Hey, fwiw I used to self medicate with pot every day. A bowl or three in the morning to wake up, then constantly throughout the day. Also used to drink when pot wasn’t available. I was running away from gendershit. But also I’m autistic and ADHD and get overwhelmed easily. My life has gotten a lot better since I got on stimulant medication. It is literally the thing that makes me functional.

dials the world down from an 11 to a 6

This is going to sound counterintuitive and may not be applicable to you, cause I’m dealing with adhd, but stimulants make me less overstimulated, in a weird counterintuitive way.

I don’t know what my own fucking interests are. I’ve recently finally gotten to a place where I can actually afford to be alive, and now I just don’t know who the fuck I am.

Pick an interest. Literally anything. You don’t have to be interested in it even. Mildly enjoy being in nature? Start researching trails around you and try to go for hikes. Enjoy making things? Find something useful to make and make it. Hell make duct tape wallets and embrace inner child stuff! Or make jewelry, or take up clothing repair and patching. Remember that something bringing you joy means it has use, its use might not be the finished product, its use might be that you enjoy the process of it, so the joy is the use cause you deserve that joy. I can’t stress enough it doesn’t matter if you’re “interested” in a thing. If it makes you a little bit happy, or if its something you think is cool, do it!

The other day I stood there for like three minutes while a manager had a conversation with another vendor and I just stood there awkwardly.

This is me… Literally. This is me.

therapy

I mean, therapy can be helpful for stuff like people pleasing, but it won’t make the world better for autistic people. It just makes us able to address it better and gives us more tools to work around it.

Also, do these things normally get worse as you get older. I believe I mask extremely well, but is there a point where things fall apart. Or am I just more aware of the things that make me feel this way.

The more I de-mask, the harder it is to mask. The more aware I am of how I’m masking, the more difficult it becomes. Its really hard. And I try so hard to be normal. This makes total sense to me that as you get older it gets harder. Idk if its true, but it makes sense to me.

I will say: ceasing all regular drug use besides what has been readily identified to help (stimulants, a2 agonists, and hrt) has really helped me. Pot helps, but it also hurts me and makes me anxious and paranoid. Alcohol is fun, but it makes it hard to function. Etc. Using them now and again is fine for me. but needing to drink before walking out the door, or smoke a bowl before doing anything, it didn’t make me better, it hid the bits that were broken and painful. It hid them and they got worse in their solitude. That’s just me tho, idk if that’s what’s going on for you.

within 420 km