In Germany? :o

As a diagnosed German I can tell you not much changes, there’s virtually no therapy for adult autistics. I understand why your doc said that.

Though there was one large benefit for me and it’s that after we applied for disability the Arbeitsamt got much more lenient with me and was actually useful in helping me find a job.

In the end, if you can’t let go, seek the diagnosis, if not, take from autistic communities whatever little tricks help you, discard what doesn’t and call it a day. Much less trouble :)

“Hey, it’s me, Amazon. I noticed you recently bought a fridge! Here’s five more fridges for you to look at, on case you need to complete your fridge selection!”

Like. Why?!

I love it, Ty!

I’m an outsider “looking in”, so to say, as in I met quite a few people attending a local Waldorf-School near where I went to school. I always felt a lot of them were a little out of touch with the real world, not quite prepared for how things are outside. Very sheltered and… For lack of a better word, dreamy? It felt like they hadn’t learned some of the fundamentals of science but focused a lot on soft stuff instead.

It’s hard to put into words since those are impressions of a pretty judgemental teenager x) and stored in a different language than English since my english back then was still pretty bad.

But their education seemed to lack real preparation for anything but social sciences. It’s been a while, though, maybe it has changed by now.

I think Chinese and Korean culture share this concept, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more Asian languages who did. Since a daughter joins her husband’s family upon marriage, their children are considered belonging to the other family. I recently learner that apparently there’s a saying in Korean that daughters always leave things at their mother’s house when they get married so they have a reason to come back despite having left the family.

That is so cool! Are there any theories as to why elephants have grown so big when one of the closest relatives is so small?

Fun fact: I had to look up what a shrew is, since I’m not a native speaker. It turns out in my native tongue the name has mouse in it, despite shrews not being mice!

That’s so interesting! I didn’t expect convergent evolution to happen so often, I always thought it was a huge accident when that happens. Are there specific areas where it happens more often or is it combletely random?

Are all reptiles dinosaurs, or did reptiles and dinosaurs have a more distant common ancestor? I often heard things like chickens are the distant cousins of t rex or crocodiles are living dinosaurs. How much truth is there to that?

Yes, please!

Not culturally dense, but absolutely unwilling to consider cultures outside their bubble other than as mere curiosities for entertainment. I stand by that.

Not unable to learn a new layout, but unwilling, because I don’t see the point. Why would I waste time and energy on something that will at most bring me one more shortcut to use? Programming is not about typing speed. If the bottleneck for you is typing speed, your job is very different than anything I’ve seen or heard of.

I have never seen anyone but my computer-illiterate mom use two fingers for ctrl-z, hence I was expressing my bewilderment about that. I’ll probably be able to do that move blind with one hand, and so are all of the people I know who use the computer in a professional setting. The only explanation I had for that was that they have exceptionally small hands so it’s a necessity. If you want to take that as an insult of your hands, be my guest, but I’m done here.

Wtf, who needs two hands for that? Do they have children’s hands?

It’s all a matter of habit - for me all layouts but my native sucks for anything to do on a keyboard. The only thing that sucks is if keybinds are set to shift-/ because / is already shift-7. I haven’t found a replacement for that yet. Forgot which program used that and for what, but I remember it was a bummer. Still wouldn’t spend all that time and energy and slowdown learning a different layout.

There’s lots of programmers on languages that need more keys readily than us keyboard has. Äöüß, just to give an example.

I don’t know, every time I read a post like this I’m kinda speechless. I know lots of Americans and many of them are brillant and open-minded, but then there are posts like this which are completely oblivious that there are reasons for other keyboard layouts.

The reason OP can’t fathom programming on those is that they aren’t used to it. If you grew up with non-us layouts you similarly couldn’t fathom programming on the us layout.

Sometimes I feel like people refuse to even think about acknowledging that there are other experiences than their own. Go out, try out new things, exercise your brain and callenge yourself.

Ahhh, that makes more sense. Yeah, when it comes to food atm I generally listen to my body even though it may be not the healthiest option. My main reasons are 1) that I believe you typically crave the nutrition your body desires and 2) it’s a “pick your battles” situation.

If you try to change everything at once cause you’re fed up and decided your life needs to finally get back on track after an eternity of slacking, you’re setting yourself up to fail. I know, I’ve failed umpteenth times that way 😔

So I decided what area to focus on and in those areas I’m like the first officer who offers commentary to the captain when the captain makes a decision (cause captain is impulsive and often doesn’t even ask for comments before making that decision). I’ve fould a way to “phrase it” that makes the captain consider things I say and sometimes we change course.

Food/weight is not among the areas I’m actively involved in right now cause my energy is just not enough to change my eating habit while fighting my other habits. I’m still trying to keep it within boundaries that I decided on first, so I’ll detail the compromise that I made with myself below. If that bores you, feel free to skip :) Most of it involves reasoning with myself, though, which I also like to frame as compromising with the inner child. I guess I just think of my impulsivity as someone to reason with, and you win some, you loose some?

I work in IT and sit a lot, though, so if I constantly crave chocolate I do question myself if this is just one of the following three:

• being bored. You wouldn’t believe how often I just go open the fridge not out of hunger, but of boredom! I trained myself to always focus on my stomach when I open the fridge door and see if , I’m actively hungry before I decide anything
• I’m so frustrated with something that chocolate/something sweet is needed to regulate my mood
• this is is one of the moments where evolution has trained me to scream “sweet stuff! This is a rare treat! You cannot ignore this gift from the gods!” Because sugar is so rich in energy and that was really important in the stone age where you used a lot.

Being bored and the sweet stuff moments I go, well, this is not a healthy reason to snack, what can I do instead? With frustration I more often than not give in.

Oh, interesting. To me it doesn’t feel like orders, more like nagging? And the more I say no the more I want it. After I was able to afford things, my impulse buying went way down, because I didn’t instantly think “no”, but instead went “I could. But then I would use it once, and it would be in the way for the rest of my life, and it’s a hassle” and all of a sudden thinking about the consequences makes me go “you know, maybe I don’t need it after all…”

I encountered the concept in therapy, no idea where it comes from, but it just feels right to me :)

When I read your comment the first time and saw the “respectfully” I thought, wow, you are more polite than I have been x) it made me chuckle to see you reconsider (rightfully, in my opinion).

Edit: forgot a word

Yeah, I found the concept of the inner child very helpful. I think because of my upbringing I got disconnected from this and now I’m trying to not act yowards my inner child like my parents acted with me, but instead with love and patience and convincing instead of forcing. The more I do that, the easier it gets and the more cooperative the inner child becomes, because it is heard and believed and that is the basic for compromise imho.

More like sweettalking it? Like, brain is impulsive and wants instant gratification, and I’m like, “but if we finish this before, we could have this!” since I’m trying to set up my life in a way that I can coax my impulses into something productive.

I don’t think my brain tells me much wrong shit. More like “wouldn’t it be fun to tip this precariously stacked thing over and watch the chaos unfold…?” But I usually have a pretty good handle on this x)

I guess it’s more setting up everything so the impulses go a productive way instead of them scattering. And bribing the brain x)

As someone diagnosed after much fighting in my thirties who still has every new doc trying to tell me I can’t have it: fuck you. People like you are the reason no one believes the people who are skilled in masking because they got abused enough as kids so they don’t even knowwho they are underneath the mask.

I feel like the more you understand how your brain works, the more you learn how to work around it.

Full disclosure: I’m not diagnosed, but on a waitlist for ADD - for over a year now and it’s not moving, but I digress. I am diagnosed with autism though.

To me it feels like my brain is a wildwater. You can’t control it, but if you change the environment around it, you can guide it into useful directions. I’m lucky that by now the people around me have accepted it and are able to laugh with me when I fuck up. We have a lot of systems in place to reign in the worst effects, and the more we get used to it the easier it gets not to fall into traps and not to be unreliable.

I guess I’m working on my skills as a mindbender who tricks my brain into being useful while still allowing it to get that dopamine?