New to forum - and trying to make a valuable initial connection!

Hi,

I’m new to this forum, having recently been exploring the Community section of the NAS website, and I feel like I’m in a position at the moment where I need to ‘network’ to my advantage (hence the subject of the discussion!) – and be quite pragmatic in doing so.

I’m a 38-year-old male from Manchester who was diagnosed 14 months ago as having an ASC (officially – but essentially Asperger’s to you, me and the world!).  I have suffered in various shapes and sizes with mental health difficulties throughout adulthood, and anxiety (I would say more specifically GAD – although this is basically self-diagnosis), certainly at this point in time, best describes where the land lies for me in this regard.

Alongside my ongoing private consultations both with a psychotherapist (perhaps once every month) and with a psychiatrist (twice yearly, and who made the referral to the psychotherapist), the funding for which I feel very fortunate in being able to rely on members of my family for, I really want to try and connect with others with similar experiences in order to learn, grow and achieve as an autistic adult.  While online forums are great (and certainly have massive power in trying to make that first connection), to my mind nothing beats trying to relate to an individual/individuals in person, and that’s basically where I’d like to be, whether that proves to be a straightforward process or something much more long-winded.  Despite my pragmatic approach here, emotions which are all too often involved, such as hopelessness and despair, have the means to make me feel very isolated and alone.

Quite soon after my diagnosis, and having signed up with the NAS, I became aware of the AutismCon convention which took place on 5th March of this year in London.  Obviously at the risk of having too many expectations, this jumped out at me as being pretty close to perfect for me, and it felt like a major disappointment that I was unable to attend due to the fact that it was taking place on a Saturday, which, as an observant Jew, conflicts with my religious practices.

As far as short-term objectives go, the main focus for me is trying to find the best way of navigating around the world of employment: I have responsibilities as the father of two primary-school-aged children from a failed marriage to take very seriously, and while I currently have a temporary but pretty stable office-based job with very low-level responsibility, my general employment record to date is troublesome, and I don’t wish to take anything for granted.  Meeting another romantic partner is another objective of mine, although I feel this may have to be in the longer term.

I was very recently self-referred to the Autistic Society Greater Manchester Area (ASGMA), but this doesn’t really seem to be providing the kind of thing I’m looking for as I’d perhaps hoped.

Obviously, all comments on this discussion are most welcome.  However, I feel that those who seem to be out there as ‘moderators’ may have particularly valuable input!

If you’re still reading, thank you so much for getting to the end!!

While it scares me to hope (and truly it does – it really really does!), here’s hoping…!