Figuring myself out one label at a time

Who exactly decides what I get to call myself? Thoughts from a closet autistic. Or whatever. // Complicated Asexual

[icarusinfreefall]

reminder that adhd medication isn’t a luxury or preference, but a lifesaving medication. a 10 year long study in the usa showed that, when properly medicated, the rate of car crashes people with adhd get into goes down significantly–men’s rate drops by 38%, and women’s by 42%. the med shortage, denial of meds by doctors, rising prices, and war on drugs has killed–with such a car dependent society, not driving frequently isn’t an option, which means we need better healthcare and need it now.

https://shorturl.at/8VD8B

edit because i forgot to explain: short link is to an article by the washington post, it should be free to read

[icy-moons]

I’m pretty sure there’s also been a study that unmedicated ADHD increases the risk of developing dementia in old age. I’ll get back to yall when I find the study

[icy-moons]

Found it and here’s a Washington Post article if you don’t want to read a medical journal.

[icarusinfreefall]

@icy-moons thank you for this incredibly important addition!!! People with adhd are almost 3 times as likely to get dementia, and the way to prevent that is stimulant medication–more people need to know this

[azcrowleyfell]

Not to mention being properly treated and medicated for ADHD reduces the likelihood of developing an addiction or substance use disorder.

The articles below are free to access, they cite their sources if you wanna check out the studies themselves.

The Truth About ADHD and Addiction

ADHD medication is not a gateway drug. In fact, teens and adults who seek treatment for their ADHD symptoms are much less likely to abuse dr

Treating a Child with ADHD Medication Diminishes His Future Risk of Substance Abuse

To reduce the risk of substance-use disorders, treatment with stimulant medication should begin prior to 9 years of age, according to resear

[leebrontide]

ADD-certified therapist here. These claims are ALL TRUE. I don’t have the link to hand but properly medicating ADHD also reduces anxiety and depression rates and I’ve seen it improve eating and sleep over the long haul, and improve aggression in young children.

[northstareclipse]

Hyper-individualist cultures go, “Your emotions are your personal responsibility. Don’t burden others. Regulate privately. Maintain functionality. If you’re upset, process it offstage so the machine keeps moving.” Meanwhile certain collectivist or harmony-focused frameworks go, “Your emotions disrupt group cohesion. Don’t create discomfort. Don’t impose disharmony. Transcend or contain your reactions for the sake of the whole.”

Different mythology, same trembling fear that one person saying “actually, I feel terrible” will cause civilization to peel apart like wet drywall.

[thatadhdmood]

Trying to convince myself to start taking adhd meds is hard because what do you mean I need to take a drug to change who I am? What do you mean I'm not enough, that I need to be more? Why can't who I am now be enough?

this is why i did an investigative assesment on the effectiveness of adhd meds in highschool for my personal essay question. cause u can pick anything

understanding how adhd meds worked helped me feel less weird taking them

its all about dopamine reuptake inhibitors: thats the meds

tonic and phasic dopamine: tonic is ur baseline dopamine, while phasic is the type thats released for task.

adhd people have a lower tonic dopamine baseline.

basically when neurotypicals do a task it releases dopamine, but it leaves a little dopamine out between the gap of the receptor and doesnt take it all it, and it makes doing the next tasks easier

with adhd it takes all the dopamine out so then theres no dopamine lubricant inbetween the connections to make it easier to keep doing tasks

the medication, stops the neuron from taking all the dopamine between ur neurons, and leaves a little out, so then you have more ease doing tasks

this is why doing some simpler tasks after taking adhd meds can help it start getting working because the dopamine start getting between the receptors as your tonic dopamine levels go up

having low tonic dopamine levels makes it hard to focus and makes you crave quick dopamine hits like using your phone in order to supplement it so you can feel alert and normal.

the meds are just evening out the playing field with neurotypicals

thats what i learned from my research

hope this helps!

[dognonsense]

i really cooked with this post i wrote about how adhd medication (specifically methylphenidate) works

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

"The thing is, you have to be able to follow all these complex unspoken social rules or people will think you're a bad person-" yeah I know! Could we maybe talk about how that isn't great actually

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Like I just feel like a concerning amount of social skills advice for autistic people is written with the fundamentally incorrect assumption that 1) all autistic people could learn how to socialize normally if only they knew it was important and put in a bit of effort, and that 2) thus it is actually fine to judge the autistic people who don't

[sagewing]

Carrd

[battle-for-dyke-island]

dear fellow autistic people: if you consistently come out of doctor’s appointments feeling emotionally (and sometimes physically) hurt, but you feel bad for feeling hurt because “the doctors were being nice”, the doctors were not being nice.

this is something I had to learn the hard way. doctors often dress up their words all pretty so you can’t sue them. I, for a long time, mistook this as genuine kindness. It’s not. It’s just being professional. even if they didn’t call you a slur or anything that doesn’t mean they weren’t ignoring your needs.

trust what your body and emotions tell you. if you are feeling hurt, there is a reason, and you need to listen to it. please listen to it.

[aegosexual-moments]

You might be aegosexual if...

- you enjoy the idea of sex but don’t want to experience it in real life

- you have sexual fantasies but would never want to be IN THEM and the fantasies don’t involve you

- you enjoy reading erotica/ smut fanfics

- - you enjoy absorbing sexual content but it’s never about yourself

- - you like reading smut in third person but find first person to be a huge turn off. And second person is literally The Worst

- you daydream about sexual situations but the people in the daydreams aren’t yourself (or typically even other real people- but your OCs or fictional characters)

- you find yourself looking at attractive people thinking “yeah they’re hot but I don’t want to DO ANYTHING with them”

- imagining the sensory experience of sex makes you question whether it could really feel good as good as it is in your mind

-writing sex scenes is a lot more uncomfortable reading them, even if creating them in your mind is cool

- you sometimes question if you’re really ace because of the content you like to consume. But this is an acespec identity.

A few years ago there was a person who had cultivated an entire list of acespec identities and lists of common traits. I can no longer find those traits or posts.

SO! This I made this! I’d love for other aego people to add on! And then to add your ideas to the original post.

[sirpeppercornio-deactivated2026]

Me AF! Basically I enjoy consuming adult content (fictional, personally) without feeling a desire to be a part of it, the same way I enjoy slasher horror movies without actually wanting to be the killer/chase a victim, or be the victim/be chased by the killer.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

I really wonder where we draw the line on what is socially acceptable when it comes to acting on things others aren't privy to.

Phone calls in earphones? fine. Tiktok dances? fine. Practising a speech? fine. Singing in the shower? fine. Talking to the mirror? fine. Imaginary friends? fine.

Addressing hallucinations? not fine. Addressing intrusive thoughts? not fine.

I see literally no difference except that the people who hate it don't experience the latter category which is just textbook discrimination.

So often you find yourself asking "is this actually inherently hurting anyone or is it just that it's heavily stigmatized" and far too often the answer to this very vital question is "it's just that it's heavily stigmatized"

[faerie-fangs]

so is being aegosexual just the forever yearning identity or...

[internetgreatesthits]

[hungry-skeleton]

Frustrating part about being aegosexual is always feeling the need to justify your asexuality. Like you can't talk about looking at porn or finding fictional characters attractive without being like BUT I STILL THINK REAL SEX IS GROSS!! I'M STILL ASEXUAL!! I EXIST!! I CAN LIKE THESE THINGS AND STILL NOT WANT REAL SEX!! Asexuality is already so scrutinized and doubted as is like why am I always on hard mode dawg

[ice-block]

Phenomenon I feel happens a lot

[morgan-molliniere]

most of the notes were just like "this is why we should communicate better and just say it" but i feel like this person elaborates a bit on the deeper root of this problem

[stuck-in-jelly]

Its always interesting to see what people do and don’t consider “going out of your way.”

A couple of days ago my mom and brother got into an argument with each other about a customer interaction I had at work

So now I’ll share with the council

I work as a barista right now, and a few days ago I was working the bar when I noticed this customer came in. I noticed him right away because I could see him anxiously lingering outside through the window until someone else walked in and he trailed behind them, avoiding the actual door.

He was tall, about my age but definitely older, hair shaved, and an anxious look in his eyes and body language. Not the kind of anxious that makes you think someone is hiding something but the kind of anxious that screams “I REALLY DONT WANT TO BE IN A PUBLIC SETTING RIGHT NOW!”

I see him heading over to the register to order and he’s holding his hands to his chest, clearly hyping himself up for his order.

Im listening in because it’s slow and, when possible, I like to make the drink as people place their orders, if I’m fast enough I even have their stuff ready before they finish paying.

But then I hear him say something that instantly makes it click in my head.

“I-I’m sorry I know this is weird but can I- can I please see your barista open a new milk bottle and use it?”

Ah! Germaphobic!

That’s why he was avoiding the door like the plague and keeping a fair distance away from everyone and looking really uncomfortable. He makes eye contact with me while the person taking his order looks thoroughly confused, so I do what I think is reasonable.

I completely wipe down my bar, put the rag away and dry the counter, go over and let him see me throughly wash and dry my hands, go back to the bar and pull out the milk and show him the unopened seal, and open it.

He picks up pretty quickly that I’m taking him and his concerns seriously so he hurriedly paid for his order and wondered over to the seating area where I was making the drink.

I let him watch and didn’t take any other drink orders, even though I knew the nozzle for the steamer was clean he didn’t know so I made sure to let him see me clean it with sanitizing water and steam before steaming his milk.

At one point a manager came by and I guess she thought I was moving too slow, apologized to him and tried to take over the order to which he shouted

“NO! I mean-no, she uh she’s got it…thank you.”

I mouth to my manager that I got it, because she is definitely making him more anxious now that new person™️ has entered the station. She leaves and I finish his drink and hand it off. All is done and he leaves.

Everyone else seems confused about his demeanor and wonder why he asked for such a weird request but after I explained everyone was like “ah okie, good work then.” And that was that.

When I told my brother and mom, my brother insisted “See, its that easy!” And my mom insisted “No, that’s doing too much!”

[beautifulterriblequeen]

You're going to become this man's favorite barista. He's gonna feel so seen. And seeing you take him seriously is gonna make other people feel safer with you, too.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Because I'm sure people go after you for being anti-science, I just want to throw in my two cents as a research neuroscientist (in basic research, so to be fair I don't work with humans but I do have a fair bit of knowledge about the human brain by virtue of my career). Both myself and my colleagues tend to be EXTREMELY wary of the tendency for medication as a frontline treatment (especially medications like SSRIs which for example act in a way that actively contradicts the common scientific justification for them, if it was a serotonin deficiency that was the problem you should see effects immediately and not in weeks-months which indicates they actually treat downstream mechanisms).

Scientifically, the reality of it is that we simply don't know much about the biology behind many mental illness and our treatment is for the most part symptom-based and not mechanism-based. For some people it's materially helpful and that's great and a success, but for many people psychiatric treatment is in what my former neuropharmacology professor called "the leeches stage". Just wanted to throw in my perspective from a different angle of the issue.

The whole "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness is just a theory that no one has managed to effectively prove. It has become popular as the go-to explanation, largely due to how simplistic it is and how useful it has been for pharmaceutical companies trying to launch various psych meds, but it is not based in documented science. Despite endless attempts to prove that this is how mental illness works, no one has ever actually managed to effectively prove the theory that mental illnesses are straight-forwardly caused by specific "chemical imbalances" which can then be resolved with the right psychiatric medication.

[mooninexile-deactivated20250906]

Craving Intimacy, Not Contact: A Reflection

Whispered through candlelight and the hush of moss-covered roots, I speak this truth not to the world, but to the moon and the wild within me.

For most of my life, I thought there was something wrong with me.

I could appreciate beauty, feel attraction, even fantasize about intimacy. But when it came time to actually be in the moment with someone else, something always shut off inside me. I felt disconnected, like I was watching myself from the outside. It wasn’t about fear or trauma. It was deeper than that, like the act itself didn't belong to me. Like it was never meant to.

I’ve faked a lot. Faked interest. Faked desire. Faked orgasms. All in the hope that eventually something would click into place. That the switch would flip. That I’d feel what everyone else seemed to feel. But it never happened. And for a long time, I internalized that. I blamed myself. Maybe I was broken. Maybe I was too complicated, too sensitive, too cold.

Then I found a word: aegosexual.

Also known as autochorissexuality, aegosexuality is a type of asexuality where a person can experience sexual thoughts or fantasies, but doesn’t feel the desire to participate in sexual acts themselves. They may enjoy the idea of sex, may even feel desire, but as an observer, not a participant. Desire exists, but it’s removed—detached from physical reality.

Reading that definition for the first time felt like exhaling after years of holding my breath. I wasn’t broken. I just experience desire differently. Quietly. Internally. Safely removed from the messiness of real-world intimacy.

It explained so much: why I’ve always craved closeness and affection, but not contact. Why I can fall into deep, soulful emotional connections but recoil when they turn physical. Why sex feels like something I can watch, write, imagine—but not live.

There is peace in naming something. In saying: this is who I am, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

I don’t know if I’ll always identify as aegosexual. Sexuality is fluid, and I’m open to growth and change. But for now, this word gives me room to breathe. It lets me take ownership of my experience without shame.

I’m not cold. I’m not broken. I’m not confused.

I’m just craving intimacy, not contact.

And that’s enough.

This truth is wrapped in lavender smoke, held close by my spirit guides, and sealed under the waning moon.

[suchawretchedthing-deactivated2]

people have to stop thinking of being touch-starved as like. an allosexual thing. my ace ass is perfectly capable of experiencing the skin hunger thank you very much

[mellennia]

Meanwhile my AroAspec ass is both repulsed AND starved for touch 😭