Before you joined WP, what did you expect users would be lik

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I would say that the vitriol I've encountered on WP surprised me. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because this is the internet. But come on, we're all outsiders here. Yelling at each other is ridiculous. I can get that from real life without being on this forum.

I expected they would be similar to the people in my social skills groups. I was mostly correct about that. There was way more adults than I expected. What surprises me is people who think autistic people are all non-violent and peaceful. I guess they think that's an NT trait. It's definitely not. I remember a lot of people in my social skills groups bickering, so I'm not surprised it would happen on WP.

I don't know what I expected, but I know I am constantly surprised by the prejudices that I come across, mainly in the relationship sections. For some reason I had the idea that those on the spectrum would not have learned them naturally and so therefore would not jump on board with them. I seem to be wrong in both cases; some people seem to like to learn them so that they fit in better, and other people still automatically learn them.

I was also a little, not very, surprised by how old so many users are. It's more that everywhere else I go online I am often with people who are more peers, and this is more diverse.

<--- Apologizes for being old.

I think now all you guys are pretty cool and it's good that your all of different ages.I'd think it good if there was someone similar to me in personality here. There likely is but we haven't chatted yet or I just don't know it lol.

I joined on a whim.

I don't think I had any expectations of the kind of Community I would be interacting with.

I'm already accustomed to interacting with people that have Autism on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis. I came to the conclusion long ago when I was very young, that people with Autism are just people with Autism. Normal people, that have normal needs, and wants. Yes, we may be a little quirky at times, some more than others, and others only just barely (like a whisper on a morning breeze).

As I had said previously, in my introduction thread, linked -here-, I had been diagnosed very early on in my childhood, though not so early that it would actually have helped me.

The primary school for gifted children that I attended in the later years of my childhood, that preceded my enrollment into a high school for special needs, introduced me to a wide variety of people (some like myself, others not so much) who had very specialized needs.

I still know a lot of the people that attended both schools, some of these people are among my closest friends, a few, my even closer confidants. Five of them are Sociopaths, and one of them is a Psychopath, everyone else has Autism. There are currently no Neurotypical friends within my inner circle that are not family members.

I'm going off on a tangent here, I need to get back on track.

The point that I was trying to make, is that I already have a well founded expectation of people with Autism. If I really had any expectations of this Community, it would've been that you would all be very similar to the Autistic people that are already in my life.

So are we similar to the "Autistic people" in your life?

No, not even remotely close to the people that I know and love. Which I will say now, isn't a bad thing, it's just very different.

The Autistic people I know are like Wikipedia pages, except instead of being titled Wikipedia, it's titled People With Autism. Every page is different, no two are exactly the same, though they can be very similar and deal with different aspects of the same subject. However each page's structure and template is exactly the same, and follows a very strict line of rules.

So it is that while you are all very different to what I've come to expect, I'm not surprised or taken aback by these differences. I suppose you could say that I was expecting the unexpected.

To give a couple of examples.

I'm very used to dealing with people that are very confident and open about their Autism. The only people that I know of (before now) who have been secretive of their Autism are those whose career and lifestyle decisions demanded it. Those in the medical and security professions, Doctors, Judges, Law Enforcers, Lawyers, Soldiers, Surgeons, are extremely secretive about their Autism, to the point where their means of interacting with other people with Autism looks like something from an Illuminati documentary. Of course most don't even take that risk, and cut off all ties with anything and everything even relating Autism. The level of secrecy I've read here on Forums almost approaches this level, but as near as I can tell (so far) there is little to no justification for it.

The lack of confidence I see regularly displayed around the Forum, I've rationalized as being geographical. The population density of those with Autism in and around Edinburgh is quite high. There are a considerable amount of institutions here centered around the identification and management of Autism. There are many educational establishments (nurseries, schools) that deal exclusively with children with Autism. The adult population itself hasn't been left out, though there are many groups and organizations run by those with Autism for Autism (these tend to be quite private), there is a very large and public organization run by those without Autism for those with Autism. How public was that last one? They do have a public website, but that's nothing special, they do however quite literally have a plaque on the front door of their building, declaring their affiliation. They even have the word Autism written on the plaque itself for all the world to see, now that's gutsy.

Under such circumstances, it's easier to have an unending supply of confidence and positive mindset, than someone who is isolated by themselves going through mainstream education. At least that's my rationalization of it.

Last example before I conclude this post.

I've forgotten where I read this, and who said it, but it was somewhere on these Forums.

They were voicing their disgust and embarrassment over the story involving the Autistic B-Cake Decorator, the things that they said, it was really quite offensive.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with the story? I'd already read about the story before. I consider it to be a very inspiring and sensational story, one that applauds the creativity, ingenuity and tenacity of Autism.

Assuming that you're familiar with the story, (and if you're not, then you can simply blast "Autistic Cake Decorator" into any decent search engine and acquaint yourself with the results,) then I'd like to give to share my interpretation of the story with you.

It's anyone's guess how an inexperienced staff member managed to find themselves in that position, my guess was six paragraphs long until I decided to delete it all and and write this one instead... But whatever reason, they were.

A customer asked for a personalized cake, and to the best of their ability, that employee game them a customized cake.

Curious question: Has anyone here ever actually tried decorating a Birthday cake? I have. It was very costly, difficult and time consuming. I still don't think it turned out all that well, however the child for whom it was intended, ate it without complaint, with the same eagerness and vigor with which they had eaten every other Birthday cake that had preceded it, and all those that followed.

Of course they could have just told the Customer that cake decorating was not among their list of skills.

As someone who is openly Autistic within the job market, I'm more than accustomed to employers telling me and/or co-workers that I'm not permitted to do this or that, just in case. This of course just makes me want to do it even more, if only to prove to myself that I can do it. Much like the B-cake decorator, I've done things within the workplace, with varying degrees of failure and success. I contend that the desire to prove oneself is in fact a perfectly normal human ambition, and not one that is solely isolated within people have Autism.

Anyway, this post is starting to get ridiculously long, so I'm going to stop right here.

I didn't really have any expectations. I was just hoping I could be understood better, sort some stuff out & get a girlfriend & all that stuff has happened thou it took awhile.

Loving, caring and supportive. (Especially in the politics and religion threads)

To be fair almost all things Autism related are associated with kids, kids are usually the ones on posters for Autism Awareness most of the big news I see involving Autism or an Autistic person usually has autistic kids. The Autism pages I look at on facebook barely have any actual autistic people on them, they're all mostly just moms of autistic children.

Heck just googling pictures with the word Autism or Autistic usually most of the autistic people in those pictures are usually kids from ages 5-9.

And parents for some reason love to parade their autistic kids around on social media usually looking for pity or praise for having them.

Why is this a reply to me?

You talked about how most of the people you've seen with Autism have been adults, and not very many children.

They were informing you that a very brief search online would've revealed a larger volume of children with Autism.

This is because there is more awareness nowadays, and better ways to accurately detect it earlier.
Years back this lead to something of a "Autism Baby Boom" now the adult/children with Autism ratio is predominately children.

Only because somehow me talking about how people were older than I expected meant I didn't believe autistic adults existed or some s**t like that. This has gone way past my point. This thread is about what we thought WP users were like, not autism in the media. If you want to talk about that then start a new thread, I think everyone should go back to the original topic because this is far from it.

I would say something about your first sentence, but I will acquiesce with your request and drop the matter.

I'm not sure if I had any particular expectations. This is only the second site I have used; the previous one was more social, but disappointing in terms of the quality of discussion, which frequently degenerated into palaver, plus there was a lot of bullying.

So WP hasn't really surprised me. The level of intelligence is high, the subject matter mostly worth reading, and often quite arcane. One thing does amuse me: how reluctant some people are to communicate via pm, despite the fact that they write long, complex posts and get involved in lengthy discussions on various threads. I enjoy trying to guess who likes to chat in private and who prefers to do so in public.

Last edited by Hyperborean on 10 Dec 2015, 2:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I dunno, I thought I'd meet people similar to me, who'd have an actual grasp of what I was going through. I more or less did meet a few people that I click with, but mostly I learned just how diverse a group we are and that's not a bad thing either. I was very so slightly afraid I'd run into a bunch of elitish Sheldons, glad that didn't hold any water for the most part.

Thank you.

I didnt really mean the entertainment "media".

I meant society in general-most of the help resources, most pics in both social media, and traditional media, are about children. Some folks on this site have complained about telling healthcare workers they are autistic and having the healthcare worker reply "that's impossible. Autism is a childhood condition!" As if it never occurred to even folks in healthcare that autistic childred would have grow up sometime and become autistic grown ups.

SnailHail must be herself REALLY young to have missed all of that. And ive never heard of this autistic gardner TV show.