ouinon wrote:
How has WP changed your life, if at all? Is it an important part of your life?
For me it's a mixture of "social life"/contact and self-discovery/learning and sounding-board for ideas/thoughts/theses, and understanding/support and opportunity for debate/dialogue which is almost impossible in real life.
I think part of the appeal is the name. And I also like the layout; it's restful on the eyes, and it's organised pretty well, logically!
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Same here.
WP was my first contact with the autistic community. (This was in October or November 2008.) By then I had had strong suspicion that I had AS for about 3 years, but I hadn’t done anything about it yet, other than reading books and info sites on the subject as well as taking the Aspie quiz (very likely an Aspie).
It was quite accidental that I found WP. The feelings when I first started coming here are still very fresh in my mind. At first I was very curious and apprehensive; what were (other) Aspies like? Would I identify with them? When I began reading a lot of the topics here I felt that I was reading about myself. I could relate to almost everything I read in those first threads (and later, too, but that’s not the point). Strangers in different countries described their lives, experiences, thoughts, reactions and emotions, and it was as if they had actually used telepathy and taken thoughts directly out of my head and posted them! I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was a revelation. In my 31 years I had never felt any connection to humanity at all. I didn’t feel female, Norwegian, western, human, Christian, whatever, and I had never felt any sense of belonging to this planet. All I ever felt concerning people was frustration of being misunderstood and not being allowed to be different, and hatred, contempt and rage. I could never relate to or understand others.
When I read those first threads I laughed and cried in recognition. I read for hours and hours. Relief washed over me. There were other people like me out there! For the first time in my life I felt a connection, a sense of beloning; I had found my own people (or species). It felt so good. I cannot describe how much it improved my life. It was pure therapy. The rage that had been right under the surface like lava waiting to erupt, grew colder. Though it’s not completely gone it’s so subdued. I feared I was a ticking bomb but now I understand that I was severly frustrated and stressed. I’ve never seriously considered suicide so WP hasn’t saved my life, but it has certainly saved my sanity.
I found WP at a time in my life when I desperately needed it. I’ve been to several other Aspie sites since but WP is by far the best and the most active.
I like
- the name
- the activity
- the length of many of the posts
- the diversity in threads
- the seriousness of the site
- interesting thoughts and ideas
- the colours
Other sites are either very inactive or the threads are destroyed shortly by trolls and wars. Some places the responses are too short to count as a debate, or the colours hurt my eyes (bright white pages, or even black with white text).
To me WP is homeland. It is the only form of social contact I have enjoyed in my life and I seek it regularly. I honestly don’t know how I’d cope if it disappeared…
Please stick around, WP,
this alien loves and needs you.
Happy birthday WP!