I experience meltdowns, shutdowns, and something called Flooding which not many people have heard about.

I thought I'd start this thread by sharing some info on Flooding. Flooding is similar to a meltdown but in my experience, they are more interpersonal instead of being triggered by sensory stimuli, burnout, or exhaustion and frustration. They usually begin with some type of conflict involving another person, but spiral into emotional dysregulation.

In my opinion meltdowns, shutdowns, and floods all have the common denominator of starting with triggers. It's a bit of an oversimplification to say that a person is "triggered" without acknowledging that people can have different reactions to triggers, involving emotional upset and anger (flooding), anxiety (panic attacks), overload (shutdowns), and cumulative sensory hypera…

The vague title might make this seem weird to be put in the "General ASD" section, but I'm wondering specifically what kind of pets you guys prefer and if you think your preference correlates with your autism at all. I always hear people compare cat behaviour with autism, and that autistic people like to have cats, but I feel like with how much of a "spectrum" ASD is that there's probably a wide range of pets that autistics can handle having.

So, what kind of pet do you prefer having, and why do you think your autism influences that? If you don't like having a pet at all, please still explain why your autism influences that decision. This also isn't limited to dogs and cats. Rodents, reptiles, and other pets are included.

I actually prefer to have dogs as pets over cats. I like them because of how active they are, an…

I'm a mixture of both, hypo and hyper sensitive, this is an area can be commonly experienced with ASD and ADHD.

For a long time I didnt consider that I was autistic, I thought I was ADHD type 2, with SPD.

I'm mostly hyper-sensitive like with lights and sounds mainly and tastes/smells to a lesser extent.

The sensitivity levels go off the charts when I'm anxious though. Tiredness or illness seem to increase the sensitivity too.

Hypo-sensitive to pain in general. Also to touch normally, but whe…

I am ready to tear my hair out over my impaired executive functioning. Before I realized I was autistic, I didn't know why I had such a difficult time setting priorities and all the sub-priorities and categories and how to get things done. Now that I understand executive dysfunction better I can see that it is probably the most influential and integral contribution to my daily problems that clog up my head and get my anxiety and loss of self-esteem going.

I suspect that in earlier days I got by just on tons of energy and excitement and commitment to what I wanted to do. But now I am older and I don't seem to have the energy for all that. And I also think the dysfunction is getting worse. At least, it isn't getting better.

So, the overarching problem over the past year or two has been: I can get my work done (at least mostly) OR I can do…

A few months ago I started to look at how change impacts on me...

Anticipating it is the most difficult part, it becomes worse in my mind than it usually turns out to be, this is normally followed by a low mood and I have this standard reaction every time.

Since I started to be more aware of this reaction I have noticed my anxiety levels and the overwhelmed feelings have reduced as has the low mood, its still there, but more manageable. I try not to think about the change until I have to and that's helped by lessening the time I spend overthinking every detail…

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and honestly started to ask myself if it really exists at all.

I've only heard the term while learning about autism, from what I understand, it's supposed to be something that NTs are able to do instinctively.

But this hasn't been my experience with people at all, and I'm talking about the way "normal" people react towards each other, not those on the spectrum.

First, most seem incapable to relate to experiences they never had themselves: this often leads to terrible advice or being very judgemental. While many seem to understand for instance that people can want different things in life or have different values, preferences and desires, a lot don't seem to process this at an emotional level and would often see others' choices as invalidating their own or even as offensive, abnormal…