Figure out what's eating you and deal with it. There's always something. There's always a path forwards out of every bind you can get in, you just have to find it by knowing yourself. I don't know what flavor of autism you are, but a lot of artists I know have issue feeling their feelings, which is the first step to unclogging yourself.
Except for the whole 100% console failure rate and hiding and lying about it to everyone TO THIS VERY DAY.
And introducing and standardizing subscription online services in an otherwise previously free and good-will culture.
And predatory, hostile payment behaviors and many other awful dark patterns.
Microsoft joining gaming might be the singular worst thing to ever happen to gaming.
To this day, they're destroying everything they touch, and in case you forgot, the AI boom that Microsoft is funding and pushing is the reason nobody can get hardware and is actively making other platforms worse and holding back steam hardware.
Games for Windows live.
Also, anything remotely good they've "done" has also been an acquisition and has ultimately rotted under them.
You know how sometimes if you put a superhero mask on and you feel goofier and/or more confident?
Now imagine you're an awkward shy person and/or neurodivergent and you spent a lot of growing up being an absolute gremlin or pomp inside your mind but having to forcibly behave like everybody else or be ridiculed. Behaving, paying active close attention to others and their reactions and movements, and acting appropriately... This is called masking.
Notice the similarities?
Now, apply cartoon personified animal characteristics to yourself while literally wearing a suit/whole outfit. What characteristics, you ask? The ones that you enjoy, feel the best, and you feel fit you the best.
That's oversimplified furries. They're party superheroes and it helps them be their chosen selves.
(I am not a furry. This is my impression and current level of understanding from an entirely outside perspective. If I'm wrong, please feel more than free to correct me, I'd love to know.)
Pfas in outdoor gear are usually highly effective for waterproofing.
Unfortunately, they also leech off into the environment and basically poison it forever - thus the nickname "forever chemicals"
Goretex and waterproofing sprays and DWR coatings and treatments are usually forever chemicals. At somebody who lives in the pnw and who loves being outdoors, it's extremely sad that we have a huge ethical obligation to not use and especially not buy that stuff anymore. Like, it's SO good at lasting forever, that it actually lasts forever.
Like non-electric vehicles, we basically should not be buying any new of this stuff ever again. The more we act on what we are aware with, the more future possibilities of being perpetually poisoned by harmful chemicals we avoid, which also supports R&D and industry and infrastructure, and thus the economy and civilization. It's literally better for us all.
If you're looking for alternatives, I seem to remember Fjallraven promoting beeswax as a sustainable, non toxic improvement over no DWR treatment. It comes in a barsoap-like bar that you scrape/rub on your gear, then use your campfire, a heater, or a hairdryer to warm it up until it melts into the fabric fibers, providing some water repellency.
It's unfortunate that teflon and pfas are harmful to people and the environment, because they are truly powerful and the stuff is the best. It's also unfortunate that basically every time we try to not use "the bad stuff", somehow companies find things that are even worse, and those companies cough dupont cough always know beforehand that it's even worse and use it anyway, just like lead in gasoline through the 20th century.
But, we have to keep going forwards. Eating rocks is bad for you, so is eating poop, and so is eating dirty food, and so is eating old food, and so is eating certain kinds of food, and so is eating too much food, and so is not eating enough of certain kinds of food... And on and on and on. But, with each iteration of knowledge and experience, we learn more, and become stronger and more efficient.
Figure out what's eating you and deal with it. There's always something. There's always a path forwards out of every bind you can get in, you just have to find it by knowing yourself. I don't know what flavor of autism you are, but a lot of artists I know have issue feeling their feelings, which is the first step to unclogging yourself.