They may or may not be helpful, and trying both major types is a good idea to be sure, but the key is to self advocate with your psychiatrist. Some are reluctant to try the meds because “meds bad” but saying you would like to know if there are medications that can help you with emotional regulation, attention regulation, and sensory issues should lead to the offer of trying ADHD meds specifically.

The first dose of Ritalin was a game changer because it gave me perspective. The things that I struggled with were actually harder for me than for other people, so I was not trying to do the same task and failing it, I was failing a harder task. That mindset shift allowed me to start the mental health work I am benefiting from today as well as start actually solving problems.

I think addressing the Autism side of things will be easier with the ADHD side more supported.

Only a small portion of space is almonds, walnuts, and so on, less than half

Gradually escalating unidentifiable whispering. Everyone starts asking if you can hear something, you all start agreeing you can hear whispering but not what it is, then the paradolia kicks in and people start hearing what they expect to hear. The constant gradual increase in volume. Increases the fear and certainty in what people are hearing, but also disrupts sleep and wakes anyone who was sleeping. Soon everyone is awake, sleep deprived, and panicked.

The low travel on the keys is probably the issue. The machine gun sound of your typing is probably because of long travel with speed making a lot of force hitting the key bed, so having a longer travel will probably help there. Also, chiclet keys are really different to standard keys, they are super flat and have no centering dip so you tend to slide to the edges and have reduced accuracy. Add that to the dense layout and you have a recipe for disastrous typing.

Dude, sounds like as really shitty time. I can see from your post history that you’ve had a bad run with communities (r/autism and their rule enforcement bullshit) and also a consistent theme of not having a very good home life. It sucks and being upset about it is the right first step. No problems there, this does suck, and you should at this point feel bad about it.

That said, that is step one. Your emotions are telling you that things are not OK, so it is a good time to listen to them. That does not mean letting them make decisions though, just let them inform you about your needs.

So next step, you need to know more about autism and ADHD. You will have this brain for the rest of your life and learning how best to use it now will pay off for your whole life. Learning that something is bad for you now means you can avoid it forever, rather than just trying to tank it and be OK with suffering it.

I have read you have seen a psychiatrist. Have you had meds for ADHD yet? Did you try methylphenidate and dexamphetamine? Did you try other meds? I found that dexamphetamine did very little for me but methylphenidate did a lot, so I ended up on Concerta and additional Ritalin in the afternoon. Your experience may be very different to mine but trying a few things is a good idea.

As for your parents, damn dude, having shitty parents is honestly awful. It is not your fault that they are shitty, that is a them problem. You need to take care of yourself and it seems likely that will mean getting out as soon as practical. Given that you are in the EU moving should be fairly easy, and given your English skills you should be able to function in a lot of different places. Maybe focussing on moving in a couple of years could make their bullshit a temporary inconvenience rather than the end of all things? Whatever they think is just their opinion, it is not fact, so if they treat you like shit they are not showing that you are shit, they are showing that they are the kind of people who treat others like shit. You can get out, it will take time, but it can be done.

As for how to manage things now, I would recommend emotionally divesting from your parents. They say you are a junkie for smoking weed? Don’t fight it, just say OK, accept their opinion is their opinion, you don’t agree with them, you don’t need them to acknowledge that you are not a junkie, you can actually just let it go. You are the person who will decide on your values and make your choices. If they want you to be a certain way then they are welcome to be disappointed. You’ll live.

There are some books which may be helpful but they are all in English, maybe there is one in Italian which is easier to really understand for you. First, have a look into parenting. Learn a little about attachment theory, parenting styles, and how good positive parenting is done. Once you actually know a little you can look at their behaviours and evaluate their performance. I would also recommend learning about narcissism, trauma, and cptsd.

Given that you are young and don’t have decades of wealth acquisition behind you it will be challenging to move. Consider what you can do to earn some sort of income and develop your earning capacity. Obviously university is a great option depending on the field you are going into, but if it is not working out maybe look at whether you can finish up with a lesser qualification than a bachelor, say a diploma or advanced diploma. In many places this is basically equivalent to half or two thirds of a bachelor and allows you to finish more of your education later but enter industry now. That could shorten your path to financial independence significantly.

Regardless of what you do, there are options. Some of them suck, some of them are risky, and most of them are hard, but you have survived however many years being undiagnosed and mistreated, you are strong enough for this. Reaching out to other people for help is a strong thing to do and with that reaching you can build a good life for yourself. Don’t sink into a depression because you can’t get out right now, focus on the path you can make out and make active steps in that direction. You can escape fascist Italy and you can make a life for yourself, meet cool people, have friends, have relationships, and do cool stuff, it will just take time and persistence.

Double speed audio.

I have real difficulty with listening to people speaking slowly. By the time they finish the sentence I have lost the start, so unless I actively hold their sentence until it is done I often lose meaning or misunderstand.

Listening at double speed allows me to keep up without losing what was said. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts while doing most chores and it has been a game changer.

It is more than that. In previous studies from the authors they have controlled for the nutritional content and the processing and found that the content itself, so carbs fats etc, have a certain amount of causal influence on health, but the processing also has a separate and significant effect. Just having less processing seems to have a meaningful effect. This means less of the additives like milk powder, xanthan gum, sweeteners, flavourings, extracts, and so on. The exact mechanism seems to vary depending on the specific case, but separating components of food and then remixing them as well as adding non food components and processing with heat and pressure seems to make these things no longer digestible and safe.

I can’t give you any TX specific advice, but for the ADHD related depression and anxiety I can definitely give some advice.

First, CBD oil may be a suitable option. Some is pure enough to not show on a THC test as positive, so that may help. CBD is the part of weed that gives most of the mellow and chill, so it may be enough for him.

Second, depending on his ADHD presentation he may benefit from hard exercise. I find that 5x5 weight lifting is really good, along with some sort of cardio if possible. Lifting heavy things takes a lot of the hyperactive energy away and leaves me clearer.

Third, non stimulant meds. Some people find benefit from things like modafinil and if he could get on that it may provide enough support to quit the weed for long enough to get onto a stimulant.

That said, the USA has really intense laws about stimulant meds as well as a bunch of strange stuff about testing that seems punative. I have meds here in Australia and I have not taken a single test. I know there are online clinics that do ADHD treatment and also there are less than legal methods of getting stimulant meds. I know a couple of people who tried stimulants before getting them prescribed. Maybe that would work for his situation.

As for efficacy, I tried a whole bunch of anti depressant meds, anti anxiety meds, all sorts of stuff, and honestly nothing worked. My k10 was absolutely abysmal and I couldn’t really work. Stimulant meds mean I can work, support my partner, engage in things I enjoy, and live life quite well.

I had to come off my meds for a couple of months while going through a heart valve replacement (unrelated to the meds) and wow, I had forgotten how bad it was without them. They are great, getting the dose and specific stimulant right is important, but yeah, worth every bit of effort. Absolutely life changing.

I will bet nothing, but it is a good idea to make yourself more capable and informed at this time. Good time to learn how to grow food and raise chickens I think.

Hopefully they actually respect his legal rights to some degree and have borked the process enough for him to walk free. It may end up in a total dismissal of all the serious charges with only the possession of a fake ID and so on standing, though given how poorly they handled the evidence maybe not even that.

So far the judiciary has been the most effective bulwark against fascism in the USA. Terribly ineffective, but first prize nonetheless.

Judges don’t like the idea that other branches would have more power because that inherently means they are less important. They want their position to be important and meaningful so if the executive or legislative branch try to take over and ignore them they get pissed.

This has already started happening with the supreme court and some of the Trump executive orders. Some are being overturned, some are being massively narrowed, but few are just moving through without question.

Lots and lots of harm is locked in for the USA. Whether it ends in a full fascist dictatorship or not is still up in the air and one of the things that will decide that is what the judicial branch does. If they say nobody has any protection from law enforcement then they are saying they themselves have no protection.

The Trump administration has already had one judge arrested. More will come. This is where an inflection point will come. Does the judicial branch say no, enough, this is not OK? Or do they cave? In dearly hope the former.

To clarify, murder can be prosecuted at either a state or federal level.

First, from a state perspective, we are definitely dealing with a first degree murder charge. That would meet the requirements of willfull, deliberate, and premeditated murder. They will also likely be aiming for a finding of express malice, meaning they want to prove he had the frame of mind that he wanted to cause the harm as the primary end point, not just as a secondary part of doing something else like robbery or rape.

With regards to a federal charge, I will include the appropriate code.

18 U.S. Code § 1111 – Murder

(a)Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against a child or children; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree.

Any other murder is murder in the second degree.>

So from a federal perspective the same basic stuff applies. Did he do the act? Was it committed with express intent? If so, first degree. If not, second degree.

Under normal circumstances I do it believe this would merit a federal case, rather it should be a state case. Normally it is federal if it is an interstate hitman, a bank robbery, something that happened on a ship (because it is not in the land of a state), if the murder was drug related, if it was intended to influence a federal case outcome, if it was in the process of some fairly nasty child abuse cases, or if the person targeted was a federal officer or judge. As far as I can tell none of the above hold.

So one of the most important things here is that in both cases the prosecution has to show, with untainted and admissible evidence, the express intention to kill the CEO. This means if that evidence, his supposed manifesto, is not admissible due to failure to obtain a warrant, appropriate procedure for the execution of the search, and maintaining the chain of custody of the evidence, then it may not be admissible. He could completely skate on the first degree charges based purely on their incompetence at doing the search legally.

A second question is whether his initial arrest was valid. If they failed to maintain correct process in the actual arrest, failed to read his rights etc, failed to give him access to a lawyer on his request, that could taint the whole arrest.

The lawyer has already raised numerous issues with his arrest and the conduct after it. The leaking of the “manifesto” may have tainted the jury pool. The jokeresque pictures of Luigi in chains with 30 cops behind him may also have tainted the pool. The sheer amount of coverage may preclude an unbiased jury pool. Not to mention that the odds of finding 12 jurors plus however many alternates who have not been impacted by the USAs dismal healthcare system are pretty freaking slim. It could be a mistrial just from that.

This is a major clusterfuck from start to finish for the police and prosecutors. Nobody did this right, they took shortcuts and got carried away, and the media attention was so intense it could all just fall apart.

The fact that you live here in Australia means I actually have relevant information for once, yay!

I work in individual support through the NDIS. That is the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It has been praised internationally as a wonderful tool for meeting the needs of people without telling them exactly what they have to do. This means it is very flexible and able to meet needs you may not consider, like helping you connect your internet and electricity after moving.

For example, I work with a young autistic person who mostly gets help with dishes, vacuuming, shopping, and dealing with awkward and difficult social issues like returning things to a store for a warranty replacement.

Another people I have worked with just didn’t have the skills to manage dealing with learning to drive. We spent a few weeks of 2 hours twice a week on driving. He got his license and is driving now.

Obviously your needs are unique and honestly there are almost definitely things that you don’t know are needs because it simply has not come up yet, everyone has those. Getting into a situation that is a bit of a stretch for you, something you find challenging but not dire and awful, can be very useful for increasing your skills. If nothing else the challenge of living alone would help you learn about yourself and figure out what you like, what you dislike, what is easy, what is hard, and how to recruit help.

If you have a diagnosis of autism regardless of level you should be able to get some support. If it is level 2 you will get lots and lots of support. The NDIS is absolutely awesome and you can really get tailored support in ways I would not have considered a couple of years ago. Good luck!

Sex is indeed a spectrum. Intersex presentation makes up a meaningful though small percentage, somewhere around the 0.05% range. If it were a binary there would be two options, mutually exclusive. This is a bimodal distribution, with two very strong peaks for XX or XY karyotype and a bunch of variation around either different karyotypes, XXY etc, or differing activation or expression of those karyotypes, eg androgen insensitivity etc.

On top of that, what would you say sex is exactly? Which gamete is larger? In seahorses the males have the smaller gametes but the females use something very similar to a penis to deposit the egg into the male who then raises it and performs all the roles we associate with females in humans.

Is it based on which chroonosomes? In some animals it is a WZ or W karyotypes, so that can’t be it. In others it is just a presence or absence of a sex chromosome. In some plants they have more than two sets of everything, like strawberries with 7 copies of each chromosome. In others they have one, two, or four in some parts of the life cycle, but sometimes the thing we see is the higher number, sometimes it is the lower number. Some have a mix of male and female parts, having sperm and egg producers on the same plant but separated, some have both right next to each other in groupings. Some animals can undergo sex changing due to environmental factors.

Nothing in biology is as simple as the models we use to represent them. Sex is complex and while it sometimes seems simple that is the less common state. Genes are not often all the way on or all the way off, they are usually moderated and running at different levels across the organism cell by cell, and changing with time. The same goes for traits.

I would recommend learning more about ut biology if you really do believe sex is a simple binary. The world of biology is far more complex and varied than that idea can capture and honestly it is fascinating, I find it extremely exciting to find the examples of my own ignorance, they are usually super cool. Good luck!

Indeed, just as gender is a spectrum so is sex. I love when someone says “Its basic biology” because the best response is “and this is intermediate biology”.