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Karategurl
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25 Nov 2017, 2:23 am

What is your experience with going to church as an adult with autism?



Raleigh
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25 Nov 2017, 2:26 am

I've been to church as an adult with autism.
There were no problems except the "problem" of me not believing any of it.


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SabbraCadabra
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25 Nov 2017, 2:40 am

It was very similar to going to church as a child, except it was a different church, and I didn't like the pastor as much as the one I grew up with (I didn't really agree with a lot of his views). They also use a lot more projectors now, and they have full bands with glass drum booths and everything. When I was little, it was just organ and choir, and the PA system wasn't great.

Growing up meant I couldn't go to Sunday school anymore, or VBS, youth night, or any of those other fun activities.


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Goth Fairy
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25 Nov 2017, 3:08 am

All the usual social problems- everyone there seems to have their little friendship groups and I don't know how to fit in with them. Hanging around after the service with a cup of tea and not knowing what to say to anyone. Feeling left out and isolated.
My attendance since growing was rather sparodic, now I haven't been in years. I would like to go back but the social side of it scares me.

In terms of belief, that has also changed a lot over the years. I grew up with a very literal interpretation of the Bible, made worse by literal thinking. I have since learned that there are many ways to understand things, and now I see it differently.


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25 Nov 2017, 3:35 am

I haven't been to a church since I got out of junior high (except this one time as a tourist to see the inside of the church, but there was no one there at the time), but I don't think I'd have any trouble these days if I did want to go. As a I child I did have trouble with so many people with some of them smelling really bad, dim lighting, all the noise etc. but I can handle things like that much better now.



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25 Nov 2017, 5:19 am

Noise. The church is too noisy and too distracting. Crowd. Speaking a lot of words nobody really care what they mean. Pronouncing words I don't mean because this is what I am supposed to do.
A supposed community I don't belong to.
Supposedly welcomed spirituality with no room made for it.
A wrong place on a wrong planet.


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25 Nov 2017, 7:34 am

I didn't like listening to the speakers up front. They would often make comments to the whole group or ask for audience participation, then judge the whole group when we didn't respond well enough, which upset me. Plus, I found listening to the sermons boring. :P I liked the music, though. Now when I go, I don't go into the sanctuary, but instead stay in the library (there's a TV in there that plays the service), which helps me avoid the aforementioned problems.



Edna3362
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25 Nov 2017, 8:35 am

.. Aside that I'm not much of a believer...

My main problem is that I couldn't understand the sermons.
Either because I hear too many things at once that I couldn't hear the words well, or I could hear it clearly yet I don't follow or understand what it meant. :|
If neither(or either way), it's because I usually get bored.


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HistoryGal
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25 Nov 2017, 9:02 am

I'm Catholic so no sermons. Just 15-20 homily which is aided by power points. Really like it and it always leaves me wanting more.

Socially? A total zero as I have never been accepted into the group. Tried 4 years or so than quit trying.



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25 Nov 2017, 11:31 am

I find the social aspect of church to be incredibly challenging. The churches I have been to are full of cliques. There is always a core group of people that kiss the pastor's @ss whether at a protestant church or a catholic church. Pastors' kids are the worst. They are snobs and they think are something special because their parent or grandparent is the pastor. The beautiful thing about the catholic church is that there are no pastors' kids to deal with because priests can't get married and have kids. The cliques make coffee and doughnut time awkward as can be because nobody wants to sit at my table even when I'm one of the first people to walk into the room and take a seat. The only anyone will sit with me is if the rest of their clique isn't around or this nowhere else left to sit. Like ten people will gather at one table even though there should only be six chairs to a table. People will take chairs from my table even there are chairs at empty tables that they could take instead.



HistoryGal
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25 Nov 2017, 11:36 am

I see it's amazing how rude people can be. Would be more fun to go in town for a donut afterwards.



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25 Nov 2017, 1:08 pm

I go with my service dog. It helps that I have to sit on the end of a row so there's space for him. The volume and crowd are both significant issues for me. I seem to have completely missed the social aspect of church - I don't even know the name of anyone else who goes to my church. I do feel like I don't really belong there because I've developed my own religious beliefs that don't quite fit Catholocism, or any other religion I know of. I go because I still live with my parents and they expect me to.


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eeVenye
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25 Nov 2017, 4:27 pm

Catholic here. I get to largely lose myself in the ritual of the liturgy, particularly when I can get to a parish that worries about orthopraxis. As the liturgy is an SI, I end up closing my eyes though, to avoid freaking out over the constant disregard for liturgical norms.


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25 Nov 2017, 4:51 pm

Eevenye, beautiful!



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25 Nov 2017, 6:43 pm

I stopped going to my church at the end of middle school, I stopped wanting to believe what it taught because some of what the faith is or what it teaches sounds like real heartache and I was already going through other worries in my life.

For a subject of another thread, I am starting to think it was all corrupted by marketing and demographic campaigning.



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25 Nov 2017, 6:46 pm

I have a few times, but not on anything resembling a regular basis.

The service itself is generally fine, but when they do coffee afterwords, I generally end up standing around alone being bored for a few minutes, then I leave.


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