Published on 12, July, 2020
Has anyone else on here started or thought about starting their own social group for autistic adults?
I ask this because after getting diagnosed myself, I realised that for the majority of us who are diagnosed with autism as adults, there is very little support actually available. I had an idea of how good it would be to have a network of groups for autistic adults that are set up and run by those autistic adults that are able to do so. Because for those of us that don't qualify for any support, the only way we will get support is to create our own, and there are so many more people in the same position that we can help too. This is the hands on approach to increasing the number of services available to autistic adults, to make our own to help not only ourselves but also other autistic adults who otherwise would have very little support. So I started my own group up a few months ago, for autistic women that live in my local area, which is going really well. Yesterday, a friend of mine told me that she is also in the process of starting up a group for Neurodiverse women in her local area, which I'm really excited about! So we have a couple of up and coming groups. What about the guys, have any of you envisioned this type of group? Do people think that this is a good thing for those of us that are able, to be doing?
Only for women?
There's a group in my town but the night they meet clashes with track night for my triathlon club so...
My group works better as a single gender group for a number of reasons. It would be great if some guys started up some groups too :-)
Yes, there are a couple of autistic groups in London where men seen to outnumber women 10:1
I think what works well tends to vary from person to person and also from group to group. Some people may be more suited to a group for people with a particular interest. Some people may prefer to go to a group with fellow Aspie/Autistic people. Some groups are as you describe, people sitting around playing cards with very little interaction. Some groups have people attending with a very varied range of functioning, from all over the spectrum and they also have an activity at the group for attendees to join in if they so wish. I have been to both and I have based the model for my own group on the latter. My group is open to women anywhere on the spectrum and we have an activity at our monthly group meet ups. Last month we did sketching and this month we have a lady coming in to run a meditation and mindfulness workshop. I find that having an activity takes the focus off of interaction and actually people tend to interact more as a result.
I suspect most of the regular posters on here are very high functioning. I have experience of normal Asperger meetups and I really don't fit. I suspect that the other people attending cover a much wider spectrum so are more typical of autistic behaviour.
There's very little interaction and no real friendship. Playing card games is as far as it gets.
The extra-curricular events are really difficult - like a bunch of strangers forced to be in the same place.
I think we are looking for something that doesn't exist as an autisitc meetup - it's really as @Original Prankster says - it exists as a D&D group or a model engineering club or as volunteers at an aircraft museum.
Yeah I'm sure that they do, the 'informal' meet ups!
It is amazing spending time with fellow autistic people. Since being diagnosed myself I've come to realise that most of my close friends from pre-diagnosis are un-diagnosed autistic, some are pursuing diagnosis and some aren't and I've made friends with some more autistic people since diagnosis too which is great. It's a very relaxing way for me to spend my time, talking with other autistic people :-) maybe give the group in your town a go?
Fair enough.
I have a horrible suspicion that predominately male ASD groups already exist... but they probably don't identify as such, instead they are 'Tabletop gaming' or 'PC building' or relate to other activities that seem to attract men who appear to display a higher than average incidence of autistic traits!
I would like to try spending time with people who just 'got it'... maybe I'll have to break my routine and give track night a miss for one week next month...