What's it like where you live?

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What's it like being on the autism spectrum where you live?

This could be the culture, the social environment, the physical place itself (is there a lot of noise or other sensory disturbances, etc.) and is there any "help" available if you need it.

You don't have to mention your location obviously, but it would be awesome to know which country, or state/city

Also, are you content with where you live?

Last edited by lazyflower on 20 Feb 2017, 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Here in my part of the UK, I haven't really tried to access any services except for diagnosis. And that went very well - I wasn't waiting long and I was taken seriously immediately. There was no fight involved, to get the help I needed.

I know there are a few adult autism support groups locally, but I've not needed them or had any desire to try them. I do know that we have a lot of groups locally for children and teenagers with autism. I constantly see adverts for those.

My only issue, though not directly relevant to autism, is that I struggle with phone communication (and face-to-face!) and as a result there are very few jobs I can do. I've been self-employed for over 7 years, but recently I've been trying to get back into employment. I am very limited in the hours I can work - only evenings and weekends - and ideally I need to work from home.

So, I know I'm being picky, but what I'm finding is that there are so many jobs that could be done in my circumstances, but because the 'work from home' culture is practically non-existent here, the employers require the workers to be in the office during daytime hours for no good reason. I have actually found a lot of work that would be available to me if I lived in the US, where the culture seems much more suited to flexible working and could accommodate me in that sense, but not over here.

I'm in a small town, under 1,000 people, so I can walk everywhere, including a bad hospital with a reasonably good counsellor. The nearest traffic light is an hour away, but I can often see the Aurora from my back yard. The scenic area has been sacrificed to corrupt politics, and as a "newcomer" my status is very low, even without quirks. Even not being racist gets me ostracized . I'm also vegan, and suffer along with the cattle in the local auction yard as they cry for help. I only live here because I had to find a cheap house in order to survive a sleep disorder. The "electronic cottage" has not worked out very well, so even though I hate moving, I might do it again.

I live in Cornwall, in the far south-west of England (I'm not getting into the whole Kernow is a separate country and Cornish language argument). I've only used the diagnosis service which was excellent. It's a self-referral system so you don't need to go through your GP. I don't think there are many if any adult AS, post-diagnosis services as such.

Cornwall is a very quiet county that only really gets busy during the summer months when all the holidaymakers head down this way, then it can get crowded and noisy. We're a narrow peninsula surrounded by rocky cliffs and beaches. There are no motorways, most of the towns are tiny and we have only one small city. It's a pretty great place to live.

It's raining and there's a thick sea fog outside at the moment - think John Carpenter's The Fog

I live in a fairly small town in Eastern Finland. I love living in this corner of the world. Nothing but calm and quiet.

Well, most of the time.

Pretty overwhelming and not enough support for a metro area of over 4 million. Also it's a unforgiving scorching desert altho we've it's nice time of year. Actually got some rain the last couple days which is nice but soon enough it will be 115F outside again.

I live in a part of Edinburgh which is noisy and run down, but also full of colour. Lots of people from all over the world, and lots of different small shops. I'm fond of it and have lived here for almost 20 years. I just wish it was quieter and a bit less busy. Sometimes it's quite overwhelming. I would very much like to move somewhere more peaceful.

In terms of autism services, I was diagnosed fairly quickly and there's a really good charity which supports autistic adults nearby.

I'm in the Northeast US and people usually are pretty understanding where I live. The adults are by far more understanding than the kids overall. There are a lot of services available for people on the Spectrum, a few of which I have used.

My only complaint is the weather here, I hate snow and the dark and dreary months affect my mood. I wish we had more sunshine and less snow.

I live in a very cool Pacific Northwest coastal town that has interesting old buildings and houses, lots of nice forest areas and a big river nearby. It's overcast there a lot of the time which I appreciate.

Can't really comment on the help as I'm still on the waiting list for that (been more than a year). I don't have any complaints, I think it's a good place to live, it's not noisy here.

Seems like you guys live in some interesting places. I'm gonna sound like an old person saying this, but it really is cool how the internet brings people together from all around the world!

Where I live, the weather is cold and grey most of the time. It kind of sucks, since the weather really affects my mood, and I prefer someplace sunnier and warmer. Other than that, I live in fairly small town, so it's nice and quiet. I do miss the liveliness of a bigger city a lot of the time, though. I might move to one sometime in the future.

I'm the opposite. Where I live is mild, today was unusually hot (well, not hot, but in comparison to where it should be) - we had a temperature which would be normal in summer today, I never thought I'd be too hot in anything above just a t-shirt in the middle of winter. I like the temperature to be below 10 (50 fahrenheit) and overcast. I don't like it when it's sunny, but luckily it's also grey most the time here. I don't want to go to big cities, I hate them.

Before this, I was on an island between Vancouver and Victoria, BC, Canada with a nice view, but it was hard living with grey skies and dark, wet earth so much. Sunshine and snow are better for my mood overall. Things are sure changing, though. It used to freeze solid for six months, and we just had our third thaw this year. The snow is spotty.

I spent most of my life living in Vega$.

I've always lived somewhere near a beach where winter doesn't come, but summers don't get too hot either. It is humid. I love the cold weather, which isn't really cold at all. It never snows.

Before this, I lived in a loud, polluted city. Many people relied on taxi or the metro for transportation. It is often crowded and had a weird smell that made feel sick.

From what I understand, problems of any kind was (at the time at least) shameful and to be pitied, so unless the problem was very severe, few people will seek help. For example, dyslexic students would get neither help nor an explination for why they are struggling to read; they just have to accept that they are not as "smart" as everyone else. Now that I look back, many people were also quite xenophobic due to WW2.

Where I live now, people are more accepting in general. It is less crowded, and people usually have their own car. I only learned what a backyard was when I moved here. Also, it is cleaner here. Before, we couldn't eat raw vegetables or drink unboiled tapwater without worrying about getting worms. Here, people think I'm paranoid for refusing to drink unboiled tapwater.