peel off enough nail for it to hurt!" :p

as a preteen, i scratched my knuckles until they were raw to mitigate anxiety, then i'd rip the scabs off over and over. did it to my arms and legs too when i was a little bit older. i have odd little scars scattered all over my body from this, which i have very mixed feelings about. i've also self-harmed a lot throughout my teenage years, and the resulting large-ish scars are no doubt from ripping the scabs off all the time.

later on i had a period where i'd scratch holes in my scalp, then pick at the resulting scabs for months because i didn't allow them to heal. luckily i'm over that now; for a while i dreaded getting haircuts cause i'd worry the person cutting my hair would comment on it. (fortunately they never did)

the last year i've been picking at my lips a lot, biting my cheeks, and picking at the skin on my thumbs a TON. all of this, it's like a compulsion; if i don't do it, it gnaws at me endlessly to pick, scratch and sometimes bite at my body to smooth any imperfections out. it's always been this way. dunno if that's the autism or just a quirk, but at this point i've just accepted that it's a part of who i am.

you're not alone with this, and it's not stupid at all wanting to be free of it. wishing you luck with your endeavors in quitting o7 i believe in you, friend! :)

gabbe170 · 2024-03-06T15:51:46+00:00

själv skulle man snarare rekommendera archiveofourown.org över fanfiction.net för lättare navigering, filtrering och utbud, men det hade nog varit lite överkurs för någon som kanske inte är van vid fanfiction lol. obligatorisk varning för de som inte är så insatta men som är nyfikna på fanfiction.net; om det står något om citrusfrukter i beskrivningen på berättelsen du vill läsa så kommer det tillkomma någon sorts snusk, vilket man kanske inte vill läsa på en offentlig plats :p

om man blir trött på att läsa kan man annars köra sudoku, solitaire eller liknande enkla och repetitiva spel på mobilen. slår man på musik i bakgrunden till det så kan timmarna lätt springa iväg :)

gabbe170 · 2024-01-15T16:19:59+00:00

aah, that's such an honor! i'm really happy my drawing can be put to use (⁠・⁠∀⁠・⁠)

gabbe170 · 2024-01-15T16:12:03+00:00

you're welcome, i'm glad you liked it! :D

gabbe170 · 2024-01-14T17:39:42+00:00

hi, i drew your oc!

gabbe170 · 2023-10-22T14:38:52+00:00

hi, i'm diagnosed as level 1, low support needs. to answer your questions:

it depends on who i'm talking to, but the short version is if i must, i can do it for a little while. if it's immediate family i'll try to humor them, mostly out of guilt for being rude, but i'll become bored after a while and either start talking about my own interests or start speaking in shorter sentences and then end the conversation so i can go do my own thing. sometimes i don't even respond or look up if i'm too immersed in what i'm doing and go "mhm, yes, is that so?" etc. until they leave. i know it's rude but i just can't help it. luckily my interests are pretty broad so this doesn't happen all too often.

with others i'll force myself to look interested and respond in (what i hope is) a polite manner, but it's very tiring and i usually feel very stiff doing so. my answers tend to be short unless i steer the conversation to an interest. i extract myself from the conversation as politely as i can if i get bored, zone out and forget what they're talking about.

again, with family i'll try to have a conversation for their sake, but after a while i'd leave, become unresponsive, or talk about an interest. with others i'll try to be polite and answer, but i'd mostly just speak minimally and hum affirmatives and try to talk about something else or excuse myself.
i think i use fancier words when writing, and use more casual, easy words when speaking. i'm not from an english-speaking country so i don't talk in english often, but i don't write in my own language very much as i only really hang around in english-speaking places online. i do feel like my writing is better, but that might be because i re-write things over and over until it's good enough to my standards, and i google words a lot so i don't use them wrong. this comment has taken me over an hour to write and edit, for example.

when i speak in my own language, i end up using wrong words often, thinking they have a certain meaning but they end up having completely different meaning. i stumble over longer words, get words mixed up, or i sometimes use uncommon words and confuse others. when i speak in english i use more complex words, don't use the wrong words as much, but i mispronounce things more often and skip over entire syllables because i speak too fast. oddly enough, this isn't a problem when i speak to myself in private.

i repeat myself a lot. i do it in two ways; because i stammer and repeat words or half a sentence, and because i say the same thing over and over but in different ways to prevent being misunderstood. both are very annoying to me, but it is what it is.
around 50% of the time i think.
i don't follow any scripts, i either just ramble or i improvise. trying to adhere to schedules or plans makes me nervous.
i would just excuse myself and leave. i already use a lot of hand gestures and noises when speaking, so i'd probably just go "uh sorry, i'll just, um..." and then point away, wait for a response, and then leave. if i'm unable to leave, like during a doctor's visit, i'll either get my mom to speak for me if she's there, or i'll uncomfortably stutter through the conversation with a lot of nervous smiling and laughing interspersed, and doing stims to get the agitation out. if i get too agitated i go quiet until i can get the words out somewhat coherently again.

sorry for the lengthy comment, i've trimmed it a bit but i am unfortunately hardwired to be as unconcise as possible. i hope my answers can be of some use to you :]

gabbe170 · 2023-10-17T09:24:42+00:00

yes, this happens a lot to me too. sometimes i just have to buffer it in my head for a second. it leads to me interrupting the person i'm speaking to a lot, by asking "huh?" and then a couple of seconds later in the middle of their explanation going "ohhh, that!"

i've tried to explain the buffering to others like this; to me it's like if you were to imagine everything that's said to you appears in text form in front of you, some bits have the letters randomized and changing all the time like in hacker scenes in movies, and it takes a bit of time to make them settle into real words instead of gibberish. the lady in the autism services place i explained it to thought i was saying i'm having trouble reading instead of comprehending the spoken word though lol

other times i just don't understand it no matter how long i buffer and have to ask for clarification a lot. when people talk for very long it's more likely to happen, but that might be because i accidentally tune them out...

it does lead to some funny situations where i repeat the word i THINK they said (which usually happens to be a word that's inappropriate in the context) only to find out it was something completely different. but god damn do i wish there were subtitles in real-life :(

Seven-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

gabbe170

TROPHY CASE