Show HN: Autism Simulator

Agree, breakfast slows me down, so I rarely eat it anymore and typically eat around midday to 1pm after morning work and exercise. I've fasted only once, it lasted 12 days and my energy level was almost overwhelming and electric. Boxing, running, etc. I gave up trying to understand why. And although it was an amazing experience, have not fasted again in the 5 years since.

For myself, I have low energy if I don't eat breakfast, but there is essentially no hunger signal for me in the morning. Over time I've settled on eating the plainest breakfast I can.

I think this has a lot to do with the 9–5 and my natural sleep cycle being delayed compared to that.

Same. If I have breakfast it seems to kickstart my metabolism or something idk. The result is, if I have breakfast, I’m distracted by hunger all morning. If I skip breakfast I can focus all morning and I don’t get hungry until lunchtime. Bodies are weird.

My lived experience is that high stress situations frequently make me feel like just going to sleep.

> It's an interesting concept though

Why? It's a multiple choice game with different outcomes. Hardly groundbreaking.

I can go about a full day before eating without noticing an energy drop. Everyone's different.

part of the challenge with autism is that nearly all it's features are shared partially or individually by ordinary people as pretty routine character traits (eg: socialising is energy draining for "regular" introverts).

It's (a) them being collectively combined and (b) the severity that creates the issue, but it's very hard for autistic people to explain and justify what's happening to them when everybody feels like they already experience these things and manage to just "deal" with it.

I haven't ate breakfast in 7+ years and I've never had an energy issue. I've ate OMAD (one meal a day) for over a year while running 5ks Monday to Friday and never had any energy issues either.

Typically, my first meal is at 11:45 (a plate of normal food + fruit), and then one at about 19 (the content varies from bread + cold cuts to soup).

When this changes in numbers, size or kind I do not feel any difference in energy.

When I bike to work I am particularly not hungry until 11:45.

Since the anabolic window is a lie and you have roughly 72 hours to feed yourself protein after effort you can skip breakfast without any impact if you don’t feel hungry. I don’t think many nocturnal people who wake up regularly at 10:00 really eat breakfast if lunch is 2 hours away, regardless of gym habits.

[citation needed]

We're definitely reading too far into this, but the game does incorporate this concept, so I'll make the case.

You don't get to choose every option every day. Some days you're on, and you make (almost) all of the right choices for your wellbeing. But not every day is like that.

Optimized and tuned for what?

Try tuning your entire environment and then maintaining it all the time. Best I can do is get it into a failure mode that isn't a disaster.

Mapping anything into a perfect system fails. So I'm surrounded by half working shit that works well enough that the energy from the shittyness that it sucks from me is made up by the fact that it's good enough to not crash out over. But I will still stress. Because I do want to fix the Bluetooth but I also have 8000 other things at home to perfectly tune as well.

My shoes are a year and a half old. A little stained, a little green from mowing the lawn. I sure as fuck don't want to go to a shoe store and tell the poor young worker there that I don't need their help. I'm not buying shoes without trying them on, so internet is out. When the soles fall off and the social impact is great enough, I'll replace them.

I haven't cut my hair in a year and a half because the hair dresser lady that I went to for 15 years moved away. Staring into a mirror while someone talks to me and cuts my hair is a fucking nightmare. I know this makes me look unconventional, but worth it for now. I have to carefully wash, condition, dry, and brush my hair. It's more work. But it's optimized.

Did you play the game? If I'm understanding it correctly (a big if), every single time the author is forced to leave out edge cases when talking to management it is a form of masking. They have to suppress their natural urge[1] to list the edge cases, and come up with a more appropriate message based on a non-intuitive guess about the salient points their interlocutor wants to know.

That implies active work to mask that is almost certainly measured in hours per day, across nearly every domain of communication and human interaction.

How many hours a day does the average employee spend talking to coworkers about their sexual preference?

Edit:

1: An urge probably backed up by a good faith, well-reasoned, ethical understanding of the literal words that the manager spoke to them!

Then you’re like a closeted gay autistic person. Speaking for a friend.

> but for ND it's learned behaviour that costs energy and conscious effort to do. And they feel like they have to do it because society is used to people effortlessly doing it all the time, so if you don't you're considered off, or simply don't get to participate in society because you're weird/boring/scary.

And of course, every now and then you fail to do it right and people think you were acting really weird but won't explain why.

I'd like to elaborate a little more on why "autistic masking" is different from "neurotypicals' masking".

For neurotypicals, masking is to exhibit behaviors that you subconciously know how to do because they are part of your natural range of behaviors. When a neurotypical is masking being friendly and happy in a social occasion (when they actually don't feel like it), they draw on their previous experience of having been friendly and happy in another social occasion. They know what it feels like, they know how to behave instinctively whey they really are happy and friendly, and faking it is only the effort of drawing from prior experience. For actors, this is called "the Method".

For autists, masking is emulating behaviors they wouldn't normally exhibit on any such occasion. They don't know how to do it, not subconciously, not instinctively. So they explicitly have to observe others, emulate their behavior on that occasion. That leads to two kinds of problems: First, they need to have observed this behavior, learned and practiced it, and need to know how to reproduce it correctly. Second, they need to recognize the occasion correctly, and not misinterpret their surroundings, the feelings and moods of others. And since autists also do have problems even interpreting their own emotional state (they do have emotions, but no intuitive way to know what they are at the moment) and even more the emotional state of others, the effort is far higher. Imagine an actor who is asked to play a totally alien role without any frame of reference and without prior experience, no do-overs and all the other people around him are also directors and constantly judging his performance and measuring it against their effortless instinct what it should look like.

> Saying "This meeting is a bit unstructured and i feel if would be more productive to write out an agenda" is not breaking a mask or being an ass, it's focusing on getting shit done for everyone.

But in many cases, it will absolutely be interpreted as being an ass, and autistic people are less adept at spotting those contexts and communicating in ways which don't look like they're being an ass (also, autistic people are probably more likely to be irritated by the agenda of the rest of the meeting or next meeting being to discuss agendas...)

I agree with your wider point that everyone masks to some degree, but its obviously less consequential to non-junior neurotypical people in familiar environments who can reasonably accurately predict how everyone will react to them choosing to take the mask off and hint what they really think about the meeting. Sure, a lot of other stuff like requesting to talk in a quieter environment is usually something straightforward any reasonable person will accommodate, but it's not surprising people concerned that making too many requests perceived as "weird" might harm their career and not really sure what's "weird" or not default to just trying to avoid them.

Is this comment section part of the simulation?

> Like others said, skipping breakfast should not be that big of a deal for a reasonably healthy adult, we didn't evolve having 3 meals a day. Intermittent fasting is a thing too.

I haven’t played the simulator but I wonder if it’s also trying to account for more than just the physiological effects. A friend of mine has autism, and we were getting together one day. On the way over I suggested getting some food since it was close to dinner time. They agreed, gave me some items and I bought us some food. When I arrived they were amped up and excited to show me something. I set the food down, and I ate while they were showing me this thing that had them all excited. They ate some of the food too, but were clearly distracted and not all that hungry. No big deal. But a few hours later I noticed they’d gone real quiet and seemed down or anxious about something. Turned out they had been worrying for the last hour that they had offended me because they didn’t eat all the food and they knew they weren’t going to eat all the food because they were going through a phase where eating in general was just a difficult thing to want to do and so were eating just the minimums they needed to not have other problems.

The entire later half of their evening and their excitement over their new thing had been badly deflated all because of a decision / need to not eat all the food on offer. Never mind that this was nothing new for them. Never mind that I could easily see myself skipping food just for the excitement they were experiencing before factoring in any sensory phases. Never mind that it would be a truly shit thing for me to be offended because they only ate some of the greasy fast food I picked up for us. No this simple and normal act caused them an hour of stress and anxiety over worrying if they’d crossed some social line for doing something I didn’t even notice until they said something.

But it doesn’t matter whether I noticed. Their brain latched onto the “you did something abnormal, people might have noticed, now you need to analyze everything that’s happened to figure out what you next move should be” train of thought and it would not let go. So at least from what I’ve seen, choosing to eat or not can have impacts beyond just “hungry”

Autism has become a culturally dominant force that's displaced other kinds of neurodiversity almost completely. All kinds of people have to "mask" aspects of themselves to get along. Black people have to talk white, Asian people have to present themselves in a way white people think is assertive. Gay people have to stay closeted. Just try academia when you grew up in a working class family.

The "simulator" paradigm pretends to promote empathy but it actually does the opposite.

Not sure, it's just my experience and I was diagnosed autistic at an early age

Ya, I'm curious about this as well. I'm not a morning person, and certainly am always just-scraping-by until about 1 pm. But is this some mild autism? Or is this just how I am? Or is there even a sensible distinction between those two phrases?

Yup, getting up earlier only works if you go to sleep earlier, too. But that's not for everyone, some people are just night owls.

I love walking, but the lack of time is the biggest issue. The only advantage of higher intensity exercise I see is that you do not need to do it as long. I could walk for hours every day otherwise.

My personal favorite is take the stairs and double step it so you skip every other step. After a few months you'll have rock hard thighs and calves.

> With respect, you weren't asked

With respect, you weren't asked.

> With respect

> it's shit advice

Those two statements seem to contradict each other.

Indeed. As someone who deals with the exact same issues as the original comment and have been fighting with sleep issues for over a decade, it's pretty fucking insulting to think we haven't tried to vary caffeine intake. Apparently we're too fucking stupid to think that the drug most known for wakefulness might be what is keeping us awake! It's like when I talk about crippling executive disfunction they chime in with the ever helpful, "have you tried setting a five minute timer to get started?"

I can guarantee that folks who suffer from these symptoms have read far more about mitigation than the average drive by commenter who doesn't suffer from them. Our whole lives at some point becomes about mitigation. So the "just drink less caffeine" is stupid and insulting and unfortunately way too common.

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I completely understand why people do it. My point is to pick your battles well. There are many cases where masking brings far greater pain than return on investment. When masking does fail people see right through it AND the thing you were attempting to hide is now exposed in great glorious fashion when like a Striesand Effect.

I think people think masking is just for those who have Autism. I think at some level all people mask. Most people behave differently outside of work or in public places when they are alone or with close friends.

I think with Autism the process of masking is just harder, and the ability to read social queues takes extreme focus to understand the general emotional state of others around them.

Does that example really require masking? Absolute not. You don't have to lie when you provide a neutral response. Examples: "Busy day", "Just feeling tired", "Many things to get done.". Those are not necessarily good or bad and suggest you aren't making small talk.

Or, if you provide a never ending story they will see your disability for what it is and they won't ask you a second time.

I'd say that's not masking, since literally everyone does it. As a famous comedian that I can't quite place right now once said, (paraphrasing) "the only valid answers to "how are you doing?" are good, fine, or okay.

Honestly, some things like this are solved with learning certain skills, practicing them a bit, and then it becoming easier. Answering to "How are you doing?" does not require masking, people asking it in casual contexts usually do not expect any kind of "honest answer". It is as hard as answering "hi" to "hi". There are plenty neutral answers that neither require you to smile and play it happy, not invite some long, awkward conversation. It could also depend on where you live though, of course.

Good in theory, but for me when I’m at my sensory limit I can’t have anything in my ears, nor the pressure of anything over them.

It’s a no-win situation in that respect and it sucks.

Most of the challenges of autism are also present in neurotypical just to a lesser degree. No one likes annoying loud sounds but to someone with autism the limit is going to be much lower. No one likes sudden changes but someone with autism won’t be able to handle them as easily. And so on.

I'm sure most people mask, but the difference between neurotypical and neurodivergent people is how much they mask, and when.

For instance, like many people on the spectrum, I feel discomfort making any form of direct eye contact. When I don't have a lot of mental energy, this discomfort can become quite intense, to the point that maintaining normal eye contact takes up so much mental effort that I can't listen to what someone is saying anymore.

I don't exactly have the "normal" experience to compare with, but I don't believe most people experience that. I've learned the hard way that people don't really appreciate it when you stare at the floor during the entire conversation, so forcing myself to make eye contact has become more automatic over the years, but it adds just a little bit of extra effort on top of what everyone else is feeling.

Sometimes, it's also other tiny issues. Deviations from how things "should be" can trigger an irrational feeling of upsetting. As a kid I remember crying about a door being painted, or the class using a different set of stairs to the normal route because deep down it felt extremely wrong. Even in my teens, having fries on a Tuesday was something I sometimes needed to recover from. I've learned to dismiss/ignore/crop up those irrational feelings, but sometimes they can sneak up on you and become quite taxing. The worst part, in my opinion, is how the mental impact remains despite knowing how absolutely bonkers those feelings are.

I believe I'm not affected as strongly by my autism as some other unfortunate souls are, because people seem somewhat surprised when they learn about stuff like that. I can only imagine how stressful their daily lives must be.

> normal life for most people ... except perhaps to the degree it is felt or needed

Well, yes, precisely. Almost everyone can relate to experiencing mild or moderate back pain for a couple of days when they sleep in a weird position, but some people have chronic back pain that makes life unbearable without prescription pain killers.

While talking to people about my ADHD in real life I noticed that many of them speak like they understand ADHD. Even when I try to explain in more detail they come really close to "getting it" by superficially relating to some of the ADHD symptoms, but unfortunately almost all of them end up taking the logical leap to say that "everyone deals with this" and start recommending "solutions".

Most people will never understand ADHD just like I don't truly understand what life is like for people with chronic pain, and that's fine.

People seem to at least conceptually understand that chronic pain = pain like they know it + much worse + never-ending, which they recognize as being awful. The thing that bothers me is that when it comes to ADHD (and autism) the calculation suddenly becomes ADHD = concentration problems they experienced + exaggeration + lack of discipline.

ADHD is relentless, it follows you everywhere, you can take many months off from work for stress relief and it will still be there (I tried). You can make sure to sleep well, eat well, exercise, avoid all stressors, focus on hobbies that make you happy and it'll still be there.

People juggle sleep deprivation, stressful job and/or kids, socializing, chores, appointments on a daily basis and say that concentration problems are normal, and yes, of course they are if you're overloading yourself like that. But many people with ADHD experience those (and much more) at our baseline and if I tried to achieve half of what other people achieve on a daily basis, I would burn myself out in under a month.

Some people might read this and think that this I'm an outlier but I think I'm pretty average as far as ADHD severity goes, I managed to finish university before struggling to keep up outside of highly structured environments, and ultimately getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult.

it's absolutely what all people do. The missing piece is you need to (a) multiply the severity/effort required by an order of magnitude and (b) add in a whole host of co-occuring factors like anxiety, OCD etc. that often come along for the ride

They could be if your options are “skip breakfast or eat something insane for breakfast because your brain and body crave it and it’s all you can manage to get yourself to eat if you are gong to eat.”

Think about how you might react if you were talking with someone about what they had for breakfast today and they answered “a bag of cotton candy and a beer”. That’s really weird right? Like you might be concerned about them for making that choice right? And what if on other days you notice that they’re a bit grumpier or more tired and they admit to not eating breakfast on those days. Now imagine over a few months you come to realize that your co-worker is either always skipping breakfast despite how it affects them, or they’re eating a bag of cotton candy and a beer. You’d probably be really concerned for them. You might even in an attempt to be helpful and supportive try and help them have better breakfasts, maybe even bring in some bagels (even though they always decline). This is an extreme example of course but for some autistic people, they will go through phases were if they eat they can only eat very specific things and those things aren’t going to be “normal”. During that time, the decision to eat or not to eat and the decision for what to eat are extremely fraught things because very well meaning and well intentioned people find the decisions being made odd and feel like they need to “help”. But if you don’t want the help (or worse if you know you should be doing something different but your mind will make you physically ill if you do) all that “help” is really just another stressor on top of everything else.

> people in the advocacy space use it to mean basic things like being well behaved or being nice to people

Thank you for this comment. As a family member of a young AuDHD person I am continually battered by a combination of their behavior (which directly and un-ignorably degrades the experience of everyone around) and by various 'advocacy' ideas that use phrasing like that to not-so-subtly imply that it's actually our bad for daring to expect to "not be hit," or to not be forced to constantly base our whole lives on one person's preferences, etc.

It's tough sometimes to figure out what's real, what's a fair expectation, what's something that can be learned/unlearned, and what's just inevitable.

I've mentioned to relevant people a couple of times in the past that I generally feel like I am "acting" in most social situations. Like I have an idea as to who/how I need to be in that moment and act accordingly. I'm used to it and it's not really something very conscious in the moment, but if the event lasts a long time it gets kind of draining since you have parallel tracks going - reading the room, predicting what reaction someone expects at any time, issuing that reaction, etc. It's not that I don't enjoy the events, but I can "fill up" on interaction quickly and want to go home early to recharge.

I figured that was just being an introvert.

I'm glad you posted. When I hear masking described like it is in this simulator: "To keep your job and avoid conflict, you must "mask." Masking means hiding your natural habits and feelings, while imitating the social behaviors that coworkers expect.", I always think, "isn't that just life?" If I didn't hide my natural habits I wouldn't be going to work at all. If I didn't hide my feelings I would yell at the person in the office next to me for listening to some webinar through their computer speakers and their door open. If I didn't imitate the social behaviors that coworkers expect I wouldn't wish the person I barely know happy birthday.

Yeah I like to think of it as active roleplaying instead of having to put in an effort. Most people have to put in some effort in social situations, heck I catch myself saying unproductive things to my partner if I slip completely into passive mode.

No, parent is right: everybody "masks" at work. Call it putting on a persona, playing a role, whatever - but as you said, it's less effortful for some than others.

Everybody has a social battery, but while some are working with a USB PD 240W monster you can't take on an airplane, others have to get by with an iPhone Air (and they can't disable background refresh).

It's true that different people require different amounts of effort to do and approach it with different tactics, but fundamentally almost nobody streams their inner monologue straight out of their lips, and I think when it does happen is actually much more associated with TBI and inhibition disregulation than ASD. (Which is not to say that it doesn't require a different approach or more effort for those with ASD.)

Yes, it's performing tasks in software that most people perform in hardware.

It's harder than you think.

- Go into a bright, commercial space

- All the packets are "shouting" at you with colorful labels

- There is noise of shoppers, a PA system, canned music and/or advertising

- Navigate lots of social interactions with other shoppers around navigating asiles, manouvering carts, who picks what

- Manage a shopping list and find a variety of goods

- Go to the check-out asile. Hopefully you can avoid interacting with a human

- Manage packing bags and paying

- Hopefully noone talks to you as you leave

Anxiety is not a rational thing, in the same way a friend of the family who had OCD would lambast me about the "particles" my outside shoes and the hems of my pants could bring inside all the while ignoring the giant stack of molding dishes in the sink.

It's a feeling in the body, a sense of alarm. That sinking pit of adrenaline.

I don't think I have autism but I do get ptsd type stuff occasionally.

You kinda sound like a macho asshole. None of those has anything to do with "toughening up" or growing up in an unstable household. It's like you didn't read the article or any comments here and felt the need to blast your insecurities out into open?

"Why do people need the wheelchair ramp? Is resiliency so low nowa days? Are people lazy?" Lol

Calling this an issue of resiliency is completely missing the point about autism. I recommend you do some more reading because it has nothing to do with resiliency. People on the spectrum can have incredible resiliency in certain activities that neurotypical people couldn't (for example, hyper focus on a very complex cognitive task or dedicate hours of "boring" repetitive practice in a physical activity).

I think lots of people on the spectrum would gladly grow vegetables or kill chickens over having to go to the grocery store. Tolerance levels on activities placing you in highly social situations with overwhelming stimuli can be significantly lower for people on the spectrum.

Like I said, implication is a bit weird.

For example, self care with video games would be different. I think the author was just trying to demonstrate that self care in the normal sense isn't the same to spectrum folks

Basically its forcing yourself to do normal things.

The idea behind the game is to illustrate that adhering to norms is energy draining, while also letting yourself be yourself results in negative outcomes.

I think it is reasonable to expect that a game that is called ”Autism Simulator” is likely neither going to a) be easy b) very enjoyable c) make much sense. You could also complain similarly about the game called ”Paying Hospital Bills Without Money” being unfair or that ”Terminal Cancer Ward” -game is impossible to beat. Hell, why not complain that Josef K in Kafka’s trial is quite unfairly treated? I think it is fairly reasonable to expect the player to manage their expectations and consider the game more as an art piece. Otherwise you miss the point completely.

I’m sure someone will build one, one of these days, when they get around to it...

Because for most people, someone reacting with disinterest for the thing they care about is a rare and upsetting event, not their entire life's experience. That's what it means to be "normal", you align better with your peers. Most people don't need what you need. Most people can work with what you can not. You are choosing to be the exception. You chose to be like this, so unchoose it and stop being a problem.

Of course... That's the quiet part. The out loud part is just dismissing everything you say and passing you over for promotion.

The objections you have raised, the things you have said. I really understand what you mean. There's evidence all around that the aspects of our experience isn't alien at all. Why can't others see that? At this point I think that not seeing it is necessary mental infrastructure for some people. It's a bridge over an abyss that for us broke.

I think the solace I get is that this line of work tends to funnel people of our disposition into it. So we find ourselves less alone than we normally would.

This is a question out of genuine curiosity and not intended to minimize misophonia in any way:

I do not see any examples of a "naturally occurring" sound there. Is the sound supposed to be human generated in some way? That would feel a bit incongruent with my understanding of it as a pure stimulus response situation.

Interesting how they're all noises people make. It's not chirping birds, or running motors, or anything that could occur when no one else is around.

omg tick tick tick.

Does everyone have this to some extent? Or is it really only a thing neurospicy folks experience? I have to run away from my wife when she's chewing loudly sometimes, the rage is real.

I've just realised that my hatred of foly in films is another symptom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(sound_design)) - can't watch films where this is overdone.

As others mentioned, noise cancelling headphones bring me so much peace.

Now I need a screechy audio that explains the "misovisia" I experience from seeing that graphic.

Ahh I can't stand that pressure feeling, makes me take them out instantly!!

Oh wow, I was just feeling grateful that I don't have misophonia, but then you had to mention chewing noises. I had that for decades. It wasn't all the time, but it didn't have to be loud or open-mouth or anything. It would just switch on and I couldn't hear or think about anything else. I daydreamed doing violent things to make the person stop, even when I logically knew it wasn't even slightly loud or unusual or ill-intentioned.

It almost never happens anymore, thankfully. Once every other month or so.

(Note that I am not autistic, or at least undiagnosed and my guess is that I wouldn't be. I just have some fairly mild autistic tendencies. I have a toe on the spectrum, or something. Those tendencies have a pretty dramatic impact on my life, but I think in a mostly neurotypical way -- we boring people can have similar problems too!)