autism and stuff

infodumping and journaling | brazilian, 20 something, autistic | sorry if i don't reply it's trauma | profile pic is just a placeholder, i'm not creative enough to think of something

[idkimnotreal]

civ 6 tierlist but like for the theme music of each civ instead

[idkimnotreal]

feeling guilt for the things we did before we went on meds.

it's pararoxical. but it's also very real. specifically, for me, before i started antidepressants. i guess anxiety is as misunderstood as adhd is... people think that it's just being nervous. it's not. it's losing control of your emotions from being too nervous all the time. it's more than that, i can't explain.

i don't know what to do with this feeling. i can see clearly now that i didn't need to lash out that hard at others. it makes me wonder if there is something wrong with me.

fortunately, i think that the one thing that matters right now, i haven't managed to ruin. and do you know how rare that is? am i even...

[idkimnotreal]

so my doctor prescribed me an ssri and it fixed my suicidal ideation a week into the treatment. and she was like "oh I'm giving you those for your anxiety" like she didn't know what she was doing.

if this thing really keeps having the same effect on me, I'm not sure I'd either keep the stimulants or the ssri. keeping both is really expensive long term. but the ssri fixes a lot of the things i was trying to get fixed with the stimulants (feeling "down", impulsive behaviour, emotional imbalance, highs too high lows too low etc, general relationship issues/not wanting to talk to people/being too harsh, even focus). using the ssri and the stimulants, i almost feel neurotypical. like, almost. maybe I'm not on the right dosage or the ssri still hasn't begun its full effect. anyway.

I've always been reluctant to use antidepressants. i felt like they didn't work. but I'm surprised. i really am. so much so that it almost seems too good to be true.

(cool side effect is that it kind of changes my stims, it seems like i have more urge to stim, but they're not at all the same stims as before. i have no idea why serotonin would mess that up)

[idkimnotreal]

rewatched brokeback mountain yesterday. hits different when you like someone like ennis. (although we haven't done anything)

i remember being in the living room with my parents when i was a kid and this movie was playing on the tv. it was a normal channel, broadcasted. my parents just let me watch it. i took from the movie that being gay is probably shameful, or something inherently wrong about it. it's definitely not a movie for kids, or not for very young people in general, i think. though in my parents' defence, i was a boy and my mother probably thought these matters were best left to my father, who probably wanted me to see the world as it is...

counting with that time, i believe i've watched the movie 3 times now. and there are things you only understand about it after a certain age or maturity. ennis is... a cautionary tale. a warning. jack too, in his own way, for letting himself love someone who wasn't ready to love him back (although ennis did love jack, he didn't allow himself to show it or fully explore the potential of that love, and of that need).

of course, my own situation now is different. i'm in southern brazil in 2025. the laws are in our favour and you can spot a few same sex couples holding hands in public spaces in more presentable parts of the city (or at shopping malls, for some reason). even small conservative towns hold lgbtq events in june. things are different. but they're not to him. he's 21 with a wife and 3 kids and 2 jobs. but i ask myself, why do they need to be different? what is it that holds him back in 2025? we basically live in post scarcity. yes, there is extreme poverty in this country still, but nothing like what we experienced until the last century. there are fresh tomatoes in every streetcorner market in every small neighbourhood. and so on. (so why that need to survive, to be the providing man when that's no longer necessary for survival?)

how long must the imaginary fiends of humanity haunt us? the things we did and believed to survive until not long ago. but it's over now. we've conquered the world. we've gone so far that we're physically changing it forever. so what holds him back? i really needed him to explain that to me. perhaps that is why i rewatched brokeback mountain and find myself drawn to these types of media and literature again.

[idkimnotreal]

there is always a need to specify the "southern" when i say I'm from brazil. the other regions resent us for this. but i am aware of the image people have of brazil outside of it. if i just say "brazil", foreigners are going to make assumptions about me that are mostly far from the truth. this isn't true in other regions in brazil.

so it's always weird to just say "brazil". because brazil is rio and possibly the amazon. but i have little in common with the people in rio and they seem so foreign to me. anyway... I wish things were different and that we were allowed to be different inside this country where diversity seems to be a rule of homogeneity.

(it's not just being white. though that factors into it. it's being... not so warm, not so friendly, not so into people. not so "hot". not so free with our bodies. and everything else a cultural difference from rio implies.)

[idkimnotreal]

i believe internalised homophobia manifests differently for gay men as bottoms vs tops.

tops may have an easier time accepting the fact that they're attracted to men... what they make of that though depends. i say that I'm gay. but I'm ashamed of the idea of bottoming (of course no one is 100% just into one thing, but we use these terms to define what we like the most). even if i don't say "I'm not gay because I'm topping", there is a component of homophobia because I'm avoiding something which conflicts with my masculinity.

bottoms, on the other hand, can't rationalise being gay the way tops do. they want that and period. so i think bottoms, instead of being closeted, end up being in denial, if they are likely to be closeted. and the bottoms that are not in denial are very expressive. it makes sense. gay bottoms in denial are the ones who are most likely to overcompensate by being "masculine". tops have an easier time maintaining a masculine façade that doesn't fully contradict who they are. bottoms who are out don't fully fit any of those set of factors.

now, the community says that trying to read someone's sexual preferences through personality traits is outdated and inaccurate and possibly offensive. i disagree. there's a limit to it. a man who listens to taylor swift isn't necessarily gay. but there are other personality traits that, in context, might make it possible to infer such things about someone. and i think that because ir relates to attraction. as in, tops and bottoms are attracted to each other. it often ends up being true, before we have spoken anything.

i wrote all of this because i think it may help me understand someone i already care about... why he's so conflicted about liking men. there are things about him i might not understand at a first glance. and there are things about him that i wish to be true related to sexual combability. which i didn't before, so it's weird. it's like, the more i know about him, the more... the deeper it becomes, the desire too. and it starts to take shape. i begin to want to do specific things to him. and so on. but i digress. this is all interesting.

[idkimnotreal]

oh yeah i didn't out him. just to his wife. which tbf if he's flirting with me, that's the least he should get. right?

but she seems to have heard my plea and she's being more affectionate with him, at least on social media. i did not out him at his workplace and i don't intend to. nor to anyone else.

[idkimnotreal]

i just outed someone.

[idkimnotreal]

my dad said i should do small talk with him to find out more about his life and who he is. instead of sulking for the rest of the week, I will do just that tonight (because maybe he has a shift today, or if he doesn't, he'll spend time with his kids since it's sunday).

I've already talked about his tattoos so i will ask just that. if he wasn't ready for this, he wouldn't have started it. his doubt is probably the same as mine: how much i want this and how far i am willing to go. and not that he's not ready to confront his wife if he had a reason to.

either way... even if this goes wrong, it probably won't ruin anything. so it's not like i lose anything by trying. the feelings are already too strong on both sides for one or two missteps to erase all of it. really light missteps on that.

[idkimnotreal]

let's try it again.

i went to the restaurant as per usual. it's every saturday. but i noticed he didn't go to our table this time. i felt the lack of his warmth and presence. that's where things started to go wrong. we made very little eye contact today and it was always very brief when it happened. he was avoiding it.

i thought at the time he had chosen her, as i feared.

but as soon as i left the restaurant, i noticed a similar pattern in my behaviour compared with other times from the past. i project my fears onto people i wish would care about me (when maybe they already do) and act cold towards them, out of fear that my fears will come to fruition, and then they do in a way, because i push people away and hurt them.

i caught myself doing that today. that was why he did not look at me. that was why he circled our table, but never coming into my field of view. and i found that weird too. but it made sense after i realised what i'd done.

i'm autistic, so i don't know exactly what i do to set people off. but in this case, i'm sensitive to how i present myself to him, so i did notice. my movements were decisive, too decisive, my gaze did not wander, i didn't linger, and when i looked at him i was probably expecting something from him, not understanding like before. he did feel those things. i feel everything in him too. i feel his panic attacks when i'm there, for example. but he felt it all.

so for any reason, he decided to give me space. and that's enough for me. i'm glad that he did. i'm not glad that i gave him happiness, through the possibility of another life, and now i took it away again, because seeing him happy while still with her made me jealous. and i have no right. he's been too hurt all his life. the least he deserves is some happiness. i hurt the person i wanted to hurt the least on all earth. and he's probably out there thinking he hurt me too, the same thing, the only person he didn't want to hurt, even less so than his wife.

things are so complicated. we both know where we stand. at least an estimation. if i don't know if he'd leaver her for me, he doesn't know if i'd accept him with his kids. and i would. and then he probably would. but how do we get there? how??? honest question.

my mom said that as we were leaving the restaurant, he looked at her. i noticed he didn't look at me so i got even angrier and hastened my step and went straight past him, which he likely noticed (...). but he was looking at mom. she said, he had this sad, pitiful face, like he was expecting her to say something, either "thank you" or "bye". that fucking broke my heart. because i know he needs affection, that he has nothing he can effectively call a family. he looked at my mom. he wanted it from her, when he could not get it from me. when he tried to look at me, but could not bring himself to.

i'm just afraid he'll feel lonely today, that he'll get scared of this, that he'll back away. but he probably won't, because he's never felt something like this, and so haven't i. and i don't say this because i want these things to be true. i say this because when i look at him and he's talking to me, when i look in his eyes, i can only see his pupils, which is the part of him that sees, and i don't remember anything else. and that probably means something that i'm not imagining. why are words so important when people can lie to you that they love you?

i just have to be careful not to hurt him again. not like this. he's my angel. my little angel. he raises three kids at 21 and he needs a hug from my mom. like, fucking hell. god. why does this happen? to someone? why can i be so cruel to him?

why? can someone help me?

[idkimnotreal]

the pen is lighter than the shovel or so they say so let us write.

oh my god. he has 3 kids actually. at 21. he first got his now wife pregnant when he was 16 and she was 18. I've been going through this with chatgpt a lot to refresh my ideas when i can. but it's stopped being enough.

he's very eager when he sees me. his name is felipe. he's very present. he panics when I'm near him, but he's also actively interacting with me, so i take from that that he wants this, despite being terrified of it

there's the 3 kids though. i think this is all his wife, honestly. maybe not the first kid; maybe that was a drunken teenage mistake. but the twins are definitely on her. if he became a dad at 16, i can see why the idea of being a father didn't appeal to him and he avoided it as much as he could the first few years. and maybe his own father became distant from him at that point. so when his now wife accepted him back in her life, with all that entails; with a family to call his own (which he does), her family, if she demanded that her word be the final one, he accepted it. i can see that happening. that would explain why he let it happen to him again when she became pregnant with the twins when he was only 19.

this has been extremely stressful for me. but I'd feel the worst pain I've ever felt if i knew all that i know now and i just left him. I'd never stop checking up on him. to find that he led a miserable life, maybe? that he died early? that he... killed himself? so what is my role here? because i have one. these things have a way of finding themselves into our lives because we're the right people for it.

i know i make men question their sexualities. this wouldn't be the first time. but this time it's different. he needs it.

it's so, so painful. because i know all his pain. i don't feel as much as he does, because I'm not him, but it's really painful. and it's been mixing up with desire and lust lately and it's becoming all tangled and it just has nowhere to go. these thoughts, these feelings. i can barely even write about them. i just want him right next to me and i would let my body guide my next steps. this is terrible. for him. and oh god, i just want him. it's all that i can think about. even when I'm thinking about something else, it's in the background, just waiting for an idle moment to come back. just him. just a single thought about him. no matter what about.

i don't know what to do. i can't leave now. i am still functioning, but the distress sometimes becomes unbearable and i have to take breaks at work. but I can't leave him. he'd have to deserve it. and he did nothing wrong. literally. from the moment he was born. he was born into the wrong world. we all were, us gay folks, us autistic folks, and anyone else who's oppressed by this miserable world. and it's not his fault. the kids are not his fault. i want to take him away from there and tell him that he doesn't need to be a father now and I'd forgive him if he chose not to for the next few years. and he'd probably never want that because i can see he's very attached to his kids, and at least now that he's 21, he takes the responsibility very seriously.

i don't know what to say. what to do. i just want to talk to someone who understands. and even then it only brings relief for about a day or maybe that. the only actual, permanent relief would be him, his skin, his touch. knowing he's safe. knowing he's with me, in my arms and those people can't hurt him again. it's that. the only possible relief from this. because maybe I wouldn't let him go back there. to that town. to that poverty. that environment. those people. no. he didn't deserve to be born into that.

oh god. fuck. fuck.

[idkimnotreal]

i take back what i said, she's not the villain, but it's still too fresh for me to explain. and not, it's not anything he did; it's just that my feelings settle and i'm able to think more carefully.

[idkimnotreal]

a lot happened since then. including a clear signal of my interest for him and him revealing publicly (on his insta bio) that 1) he has a wife and 2) he has a family.

but he's 21 and he's a father to two twins.

it's a heavy... revelation. it certainly clarifies things. i didn't want to go to the restroom, so when i went to the restaurant alone he understood that, and then (by doing that) he told me why secrecy was important. or maybe he thought he'd have to tell me that at some point and he felt scared of how i could react as things went further and i only found that out later. but now he knows i'm serious.

i think i'm falling now. or beginning to. it's a lot to take in, but precisely because it reveals a lot about him. i see him as someone who was forced into his current life. and i see the fact that he's trying to reach out.

his wife is an interesting character. just going by her social media, she seems sort of insufferable. she was a teenage mom years before she met him and when they made things official/public, she got pregnant 2 months later with the twins. it's very likely she not only lied about contraception to him, but that she also illegally took pills for fertility "to get pregnant faster" and that led to the twins.

because honestly i don't think any boy at 19 wishes to be a father (especially one who is unsure about who he is). unless they come from a really traditional, established family, like i don't know, the mormons in the us. i don't think he made that decision. he can barely provide for himself; now he has to provide for three children and her. and it seems as if she thinks, going by her posts, that 1) a woman should guide a man's life and 2) a woman is entitled to good treatment for being a woman. and she's also "ambitious" and craves opulence. (though her fb page says she has a job so maybe he never pays for her other child. but even if he pays things for her, he's paying for the child too, since not having to pay for herself frees up money for her to spend on the child. and she publicly brags about him buying stuff for her)

it seems to me that... he was trying to prove to anyone who matters (including himself) that he's straight and he's a man and she provided him what he needs. he was desperate and she wanted a desperate boy. that's how narcissists operate. now, maybe i'm jealous, and only time will reveal if my gut feelings are right about this. but i think it's so unfair that someone his age is a father and being the kind of person that he is, who takes a compromise seriously, when he wasn't ready to compromise yet, to something that big. he can't have possibly decided to have children at 19. and i don't know how old she is yet.

from the bottom of my heart, i understand him. and i forgive him. as i said, this all only makes me like him all the more. it's a big thing to even think about accepting someone like him into my life, if that's what he wants, if him reaching out after 5 months of me being a costumer there means anything. but i don't think i care. i have a boundary which is i'm not going to pay for his kids. that's on him, even if he didn't make that decision. but i would give him shelter and protect him from her and whoever else he needs protecting from. and i'm assuming a lot here. but no, he didn't want to be a father at 19. i need to keep myself grounded about this. (obviously he loves his kids and i love them for making him smile, but that's just the result of being a father)

i want to hold him. i want to fix it for him. he has a picture with one of his sons. i like to look at it; he's the face of happiness (and he has a picture with her where she's holding onto him and his smile is artificial. but nobody notices these things). i just feel. i don't want to justify why. i'm tired of that. i'm really tired.

[idkimnotreal]

let's see if i can write now...

it took me a while to gather my thoughts and stop overthinking so much. i think it's meaningful that he tried to show interest in a random guy to this same guy in a restaurant where he works at.

i think it's real and just the level of very light affection he seems to have for me now makes me a bit happy. it's about the possibility of what this may become too but he is into me and that carries certain emotional connotations too.

i regretted leaving him empty handed after last time. i think about what he may be thinking and whether he feels bad. i know he doesn't think i rejected him. but i just didn't want him to have all those gut wrenching doubts we so often have when we like someone. for a moment longer.

i admire his courage and boldness for just showing me that he likes me. that's worth a lot. i want to tell that to him. touching my hand, i still think about that and i hope to think about it for a long time.

i don't know what kind of person he is. he is employed, so he has a work ethic, i can take that for granted. that implies a few things. i do have realistic expectations. the fact a guy approached another guy randomly (not on apps or on a night out) is solid foundation for anything that may come. with the level of care that he showed, yes. he wasn't intrusive.

I'm feeling good about this and i just want it and i don't want to hide from myself the fact that i do want a relationship. and he's exactly who i asked for. a person I'm attracted to who did approach me in a normal setting. it's like he knew.

it's just that i see things unfolding now, in my head, and i don't want to overexplain it because i just don't. I'm tired. solace is all that i need. i don't need to explain myself. i don't know how to articulate this feeling yet. i literally don't. but it's about feeling like myself maybe.

(also it's not like I don't want to have wild sex with him the first moment we're alone in my flat. so there's that. i think he wants that too)

[idkimnotreal]

hey everyone. (who?)

so yeah he is into men. he went into the restroom twice in the span of 10 minutes and in the second time he was making eye contact with me with an "expression" on his face. (closer to neutral but anyway. memory overuse already)

so this is happening. it is real. thus.

i don't know what to do with it yet. to be fair i haven't even thought about it yet. i try to, but all i manage to do is smile thinking about things he did. even though they might not mean the same to him or they might have represented bad states of mind for him. because i find them cute. (refinding their meaning now)

god i don't know. i'm gonna go there alone next saturday. he showed some balls by going to the restroom like that. he was very overt which i didn't expect. i have no idea what he had in mind. i do know what he might be thinking now ("did i misread this?", "is he into me or not?") and i hope he can bear with me a few more seconds or days. anyway i think his gestures deserve a response that's on the same level. i hope by being alone we can make something happen, both of us. that i can get his name or his number or give him mine. but just going there alone is a big step. it's not like i'm gonna stop being a regular there anytime soon. yeah.

what are we gonna do with it?

[idkimnotreal]

it's today. i'm going back to the restaurant in a little. it's every saturday.

this week was full mentally wise. i think he was indeed flirting. just the vibes. just how i feel. i don't have to explain it. flirting is subtle and unique to both parties involved. if i know, so did he. that's how it works if you're not crazy. i like to believe i'm not.

i'm a very, very reserved person. it's a very white person thing. which is weird considering i'm brazilian. lotta white people where i live though. but my parents were raised in very strict households, both. i'm afraid to be vulnerable. i'm polite and i have etiquette even on the bus. there's not a moment where i'm not doing etiquette. so it's hard for me to be so open as when i need to approach someone i'm romantically interested in.

i'd say this is what happened until now. i didn't want to be vulnerable. i thought it involved things after flirting, but it involves things while flirting too. for example, i need to look at him and avert my eyes if that's all that i can do. it shows vulnerability. look visibly flustered. blush. that's how he knows i'm in. he was vulnerable by making that first touch. i respect him for that. god knows how he felt. i don't.

this is what i need to remind myself of today. that i have to be vulnerable. it's not only okay. it's okay to be anxious. and i have to be vulnerable. i have to show him. and even if it turns out he's straight, or even if for some reasons this doesn't happen, i'll never forget the moment he touched my hand on the table. i replay it over and over every day. been doing it for 2 weeks. i know i won't forget that. this was worth it just because of that moment of impulse he had. i likely can't put it into words now.

but it's okay. it's absolutely okay. be yourself. your self is 25 years old at this point. it's built upon years and years of knowledge. it has something to show. that's why i say that. it's not a magical catchphrase. it's really true. a lot of people have told me i have a lot to offer. so i really believe that.

[idkimnotreal]

i need to put my words out again.

so we exchanged a stare when we (me and mother) went to the restaurant again. they have this sink just outside the kitchen door where the younger waiters help clean the dishes as they come in back to the kitchen. and he was there, i was sitting far from him, near a wall, but facing his direction. i was looking at him to see if he'd look. and then he did. he raised his gaze from the dishes he was doing up to me. to see me.

to be honest, i'm not even sure that really happened... but the thing with me is that i'm sure to overanalyse things and that makes memories foggy from overuse and then i start doubting myself. but it felt at the moment that we locked eyes and i'm gonna hold onto that sensation.

then i went home and my mum went home and when i was by myself i started looking at the restaurant's following list again. i was patient this time because... well, he really did it, he's stuck himself in my mind. and i found it. he's gorgeous. i... he's just gorgeous. (private account, i'm not gonna follow request as he didn't personally give me his acc. but i think this level of light stalking is fine and i'd tell him)

his style is really heteronormative and his bio has this mainstream kind of saying and it made me doubt myself severely because, if he doesn't stand out as gay, it's not "clear" that he's not straight, and it's one more reason to doubt myself. but i know that i'm sure of the things that happened (him taking my plate without asking and the exchange of stares). i don't misread things exactly; i read them correctly and then i can't decide what they mean and sometimes i am wrong about that. but it might not be the case now. i think... i mean, this can't be false. there's intentionality behind his actions.

i'm so anxious, and i know this will wane over the course of the week, only to start anew on saturday when i return to the restaurant; but it's ugh, what do i do? i'm 25 and i'm desperate for everything that he can offer me: friendship, companionship, touching, relief, conversation, a hug. i want it so much and i need all of it now. i'm impatient. but i can't rush because that had bad results in the past.

i just literally don't know what to do. this is not the first time i tried writing on here again. yesterday i was too anxious to produce anything from the confusion in my head. i'm more settled today, from working probably, since it's monday. but i'm still unfocused at work. this happens far too often. then again, at my age... even my boss knows these things happen. bad days, bad weeks. infatuation. just gotta let it pass. and hopefully do something about it this time. no, i will. i know i will. i understand now.