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Undiagnosed online communities

Allfunktup

I'm undiagnosed, and although everyone is lovely here on the forum  I'm still finding it hard not to feel like a tourist.  Some of the advice and suggestion from the forum have been very helpful, but I reluctant to really talk to people as I'm not really part of this.  It that normal?  I wanted to get to know other autistic adults, but I don't feel like I'm at a place in my lift where the stress of the diagnosis journey would be worth it.  Where I live the health services are so overwhelmed I'm not a priority, and rightly so.  If I was younger it would be amazing, but I've made it this far without it I thought I should stick to acceptance. But it seems to fit so I'm curious enough to break my isolation a little.

I joined a meet up group online for adult autistics, but the keep meeting up and having events like board games.  Are autistic people all good at board games? I never played any.  Does this mean I'm not autistic? The other one was some sought of meal and I hate eating out. I know it sounds stupid, but things like this just put me off reaching out.  On some level I knew there is a lot of diversity within the community, but I feel like I don't have a guest pass, and can't access it. Do any other undiagnosed people feel the same?

Parents
  • Allfunktup said:
    Do any other undiagnosed people feel the same?

    Yes, but decreasingly so over time.  From my personal perspective, I have found an increasing affinity with the folks in this place because of the regular (and utterly random) moments of resonance and connection with all manner of weird and wonderful writings.  My experiences here are affirming of my self-identification and providing me with a better insight into which of my plethora of odd personality traits are primarily autistic in origin, and which are just generalised weird disorders and features driven primarily by my personal life experience.  Obviously there is unavoidable overlap - but hopefully you get the idea.

    To give you a precise example - I recently (nearly 6 months ago) quit abusing alcohol, by completely quitting booze.  Inevitably, as sobriety has taken hold within my head, it has been incredibly useful to have other autists help me to distinguish which manifesting thoughts and behaviours are likely to be autistic blossoming - and which are just cold hard sobriety and chemical re-balancing.  If a few other people say "God, yea, me too" when I relay a feeling or experience, it is more probable to be an autistic thing.  It's really helpful to me.

    My advice Allfunk, is relax and participate.  See where it leads you.

    All the best.

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  • Allfunktup said:
    Do any other undiagnosed people feel the same?

    Yes, but decreasingly so over time.  From my personal perspective, I have found an increasing affinity with the folks in this place because of the regular (and utterly random) moments of resonance and connection with all manner of weird and wonderful writings.  My experiences here are affirming of my self-identification and providing me with a better insight into which of my plethora of odd personality traits are primarily autistic in origin, and which are just generalised weird disorders and features driven primarily by my personal life experience.  Obviously there is unavoidable overlap - but hopefully you get the idea.

    To give you a precise example - I recently (nearly 6 months ago) quit abusing alcohol, by completely quitting booze.  Inevitably, as sobriety has taken hold within my head, it has been incredibly useful to have other autists help me to distinguish which manifesting thoughts and behaviours are likely to be autistic blossoming - and which are just cold hard sobriety and chemical re-balancing.  If a few other people say "God, yea, me too" when I relay a feeling or experience, it is more probable to be an autistic thing.  It's really helpful to me.

    My advice Allfunk, is relax and participate.  See where it leads you.

    All the best.

Children
  • in reply to Deleted User

    Thanks Number,

    I do see a lot of "me too" moments. But because this is all new I get moments when I convince myself that this is like my form of masking, like " do I think that because everyone else thinks that here", or "am I still trying to fit in". I suppose it's just an identity issue where I'm not sure where I stand just  yet. But it's at the back of everything. Totally over thinking everything and trying to anticipate everything for so long makes me a very unreliable narrator or my own life!