Not being able to change clothing.

I seldom go clothes shopping and these days just buy things from Sainsburys when I do. I’m so glad to no longer be young enough to feel I should try to navigate  clothes brand shops like Next or whatever. Environments where there’s music blasting, the floodlit rows of garments are a nightmare of variety and sameness somehow Co-existing in some kind of enigma code, and the staff try not to pity the shuffling mutant hobo (me) that just apologetically infiltrated a (too) trendy  environment. The dread of it all. I have no clue about fashion, so when I find a some basic plain stuff in the supermarket within a limited palette I keep three to five combinations in solid rotation for ages - usually eventual wear and tear means that only about three viable ensembles for venturing outside in are at at any point in service - and some things are in the line-up for years. I stick to blues and greys for shirts and jumpers as well (my complexion looks weird in anything else) especially after some random comments in the past left me feeling deeply self conscious so I only wore the commented on thing once and was in agony to get home and get changed out of it asap. For example, I wore a black shirt into work one time (after very nearly bottling out on stepping out of my strict established parameters but getting myself into a ‘you overthink this stuff’ mode for once) only to be instantly greeted by colleagues singing Johnny Cash songs at me. I laughed it off in the way that the NT social code requires of me, but every second of that day I was crawling out of my skin and counting g the seconds until I could close my front dor behind me, confine the shirt to a permanent home in a drawer or bin, and go back to the frayed but familiar stuff I already had. It was very upsetting and I felt like once again I just wasn’t managing the instincts for dressing ‘right’ that 90% of society has down from no age. And money had been wasted once again on a failed attempt to be inconspicuous while, of necessity, replenishing the wardrobe. 

I imagine that for autistic women it must be even a hundred times worse. All the nuances and combinations and accessories that have to be intuitively matched to get remarked on positively (or ideally, not remarked upon at all perhaps?) are like a super-complex equation that I can’t begin to understand. I can barely even comprehend what acceptable colour/style combinations for weird looking men should be. TK Maxx or something would be a total nightmare - how does it all make sense to anyone?  

I should say that I’m scrupulous about being clean and keeping my clothes regularly washed. It’s just that the same ones stay in service for a long time. And are never ‘on trend’ 

Hello, thankyou for your post. I've got in to a really bad routine of wearing the same clothes all week then washing them on a Friday night to wear again for another week. Been doing this for the last few years and now all my clothes are falling apart and have lots of holes in, which makes me even more distressed.

I can relate! 

I can relate! 

I haven't always been this way with my clothes, but it's been worse since i've been living on my own.