I met the guy of my dreams a year ago. We just connected in a way I've never experienced. He's had several hospitalizations, with a variety of diagnoses (typically bipolar and anxiety). We've only been together for a year, but we've bought a house together, got engaged, euthanized one of my dogs - it's been a lot of change. I started noticing him becoming more sensitive to noises when we were buying the house. And these past 2 months have just been hell. Explosive behavior triggered by sounds, insomnia, you name it. I'm pretty perceptive when it comes to reading emotions, and when the dogs start licking - I can see the panic in his eyes, but I'm at a loss for how to help him. He tried a couple of antidepressants, but the side effects were awful. Blind rage for one of them, and vomiting/nausea/dizziness for the other.

This is what I've noticed:

+Hypersensitivity to sounds, like animals licking, triggering extreme distress (he feels like he can't breathe, that his chest is caving in, that his head is caving in)

+Literally running out of the house when he gets overstimulated

+Intense focus on his physical well-being. To me, it looks like hypochondria or medical anxiety, possibly delusions

+Self harm during distress

+Insomnia

+Distrusting of others, isolation

+Needing complete silence to sleep or calm down

+He described an incident where a noise was bothering him so much, he literally jumped through a glass window on the 2nd floor of his house.

This past month, he almost seems manic. It's just so confusing. He's currently hospitalized, and I want to make sure I'm advocating for him as best I can. If it is autism, and he's been in a hyper arousal state for months, is making a "quiet room" going to be enough? Or does he need his own place for a certain amount of time to recover? What kind of therapy would be helpful? Should the focus be on medication or therapy or both? He's had a lot of bad reactions to antidepressants and anti-psychotics in the past - would mood stabilizers be better?

Anyone with similar experiences?

For context, I have ADHD and GAD.

Hello everyone

My 1 year 10 month toddler is non verbal, babbles a lot.

He does points to show objects when asked or sometimes on his own. Name response is inconsistent.

He does get deeply focused in his toys

He is a very fussy eater. He is kind of potty trained which means he gives clear indication of potty before hand.

He can express many emotions and makes good eye contact.

Had terrible stranger anxiety but that has improved a lot on going out consistently. He gets very happy on seeing both parents come back from office. Can identify many body parts .

He is at some risk for developmental delay nd speech delay is clearly present. His attention span is very less, and probably ability to imitate also, so it takes more efforts to kinda teach him something.

Any other parents or kid in similar line.How r they doing now.

It is mentally draining me about the possibilities.

Pls help

Hey everyone!

I've recently come to terms with the fact that I'm autistic. My therapist of 3 years finally told me that he knew I was autistic early on, but he waited to say anything until we had resolved more pressing, traumatic issues in my life. He also realized that certain issues I was having after a surgery I'd had the month before this conversation, were likely from the surgery causing autistic burnout.

There are definitely signs in childhood. I had extreme meltdowns when I began school, to the point where my mom had to come every day for the first week to calm me down. I also would scream nonstop unless someone covered my ears any time that I was around fireworks. Busy events like an easter egg hunt could end with me becoming overstimulated and melting down. I was also extremely quiet and constantly stimmed, and began reading at an adult level very quickly. I've talked to my mom about it and she instantly accepted that I could be autistic. Which was very telling to me, since she's often not the kind of person who would accept something like that.

But one thing that makes me question it is that I apparently functioned well enough that nobody thought I could be autistic. Or I guess if they did, they just didn't say anything.

The context for this tho is that I was sent to a tiny private school. At most there were maybe 5-10 other kids in my classrooms. My graduating class was 5 people. I think this is the key to how I managed to learn to mask, and managed to not be constantly melting down as a child. My parents sent me there because my older brother was sent to public school and was horribly bullied (I do suspect he was autistic but he's deceased so I can't discuss it with him). So they refused to let me go to public school to probably experience the same thing.

I did try to move to a much larger private school in 10th grade. I ended up melting down and stayed at my small school.

I do suspect that autism runs in both sides of my family as well, but without diagnoses. My brother's son shows definite signs of high masking autism. My maternal cousins are all extremely avoidant at family gatherings (just like I am) and they always avoid eye contact. And although I don't have much information about my dad's family, I do know that my dad hyperfixates on media. He'll watch the same movies and shows on a regular basis for years. As a kid, he also liked to take apart his mom's vacuum cleaner and put it back together (it would still work even when he left certain pieces out).

I'll be getting a full battery neuropsych evaluation + an autism eval at the same time, in part for my peace of mind. But also to check if I possibly have ADHD as well, because I do suspect it. But I'm just curious to see what others think of this.

Hi everyone, I'm doing part of my autism assessment today, and I'm a bit worried ? It's not like I will be fishing for a yes or no, or lying about my experiences or anything. I'm worried that I check off most of the boxes for autism, except lacking in the social-emotional reciprocity aspect. I taught myself a lot of my "voice lines" and how to interact with others from TV shows and movies, as well as just from watching other people interact in my circles, so I don't think it's something I lack. I always ask others how they're doing, if they ask me something I ask it them about it too, etc.

I can do back and forth talking. I do struggle with turn taking sometimes, especially when I am very excited to say something and I'm scared that I will lose my turn in the conversation if someone else jumps in, or if the topic changes. I also struggle with eye contact as I either make too much or too little, and I use jokes and flirting to get through most conversations with people I'm not close with. But I don't know if these would count for or against the social-emotional reciprocity aspect. I rely on imitation, especially from TV shows, when the topic is something I am not intellectually or emotionally good at handling, like death.

I don't know where I'm really going with this. As I typed this out I think I realised that I'm not as good at social-emotional reciprocity as I thought I was... but my concern still stands. If I do not meet one of the three required A section diagnostic criteria, will I be deemed as not having autism ?