• Replies 2 replies
  • Subscribers 68 subscribers
  • Views 673 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Hello I'm new here

doodles7

Hi, I'm new to this forum and am still learning how it works.

I have Aspergers and have found that since my diagnosis which was three years ago, I have had no support. I finally managed to get a job early last year and passed my driving test last August so now I am focusing on my social life.

I have two friends who don't have Aspergers and would like to meet more people like me. I'm hoping this site will at least allow me to talk to other people who have Aspergers.

I recently tried a social group near me but found that it wasn't for me, especially since I felt I was on a different level of Aspergers to the other people in the group. Although I find it hard to socialise, my Aspergers is actually mild.

It would great to hear from anyone who fancies a chat Smile

  • Hi

    Thanks for replying Longman Smile My lack of a social life has been getting me down recently and it's nice that you have taken the time to reply.

    Yeah I agree there are a lot of variations and levels of Aspergers. My mum is constantly picking up on my traits such as having specific interests and I get anxious when things change although I'l admit I'm not as bad as I used to be.

    At school my anxiety levels used to hit the roof and I was very shy and quiet, a lot of kids picked up on that and no one understood me so I didn't really talk a lot. I didn't bother socialising, especially as I found it hard to start conversations and keep them going. 

    When I was a kid, I used to spend most of my time in my room. Many people that came to our house picked up on that but no one ever guessed that I had Aspergers, they just got used to me being like that.

    When I say mild, I mean more in the social way. I am able to look people in the eye when I talk to them although I'll admit I used to find that very difficult. I think that after I left school and went through different jobs and courses, I started to come out of my shell more and despite still being very shy, I find it easier to talk to people even if I just say hello, something else I  used to find really hard. 

    I work at a kennels so I don't get to speak to a lot of people apart from my boss and two other kennel assistants. I try not to let the socialisation get me down but now that I am 21, I really would like to make more friends and get out more. I would like to meet more people like me, even if they don't have Aspergers, who have similar interests.

  • The trouble with Aspergers is there are so many variations, or rather different people are affected to different degrees for different attributes. So rather than being mild, you may not recognise some of the traits you see in others in yourself. But you may have some marked traits you are not able to look at detachedly and recognise.

    That possibly undermines the success of Asperger social groups, we don't have much in common in terms of symptoms, let alone interests!

    One of the big difficulties for universities when it first became apparent they were recruiting AS students (which they must have been doing for years without knowing it) was there was no template to work with. You can draw up a template of what you need to do for any other disability based on common traits. When the intake of diagnosed AS students began academics were writing guidance papers based on their experiences of ONE student - most not surprisingly were utterly useless.

    I remember being so appalled by one University's Guidance Booklet they had sold to other universities that read more like a David Attenborough programme on the lifestyle of a jungle creature - they were treating their one asperger student like a laboratory specimen. I wrote to them in protest and got back a lot of self-righteous indignation from the authors about how they were making progress and I was obviously jealous. In just several years most of these guidelines were redundant. There is no stereotypical aspie.

    I guess this process must have happened in schools, further back in time

    I'm not sure what to advise when it comes to socialising with other people on the spectrum. Like anything else, it will work some of the time but not at other times.

    But you've got a job and you can drive - don't let the socialsation get you down.