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Does this "comunity" include CAELUS ??

I Sperg

We call this a "community" but the turnover of people as noted many times has been quite unacceptably high. 

I'd like to single out "Caelus" in particular, a member that many will have come across on this forum. I got to know him quite well for a while on a discord server that served for a while for people who get "Bullied" on this forum immediatey that they join until they learn to self moderate their "unacceptable" thoughts.

He wrote an awful lot there about his life and challenges, very articulately and as angrily as one might expect an intelligent, hard working, young autisic man to be in this particularly annoying world as it is right now. I even got to speak with him on one occasion using the discord video conferencing feature, (that never worked well for me) He talked a great deal about his Job ad teh challenges and iniquities he faced daily at work, and to be honest I really looked forwards to his walls of text.   

NOW, I am supposed to have in excess of 50 Friends on this forum, and I've been a very prolific poster at some points, as I am sure many will agree.

After the "changeover" I was real slow to connect again to this forum for various reasons, and when I did, I found I had 3 people reach out to me in my PM's box, and one of them wonder where I had gone to on the open forum. To be honest, even cynical me fidns that to be statistically interesting and food for thought. There's a lot of people who report on this forum to be "alone in the world". Caelus would ever be one of those of course, but how many people have asked him how is he doing? I can't help wondering    

There are evidently some people who regularly network and are friends in "real life" and who support each other in little sub-communties on this forum, (hence the need for the discord server which I used to attend, apparently for people who got "mobbed" by one such clique)  but I suspect that there are a VAST majority of people here who really don't really feel like they "belong" at all. 

I'd LIKE to think that Caelus does have a real friend in this community who does know how he is doing ATM, but it has been 3 Months since I last got a P.M. off him, and I think he was railing against his second consecutive sentence of "moderation" so he might have decided to throw in the towel. I didn't really see him get much support from the forum and he patently did not find this to be a "community" as such, where his uniqueness was accepted as a fellow autist MIGHT initially expect until they get the full N.A.S. forum experience. 

May I observe as a faily long term "survivor" on this forum, that the name "Community" is perhaps a gross midescription of whateevr this thing we have actually is.

Perhaps it is more of an online "Collective" really, with all the nuances that word holds these days...

  • Community? Not really.

    • There are at least three people here who disappeared after there was a sense of connection, and yes, I know., stuff, sometimes bad stuff, happens to people, and I have no control over that. Especially when covid was around. 

    As for recent changes, all I noticed was that notifications started coming through the email address I used with my old ID that became a casualty of the last set of sweeping changes that took place here, and my last avatar got retired. I hadn't planned on coming back. I encountered someone here who may or may not have been a bad actor in the first place, if he hadn't been caught out by a bunch of professionals himself, but I'm not necessarily sure about that.

    Autism or not, my experience tells me that people are people no matter not, human nature is still human nature, and any kind of neurodiversity is no guarantee of being able to find kindred spirits. 

  • It's great to see you back, I Sperg. I've also quietly wondered how you're doing and whether you'll be back. 

    I Sperg said:
    the turnover of people as noted many times has been quite unacceptably high

    I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure that's the best way to think about it. We can join, lurk, participate, take breaks, leave, or have our accounts deleted whenever we want. I think we need to be kind to each other about how we choose to use (or not use) the forum - particularly given our social and communication difficulties - and I also don’t feel we should worry about needing to explain or justify ourselves to each other.

    Thread title: “Does this community include CAELUS??”, and:

    I Sperg said:
    I'd like to single out "Caelus" in particular

    I’m not personally a fan of singling any of us out like this, regardless of what are undoubtedly your best intentions.

    Among our autistic traits, many of us can feel deeply uncomfortable about "just" being perceived or seen, let alone about being made the subject of online discussions that focus on us and our relationships, interactions, or feelings. We’re all different, of course, but I definitely wouldn't appreciate being singled out and discussed here like that.

    You seem concerned about how few of your 50 friends reached out to ask after you. But I think it's easy to read too much into it. Perhaps people were just being respectful? Again, we're all different, but receiving messages from - and needing to reply to - all 50 of your friends might have felt overwhelming (it would have done for me). 

    The prospect of reaching out might also have felt awkward or stressful for them. I can get myself in a state over the simplest of written communications. Like when my brain locked up and I felt like crying after trying to trying to come up with a simple, personalised message to write in a birthday card! Flushed

  • I'm not a regular poster here (generally hesitant with most forms of communication) but check in / browse around here quite often to look for wisdom amongst my fellow "untypical" types.

    I've always enjoyed reading your posts, I Sperg, and those of Caelus, and am pleased to see you back. Hope it remains a place where you feel your perspective is welcome.

  • I'm not sure what this post is about, I remember Caelius, not seen him for a while, I remember him as being a bit contravercial at times, which could rub some people up the wrong way.

    I think some people forget that as people with ASC, we're as individual as people without it, no ones going to find a place or people that are totally supportive of everything you do.

    I'm not sure I experience this place as a community in the way you and others seem to understand the word. I communicate with no one off site, I find I have little in common with many other users, sometimes this upsets me more than others, but I am posting less and I'm starting fewer threads because they either don't go anywhere, get taken out of context and I just think why bother?

  • Good to "see" you again Isperg, I did ask after you and was told you were taking a break.

    I don't remember Caelus, I'm afraid, but after what you told us I hope you connect with him again and he's doing ok.

    I don't accept friend requests as I don't do personal messaging with anyone - it's just that I'm highly cautious on t'internet. But I do enjoy interacting in the public forum with a lot of people, including you.

    I'm not sure about the term "collective" as it reminds me of the Borg Grin Like Mr T, I see it as a support group - I drop in and out as want / when I have time, and chat with whoever is here.

  •  Glad to see you post again. I have enjoyed your posts. I have an open mind to this forum. I get some comfort from others experiences and try to give my tuppence worth at times.

    The conflicts that come about over the slightest things can be off putting. But we all have a choice to get involved or just simply ignore.

    The word neurodiversity springs to mind as we are all different entities with some shared traits under the banner of being autists. How we experience the world can be similar but completely different to each of us.

    I recently started a thread after the US elections that was supposed to be a light hearted but descended into arguments with folks threating to leave etc.

    I am not into cliques as I have always been on the outside of them all my life and have no wish to be in one on here. To some this may be a community but to me it is more like a support group.

  • Hi I Sperg, good to see you’re still around.

    Caelus is an interesting chap. When I first joined the forum i found him very abrasive and difficult but in time I came to realise he was really very similar to me indeed. We have most of the same challenges and frustrations, we just express them differently (mostly).

    Is this place a community? I don’t know. I have struggled to find a place here and have only just returned after a three month absence. You are right that there are cliques and subgroups. Every single friend request I ever sent here was either ignored or rejected and yet I can see others have many friends.

    But it is a place to interact with other humans. And that it is something.

    I hope you and Caelus are both doing okay.

  • Hi I Sperg. It is nice to see you back. I asked after you a few times and then I heard from others that you were taking a break from the 'new' forum.

    I don't know Caelus. I don't think that I have ever interacted with him. Are you saying that he disappeard from Discord too? Because from what you wrote that seems the obviouis place to re-connect with him?

    One thing that I can say about being put on moderation from those of us that have been riding out the rollercoaster that is the new forum. People are getting put on moderation left, right and centre. It's happened to pretty much everyone including me twice. Sadly, this is putting lots of people off and I guess that it has really put people off who have not been here since the upgrade.

    If there is a conspiracy, then it is firmly with the moderation bots that can interpret a 70s song lyric as an imminent terrorist threat. I never did get to the bottom of what specific words got me. I spent a number of weeks being told that my account was getting deleted on the 23rd by an ugly orange bar at the top of the screen with no avanue of protest. I think that would put many people off even trying.

  • I’m happy to see you back, I have never talked to Caelus privately, but I’m sure this community is also for him. I had some break myself, I was told there is enough space for everyone. I think it’s normal in every community or group that there are some smaller groups of friends / like minded people formed. Spectrum or not, we are all humans. Honestly I don’t use discord, I started using instagram a bit.