Aspy groups

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Some thing I have wanted to do for some time is improve aspie groups for aspies in real life because I think that this would be much more helpful to some aspies than just online only meetings with people.

I keep trying to think about how I can do it. The main problem i seem to run into is how to contact these other aspies that are trying to reach out to other aspies. I seem to think for some reason that they exist in a decent enough number to form a group in my city. My city is a city of 1 million people in New Zealand Auckland.

Im going to talk to some people from autism New Zealand next month to try and see how I can organise it. I may not end up talking to them about this but Thats what I intend to do. Last time I went there and tryed to talk to them about it some aspy talked to me about Linux for 3 hours and I didnt get to bring up the topic of support groups.

One idea I also have is setting up my own web site for New Zealand Aspys.

So any one else have any ideas or plans to improve aspy groups around the world?

Are you talking about people meeting in person? Because if you are I think you'd run into a problem - I can talk perfectly well online and have lots of ideas but if you talk to me in person and I'm not wanting to you will get one word answers or even just a look . . . when I do talk a lot it is hard to pay attention - so I don't know that I would WANT to meet people in person . . .

Really? I find it nearly impossible to communicate online. It takes a great deal of effort and I find it harder to stay focused stay on track. Get on track in the first place and to think of the words to say. In real life I can do it alot easier. Im just not good at meeting strangers. But if I feel comfortable in a situation I can start talking away in no time at all much easier than on the internet.

Though this board is a good way of meeting Aspies, I've too considered in taking part in an Aspie group someday. I have to admit that the main intention for that is self-reflection, but I'm also just curious to see how other people with similar issues are coping in life.

I sort of wish we had one in Richmond despite my difficulties with verbal communication.

I'm in a RL Aspie group here in St. Louis. The leader of it started by getting people to form a group on Meetup.com. That didn't last too long but at least long enough for some of us to find out and contact her.

Now, I'm working on getting us hooked up with a local Autism center in St. Louis and to have our meetings there and they will also help us advertise. So eventually, our group will hopefully come to be very popular. Right now, it's very very small with somewhat inconsistent membership.

The internet is a good idea. As well as maybe finding out about any local Autism centers or something and asking them if there's any groups already started.

I work with a group mainly comprised of parents with children as an autism advocate, both to help explain the vantage point of the child to the parent, and from time to time will attend sessions with local school administrators. Cool stuff.

Anyways, I have been trying to get a group together for adults. Hasn't worked too well.


Why?

1. Different levels of functioning. One individual really fits as a classic, classic aspie. Unfortunately he is also incredibly disruptive. Cannot modulate volume of voice, so speaks very very loudly. Constantly drawn to steer the conversation to subjects of his interest, which the two bigs ones are sports stadiums (when constructed, what they have been names, how many they seat) and radio stations (what format, what frequency, what stregnth of transmitter). Any time in a conversation that a city is mentioned, he will volunteer this information over the person that was talking.

2. Maintaining contacts. This is tremendously hard for me as an aspie, and it doesn't seem like any of the others intereste din the group are as well. I will get promises to remain in contact, etc from people that dissapear off the face of the earth.

3. Fear of real world contact. Many Aspies in my area have no desire to meet in person. In fact, several lurk on this site, as a matter of fact (not directed at anyone, as I don't know their names, but I hear from the "main" parent focused group that they know adult aspies personally who love this site, but when I try to gauge interest in a meeting, I get nowhere. [/list]

I havnt met another aspie like me yet. I have serveral almost obsesive interests and I like finding out about new things. I like to meet new people but am uncomfotable in unfamlur places or meeting people when there is not some one there already that I know.

I always want to find people and find out what they are thinking or just to get a different view on things even if they don't talk about how they are thinking the way there anwsers are not predictable and trying to figure out how they think is really interesting to me. I would like to meet aspies because I think that some of them would be really interesting to meet in RL but im not sure. I don't want to really meet obsessive aspies that can't listen at all and can only ever talk about one thing because I think that would be a pain in the ass. Then again im not even sure if im not like that.

Any way I think that there maybe alot of aspies that don't want to meet people and I also think that there would be alot of aspies that want to meet other aspies. To possibly talk about there interests too. Find some friends that won't be judgemental and talk about problems. I think that there will be other aspies that mostly lurke in these forums and read every thing but really struggle to post. I find it easier to talk to people in real life. Because they are real and my mind can make that link. But on the internet my mind doesn't automaticly make that link and I struggle to keep interested or to reply to things that happen.

I wonder if I should start a thread to ask how many other aspies find it easier to communicate in real life than on the internet.

Me, along with several professionals I have contacted are trying to set up a support group for the Bendigo Region. I'm having a website and discussion forum setup to serve as the online HQ of the group. I'm also using some resources from the University for this purpose and getting some funding from Department of Human Services.

I find that asperger organisations seem to lack understanding of aspergers in general and alot of the surport that is need is not there. Im not sure why its not there and what they find so hard to understand about aspergers. Any way there is a local group near me for aspys but they are a group of about five which get afraid when theres much more people that that there. All of the aspys there are over 40.

I do most of the time.

Yeah; I wish I had an aspie group in my area or school. I like WrongPlanet alot, but I think it would have a different feel than talking to an actual person.

It does. I don't excel at verbal communication by any means but when I am with another aspie that doesn't seem to matter. There's a flow there that doesn't usually exist. A magnetism too. I rode home on the bus with one one day and I did not want to get off that bus. I would have glady stayed on had I not had to get home.

I guess we are sort of discriminating against the "most severe" "weirdest" aspies. I actually think im one of the extremely weird ones. But i dont know. i guess its annoying when ppl have obsessions that are there all the time, such as trains. i dont have that, i only have obsessions for short amounts of time, such as with WP.

I have actually talked to some people on a norwegian forum for ADD and AS in my area that said that they wanted a group. but i have no idea how to start one, my mother is in the local autism "society" but i dont wanna ask her, plus i wouldnt want some one to supervise the group, such as an NT. Because there is a group of the norwegian autism society for aspies in Oslo (the capital) and they have a supervisor/doctor present. or so i 've heard.

i would really like to hear more from those of you who have with or without sucsess gotten a group together, i really need some advise.

how about we make this thread sticky, im sure it would be of use for everyone on WP, sinse most aspies come here to talk to other aspies, maybe they want info on how to start or join a local group.

I've thought a lot about Aspie groups, but I haven't gone looking for local ones, so I don't know what's available in Santa Barbara, CA. Part of the reason I haven't actually gone through with it is because of some lingering apprehension about who I'll end up meeting. I know that it's kind of discriminating against the " most severe " and " weirdest " Aspies that berta and others mentioned, but if I were to join an Aspie group, it would be because I'd want to meet people I could relate to, whose company I could enjoy. Lower-functioning Aspies ( not to brag, but I'm on the higher-functioning end of the spectrum ), I probably couldn't relate to, and thus they wouldn't be good company to me and I wouldn't be good company to them.

I still recognize that Aspie-exclusive support groups would be very good for us, but given how widely spread out Aspies are in terms of location, functioning, and age, it seems like it would be very, very hard to make a working Aspie support group. Not impossible, mind you, but hard. Still, it's a problem that can be solved, with some creative thinking and hard work, and I applaud anyone looking to set a group like this up.

There's no such thing as a "higher" or "lower" functioning aspie is there? Are you talking about HFA and LFA? Cause I would obviously want my group to be HFA and AS, but other than that it would feel weird not allowing someone to join coz they are more "severe" than other aspies. And aspie isn't a nickname for autistics in general, autie is.. okay maybe u knew that. i was just wondering what you meant. but maybe groups should be open to EVERYONE on the spectrum, who knows, i dunno if i'll even get a group going, as i only know like; 3 people in my area, and its only online...