Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, advice needed!
I recently joined a social group for autistic people at my university, the first meeting was more enjoyable than I anticipated but I really struggled with one of the participants who had a loud voice. While I don’t want to expect other people to have to mask a lot in this situation, I definitely felt uncomfortable and found it quite overwhelming. Would it be reasonable to ask the organisers if they could speak to this person (who has been going for longer than I have/seems to have a good rapport with the organisers/staff) and ask them to lower their voice? I feel like an ass asking them to moderate themselves in a group like this but equally I’d really like to keep going (I have very few friends my own age) and don’t want to snap at them by accident.
(please note I don’t think I’m the only person who felt a little like this, several other people also became more open/talkative after they left)
It’s exceedingly difficult to moderate your volume if you’re unaware you’re being loud. (as autistic people sometimes are ) And if you ask people to be extra aware that they’re being loud they are going to be horribly self-conscious and unable to be themselves.
if it’s causing you physical discomfort you may want to try earplugs otherwise I think you’ll probably just have to get used to it.
student groups need to be inclusive and that means everyone has to feel like they can be there. but they don’t necessarily have to tailor The club to everyone’s preferences. it’s not fair to single out one person and apply a special rule exclusively to them. I suppose the society could make a quiet talking rule for everybody. but do you think that that would make the club the kind of place that people want to come?
I don’t know it would surely depend on the type of club right? But if you go up to him and say you need to stop being loud or you can’t be in this club he’s probably going to feel like you’re just kicking him out. Talking loudly May not be something he feels like he has all that much control over. Or at least trying to exert control over it might basically turn him into an introverted wallflower who never says anything. In which case he may not want to come to the club in the first place.
Yeah that’s how I feel too. That being said, it does seem like it could be the sort of situation where they are just genuinely unaware and speaking loudly because they’re excited/there’s a lot of people and they want to interject (basically I feel like I could deal with either problem- the interjecting/being loud- but not both) so they might be understanding but I also don’t want to make them self conscious as you say. They did seem to know the staff members well though hence me thinking they might be able to discuss it with them?It’s a bit more than physical/sensory discomfort (which I’m used to dealing with)- it upset me in a different way from what I’m used to and I think it might actually be trauma from past negative experiences with loud, low range voices, hence why I think it really pushed me as normally I just try to tolerate these things.
I’d also add that I don’t think they should/would be excluded from the group or anything as its not set up like that (and they’ve been there longer), it’s more of an “is this a reasonable request to make _if they felt able to_ given the groups intentions” question. Some other people also opened up a lot more after they left so I’m not sure if it’s just a “me" problem or not.