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Would it be worth talking to a professional if I feel like I have some autistic symptoms?
  • I had this same debate with myself earlier this year, after speaking with several therapists and a doctor that specializes in autism diagnoses, I decided the time and money to get diagnosed was not worth it.

    For me, I considered how I was struggling and whether a therapist could help. I struggle with overstimulation, but a therapist can't do much for that; I addressed it by getting noise cancelling headphones and wearing sunglasses inside. I struggle with burnout, but a therapist can't do much for that; I had a frank discussion with my boss and we agreed to reduce my work hours and I started saying "no" to social events that would be too draining. I stim and hyperfocus but I don't find those problematic. I'm extremely lucky that although I have poor social skills and no friends, I am not lonely and don't feel like I need to make any adjustments to my personality to make friends, this might be one area where a therapist could help.

    My point is that, autism is something where you can't treat it overall, you can only treat the "symptoms", so narrow down what is causing you stress and look for solutions. If an autism diagnosis requires meeting a threshold for 6 issues, but you only have 5, that doesn't mean you can't get help for those 5 things. A therapist may be able to help with that and if you want them to see you as autistic, just say you're autistic. I doubt they'll ask for any proof and if they push it just say you were a kid when you got diagnosed and you don't have any paperwork. I'll say that in my experience, the most important aspect of therapy is getting the right modality and this can be tough. It can be difficult to find providers that don't just do CBT and sometimes they aren't very good about discussing what you really need they'll just do whatever they are trained to do. I found it really helpful to go to Psychology Today's website and see all the different modalities that existed, then researching what each of them were and thinking about which may be best for me.

    Try not to get hung up on the idea of getting that diagnosis. There's a school of thought that diagnoses are a capitalist construct that aids a doctor in getting paid by giving them a billing code to submit to your insurance company.

  • Anyone know a good sleep bluetooth audio sleeping wearable?
  • I bought them recently and returned them after one night. The battery didn't last even 2 hours and they kept disconnecting from my phone and turning off, but you can't just turn them back on, you have to take them out of your ear and put them into the case to turn them back on. So many design flaws IMO.

  • Today's mystery: Do I have a cold, or did I socialize too much this week?
  • For the last week, I've been the sickest I've ever been. Covid tests came back negative and as far as I know I haven't had covid before, but I am miserable with all the symptoms you listed and I didn't socializing at all.

  • Fern Brady's book "Strong Female Character"
  • I loved that she narrated the audio book, her accent is fantastic! I enjoyed her memoir. I don't really remember how it ended, so maybe that part could have been tightened up. I mean, she is still so young, I wouldn't expect her to have worked out a big overarching moral for her story yet. I hope she writes another as her career progresses.

  • What's a recent personal accomplishment of yours that you are proud of and why are you proud of it?
  • Not sure if it's really an accomplishment but I got out of a burnout that started in January. I've been in and out of burnout before but this time I set some personal boundaries and requested and received some accommodations from work. Now I feel better set up to maintain work-life balance.

  • What has your experience been with a credit union?
  • Fair enough but if you have the means, NFCU has almost no cost. I get something small but like .4% interest on my checking account. Their credit card has no annual fee and I average $800 a year in cash back benefits from it. Other than buying paper checks, I've not paid them one penny for any services, a way better deal than I was getting at BofA.

  • Survey: Almost 50% of Americans Consider Themselves ‘Broke’
  • That's very noble of you, but in our capitalist systems, those who provide the most needed and valuable services are often paid the least. You may feel that telling someone to get better educated and moving somewhere cheaper will solve their problem, but then someone else will fill their past role. Our most expensive cities will always need janitors, line cooks, laborers, shelf stockers and many other roles that will never pay much. We can't all be coders making 6 figures working remotely from bumbfuck nowhere. This doesn't even take into account disabled people who can't provide much or any value in the eyes of our system. You basically want to tell people to bootstrap, just in a gentler way.

  • Survey: Almost 50% of Americans Consider Themselves ‘Broke’
  • No one makes that much money through work, it is through investments. Remove social security tax limits and beef up our nationalized retirement systems then tax investments to death. I don't care if people are disincentivised from investing in businesses that don't make any money. I know I'll ruffle some feathers with this but I truly believe all space travel investments should be redirected to something that can make an immediate difference for those already on the planet, like healthcare or services for those effected by climate change.

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    iamdisillusioned @lemmy.world
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