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JosetteJoy
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 9 Dec 2023
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Posts: 48
Location: Arizona

10 Dec 2023, 1:56 am

I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Sometimes, being autistic can make going to church hard.
Sacrament Meetings in family wards are very loud and I have had a sensory meltdown before, missing all of Sunday School and causing my friend to miss it as she tried calming me down.
Telling leaders I'm on the spectrum changed how they treated me and, unfortunately, it wasn't for the better. They underestimate my abilities and treat me like a five-year-old.
I get disoriented while walking from Sacrament Meeting to my class. Being with a friend or family member who can guide me helps a lot, but sometimes my friend who usually helps me is sick or out of town and it throws my whole routine out of wack.
I would love to chat with other autistic members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Do you have any advice? I always bring a Rubix Cube to stim with.



Mona Pereth
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Sep 2018
Gender: Female
Posts: 9,087
Location: New York City (Queens)

10 Dec 2023, 10:38 am

Do you live in a place where there are lots of Mormons?

If so, look around (both on Meetup.com and via Google) for local autistic adult support groups or social groups. Hopefully you can find some fellow Mormons there, whether or not the group itself is specifically for Mormons.

Alternatively, or in addition to the above, you might want to consider starting your own autistic peer-led support and/or self-advocacy group. If you are interested in this option, I can refer you to sources of info and advice on how to go about doing this.

It seems to me that what you ultimately need is to either find or build a group of Mormon autistic adults that can educate the Mormon hierarchy about adult autism. Finding and/or building a more general autistic peer-led adult support group could be a stepping stone towards doing that.

In the meantime, regarding your immediate problem of how to get Mormon church leaders to stop treating you like a five-year-old, perhaps some of these tutorials on how to be assertive without being aggressive might help you?

I'm not Mormon myself, but, in my opinion, groups of autistic adherents of various specific religions are one of the types of groups the autistic community needs. (See my Longterm visions for the autistic community.)


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- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.