Being part of the autistic community

Hard for me to comment on any of these three communities that you mention, because I am not part of any of them.

I am merely a part of this particular forum community here - and frustration is the main emotion that it induces within me these days.

The first 12-18 months of me becoming accepted and integrated into this forum community felt connective and reassuring - I discovered that "me" was not as "otherly" as I had once thought - because other people kindly shared their personal thoughts and experiences of the world around them, as autistic people.  I discovered overwhelming criss-crosses of common ground.....and this made me happy.

I was eventually able to connect directly with some people who valued the mutual ability to discuss ANYTHING without fear or favour, safe in the knowledge of our shared autistic challenges, although the precise colour, volume and tone of those challenges are often very different.

Personally, I feel that being autistic makes membership of any "shared community" VERY hard, whether that be an "autistic community" or any other type of community that you care to mention.

It is interesting to see that you feel the "autistic community" is harder for you than the other two that you mention.  Thanks for sharing that.  I love to learn.

It's more psychologically demanding. Some people are at their best in such an environment/situation I'm the complete opposite. I constantly worry about saying something that  will result in the disapproval of those self appointed gatekeepers of how an autistic person should be.

Hi Firemonkey. This sounds like it could be imposter syndrome? I had that when I first joined this forum, I didn't think I would be "autistic enough" to fit in. But I soon realised that I am what I am - people will either accept me or not, there is no point worrying about it.

I enjoy communicating with a diverse mix of people in here. Everyone is interesting to me, including you. We don't have to all be the same to have empathy with each other.

I don't use any other forums or social media so I cannot make comparisons. But I believe that all of us here have had mental health issues, and we may not all be geniuses but we all have the capacity to think things through, often in a creative or "out of the box" way. We are all valid and valuable.

Lotus said:

Hi Firemonkey. This sounds like it could be imposter syndrome?

You might be right. I've only really thought about imposter syndrome from a cognitive ability angle. The one that has me  thinking most people could do well at x, but I'm stupid  if I can't do well at y. My daughter regards my ASD as primary and the schizophrenia/schizoaffective as secondary..It  occurring due to the pressure and stress of having been an undiagnosed autistic child and teenager.

Lotus said:

Hi Firemonkey. This sounds like it could be imposter syndrome?

You might be right. I've only really thought about imposter syndrome from a cognitive ability angle. The one that has me  thinking most people could do well at x, but I'm stupid  if I can't do well at y. My daughter regards my ASD as primary and the schizophrenia/schizoaffective as secondary..It  occurring due to the pressure and stress of having been an undiagnosed autistic child and teenager.