Published on 12, July, 2020
I joined here around 5 months ago.
Since that time it's come to mean different things to me.
I think sharing experiences is invaluable but equally invaluable is the honesty I find here.
It's a place where we can talk about shared experience /our emotions/difficulties in a way that's impossible in the 'real' world - or at least if we speak about it there, it's unlikely to be understood.
It's a place to connect in a world where we often find connecting difficult.
I've received some PMs recently that have made me focus more on how very important this community can be to us as individuals.
Luna RIP called this her 'forum family'.
As a person who doesn't seek friendship (?or thinks she doesn't?), some surprising and valuable friendships have evolved from here for me.
How about you?
I guess the most-important thing, that I find on this forum, is validation. I’ve read a whole-bunch and I’ve studied autism for over a year. I’ve got a 2 foot pile of books that I read, half of which I read just to type my first-reply here, the other half I read in post-diagnosis alongside various-courses. I felt I had to justify ‘going multiplayer’ as it were, I felt as if I was born-and-trained to be solo in everything I did, I was certain that my lived-experience as undiagnosed disqualified me from my ‘people’.So to fail at making a long story short, this forum gives me validation as a human, whilst in the ‘real’ world I am only good for being outcasted or exploited..
DeSpereaux said: I felt as if I was born-and-trained to be solo in everything I did, I was certain that my lived-experience as undiagnosed disqualified me from my ‘people
Beautifully put.....and me too.