Published on 12, July, 2020
I know people are going to say go to groups where like minded people are but i never seem to find people or find a fault that just ruins it for me.
Here’s the thing that annoys me. This isn’t just something that’s a ‘I would like to do this.’ Meeting up with people regularly with a shared interest is literally medically recommended for autistic people.
NICE guidelines cg142 say
1.4.5 For adults with autism without a learning disability or with a mild to moderate learning disability, who are socially isolated or have restricted social contact, consider:
1.4.6 A structured leisure activity programme should typically include:
these group based structured leisure activity programs with “a focus on the interests and abilities of the participant(s)” that’s Basically a special interest club. (Eg your local branch of the Harry Potter fan club) I don’t see what else it could be.
and since there are as many special interests as grains of sand on the shore (so it seems). Your local council can’t just run one and ask all the autistic people to go to it. It needs to be interest specific. Which means autistic people going to clubs run mostly by and for non autistic people.
but as far as I can see the powers that be are keen to do nothing at all in the direction of making sure autistic adults have access to that kind of group.
as far as I can see this guideline isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on because no one is willing to do what it takes to make it workable
I think it's a lot to ask of local authorities to run hundreds of special interest groups for everybody with autism, Peter. There are already hundreds of special interest groups running in every town and every city, organised by both ordinary and extraordinary people. It's up to us to go and find/join them. And let's be frank, if these groups were run by the council, they'd have to be open to all sorts of weirdos and not-rights. Just because someone is autistic, it doesn't mean I'd want to spend time in their company. They'd be no better than day centres... and I can't think of anything worse than being trapped making finger puppets with a bunch of low-achievers all jabbering on about the latest reality TV show. It's much healthier to go out and find real-life groups that interest you and that have a diverse membership. Not artificial groups.
You know Mondays I typically go over to my brothers house to hang out with a few mutual friends.
on the face of it you might think that is a structured group activity. Except we seem to have an argument every night about what we are going to do.
we can play video games but we don’t like the same games. We can watch films but we don’t like the same movies. And every night it seems some one ends up sulking because they didn’t like the choice we eventually settled on.
they are by and large great guys and I get on well with them one on one but in a group there is just not enough overlap in our interests to keep everyone happy and it can make what should feel like a laid back fun time to unwind with friends sometimes feel like an endless debate which more than once people have walked away from in a huff.
gathering around a common interest makes a BIG difrence.