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Chummy
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08 Jul 2011, 1:05 pm

Simple question. Do you advocate AS support groups? or, would you go/were in one? What do you think of that?

I am asking because I went to some woman and she outa nowhere surprised me and told me she has a support group for AS people right here right now. Obviously I knew nothing about it when I visited her but since it was very far from home I've decided hey let's stay took me hours to get there so why not.

K, so in this group there were only guys, all with AS, about 5 of them. All older than me and alot of them livin in a hostel or something, 2-3 of them were lower functioning than me. They were kinda slow and they guy who seemed the most normal was actually lacking tact and was trying to be funny every time he could and most often while hurting others feelings. So anyway I didn't like the group because it was b-o-r-i-n-g and IMHO waste of my time. The topics of discussion were mostly sex, love, girlfriends and the group was run by NT. Meh.



MakaylaTheAspie
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08 Jul 2011, 4:06 pm

I would maybe try it out, because I've never been to one before. I've only met one other aspie in my life, and that was before I knew I was an aspie myself.


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grendel
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08 Jul 2011, 4:16 pm

I went to one once, it was very uncomfortable. There was a mix of men and women, and the conversation at the table was dominated by a couple of loud people talking loudly about whatever they were interested in. I tend to be quieter in large groups especially if I don't know anybody, and that seemed to be the case with most of the other people at the table, but as a result we didn't interact much. Some of the guys (who were all sitting at the other end of the table) who were quiet, might have been nice to talk to individually but there wasn't an opportunity for that. The closest person to me (also one of the loud ones) also may have had some other conditions, at least struck me as having some level of diminished mental capacity. However, there wasn't a lot of talking "to" anybody else, people mostly just talked to the room at large or shrunk quietly. I mainly interacted with my toddler, and I'm glad he was there to have somebody to talk to, at least.
There was also another group there who were older, I think the NT parents of some of the people in the (although, ages appeared to range from late teens to 40's or 50's, perhaps). They didn't interact at all with the group though, which might have been interesting. Perhaps because I'm more used to interacting with NT's in real life and them "carrying" the conversation more, so to speak.
Also, it was held in a restaurant, and the waitress knew this was the Asperger's group and basically treated us like we were all idiots, in my opinion. She acted like she didn't understand what I wanted to order and made me repeat it several times (this is not a problem I generally have as I state what I want quite clearly).
I left feeling like a freak and wondering what in the world made me decide to attend a group when groups as a rule are not something I manage well.



sabres1616
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17 Aug 2011, 8:26 pm

I'm going to my first support group tomorrow, and I have to admit that I am a little afraid of what to expect. I have never knowingly met another person with Asperger's, and I don't know how the group is set up



Tuttle
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17 Aug 2011, 8:46 pm

I've been to a support group once and had a good experience with it. I can understand it not being a good experience if anyone gets too loud and starts taking over.

The one I went to the person who organizes it gave us a topic and helped facilitate discussion by posing questions. The topic in this particular case was "criticism".

I think they can be done well but require care.