My introduction, my struggles while I'm not diagnosed. Share your everyday struggles and we'll help each other!

Hello. It's my first time writing here and I'd like to introduce myself. My main language is not English and I'm a complete ignorant in grammar, so, please, tolerate any spelling mistakes from my part. Feel free to comment in your main language, I can use a translator <3

[Quick note, I don't know if I picked the correct topic, the post is about "Living with Autism", however I want to start a discussion that would fit in "Discussions and Resources" - and I'm not even diagnosed, do idk if the Autism Support community is the right place at all.]

I selected that I'm struggling with autism in the welcome form, but I'm not diagnosed, I'll investigate further next time I see the doctor. Just setting the record straight, I am not self diagnosing. I made this account because even though I have good people around me that can provide help whenever I need, I want to know more people who's in the same situation or has experienced the struggles I'm having. In the end all I want is for this struggling part of me to feel embraced too. That's why don't want this thread to be only about me, I want to hear more people who's struggling with autism. Let's share how we experience it and ideas about making things more confortable when needed. I'll start with my experience:

I never felt normal, when you're a kid you're supposed to go to the school and make friends. But how? I don't know, it just works? For me it didn't. It's so hard for me to get people around and interact with them. I made a few friendships when I was younger, but it didn't help that my mother would move every year and I had to change schools again and again. Looking back, my childhood just felt kinda lonely, not in a depressive way - because I was doing pretty great despite that - but I by the lack of social connection.

It's 2021 and I turned into a lonely teenager. But that quicly changed when I got into a group of friends, where I made my best friend, let's call him N. Me and N quicly started talking, because at the time we liked the same girl (that was our friendly rivalry), we would spend hours chatting on ***, do school works together, etc.. and after some time I came to the realization that I had made a friend, a real one. I stopped talking with the rest of the group at some point, but N has been my best friend since then. That year I got really into music, and for the first time I embraced my way of being and felt self sufficient. In 2022 I met my girlfriend and in 2023 I made another important friend, let's call him A.

2024 came and I get accepted in a really good school and A was going with me. What could go wrong? A lot. Apart from the usual problems of someone my age was a constant stress from everything. 2024 was a mess because I didn't know why I was so stressed out, felt like life was not for me. That's when A told me that he has autism - and I didn't even suspect. Then he started talking about what's different in his life, I couldn't help but compare my situation to his and attribute my everyday stress to some of the characteristics of the autism spectrum, though I dismissed that as a naive self-diagnose.

However in 2025 stress continued, and I couldn't help again but start linking things that would disturb me to autism and the anxiety started building up, because I saw autism as a heavy burden and was ashamed of maybe being in the spectrum. My parets were always very proud of me and despite that motivating me in learning and improving, this was an obstacle in the way to accept that I may have a condition I'm struggling to deal with. That's when I met a woman online that would ease my fear and make me confortable to learn more about autism like I do with a lot of other topics in my life. The hyperfocus in autism lasted for about a week, and I left more certain that I need to get medical help. I also talked with A's mom who's autistic and a educational psychologist (or something related, I don't remember the word for it in my language nor in english), she told me how I would proceed to be diagnosed if I have it.

Knowing more about autism didn't only make me feel more "sure" that I'm in the spectrum - I don't even like the idea of self diagnosing -, it helped me to shape the surrounding enviroment so I can make my life easier, feel less unconfortable, and overall be less debilitated. It also helped me to not feel ashamed of having my personal problems, as long as I'm doing my best to make things work.

These are my main struggles:
The greater one is the social interactions, at first I felt fear of interacting with unknown or untrusted people, like when shopping, to the point I would shiver when having to interact alone. Even though I still feel unconfortable, it's not unbearable or desperate, like it was before.
Also rigid thinking hits really hard when I set a path for something, like by planning my day ahead, and something does not go as expected. When that happens I feel really unrailed and stressed. That combined that I cannot let sensorial stimulus go is the main reason I feel stressed sometimes. See, I share my room with my little brother, and when I'm - for example - coding, I tend to get 100% into it, even though I already found ways to remove distractions, like closing the door, playing music in my headphone, etc..., a single sound or motion around me, like my brother opening the door or humming a song - is enough to *** me of and derail me from whathever I was doing. I'm pretty harsh verbally with him a lot of times, and I feel really bad about that, because a lot of things he do stress me out.
I also relate a lot to the lack of emotional display, it's not that I'm apathetic, I can feel for the other, but I struggle to find a way to communicate that, or I don't feel the need to communicate at all. I'm most of times unable to predict stuff too, I struggle to find an answers to those "guess what" games without clear clues of what the answer is that I can then link to the answer.
I'm pretty sensitive to acute sounds and my tact is sensitive too, I hate wearing socks with knobs, some clothing materials are unbearable and the sound of two rugged surfaces being rubbed against each other gives me chills. Those are pretty avoidable and do not change my everyday life too much.

I guess that all that combined is the reason why my family call me a grumpy. I'm full time at my school studying computing alongside the high school, and when I'm home I split my time very carefully between having a good time with my girlfriend and doing my own things, I barealy participate in the activities my family do together and I get stressed pretty easily. Their main complaints are:
- I don't go out of the computer
- I only spend time with my girlfriend
- I'm too rude with my brother
I know that's true, but that's my flow, I can't sleep if I don't focus in my project once in a while because if I'm into something I won't stop thinking about it and having new ideas I need to make happen.

Now here's how I cope with that:
I'm still kinda fearful of social interactions, but I try to tell myself to not expect to understand all clues or nuances of the conversation. It still gets more unconfortable if the person I'm talking acts too differently from what I was expecting.
For the rigid thinking I plan the inconveniences ahead, like things that my mom tell me to do in a specific day of the week.
About being rude with my brother, I just tell myself that is not his fault and that I need to calm down, sometimes I can let the stress go, other times not.
To deal with the lack of emotional display I just fake whathever emotion display I feel like the conversation needs of me.
That's how I'm avoiding burnouts and taking care of my mental health.

There's much more stuff that affects me, but this post is getting really long, (I don't know if anyone is reading to this point), if you have anything to say after reading my post, please make a comment, I'm really interested in knowing that more people have those struggles I'm having.

- kumakumakuma