How to get the attention of other Aspies in my Country?

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How to get the attention of other Aspies in my Country? Especially in Hamburg where I live, I would love to get other Aspies together. There is just one little group which meets once a month. That is not enough at all in my mind.

The issue I see here is that too little numbers of people try to find out who they are why they are different and if there are others like them. Here in Germany ou are faced with getting avoided from sociaty for being different, talk different, work different, appear different. Talking to others that you have aspergers is making them see you like you just growed a third leg and need treatment for being sick/ill, having an decease...

Here in Germany you are not running around shouting that you are an Aspie and searching others alike, to exaggerate my point.
You do that in school, you will get smashed and beat up for such a manner. You just don't be so conspicuous in school!

Why would I like to meet others like me? Well for one, I like to know that for real my wife and me are not alone here in our corner of the world. Then I would like to exchange experiences with others and maybe even check out if others share my SI, so we could team up and get together forming a company working together. My place is within the IT... But I would need others with different SIs and knowledge and work experience in business / economics and customer relations and so on.

I can work best when I do not have to keep and eye out about the social play in a company where I work. Working with Aspies would be much easier and straight forward with better direct communictions and less nonverbal communications. It would be easier to concentrate at the tasks at hand and really work instead of loosing time and money by wrong going social play communications most nypicals are used to.


So, how to catch the attention of others? Most in my age have no diagnosis - that's ok for me.

Darn. You live in Germany? Sorry to hear that. I have some of the same problem here.

Have you tried blogs? You could start one (and look for comments coming in), or search for existing internet communities formed around a blog that's central figure has an ASD. Sooner or later they would meet in real life...

One other option is to ask the evaluation center where you've been diagnosed if they know about support groups or contacts, or any suggestions.

ah well, I have no official diagnosis. It would cut me off to get any private health insurance etc. It would not help me within Germany to have a official dx.

So, I do not know of any such centers and if they know groups etc.

There is no one in Hamburg anywhere to find. The next one is in Cologne, a hopital / clinic for Autists where one can get a DX, if needed. But that would only help for kids in school, not for grownups in my age. It would flag me for having a handicap, being a handicaped person and such I would have to inform any employer about that. If I do not do so, it would be against the law. It does not matter that I just have an issue with complicated social role play and none verbal communications.

I'm so glad I live in Britain, even with the kerfuffle over ATOS - we seem to be more advanced than the Europeans when it comes to Autism :p

One must wonder if it's possible to get a semi-official diagnosis from someone who is qualified to make that diagnosis, but not written down officially. Hmmm.

I do think that we need more autist-owned companies. No-one else is going to pull us up, we've got to do it ourselves, by our own bootstraps.

Have you looked on Aspies For Freedom? There's a German forum on there, so you might find those you are looking for.

Did you check some of the German forums? A diagnosis isn't need to join most/all of them.

You can also call (children's) autism therapy centres or autism support centres - a diagnosis isn't needed to request information such as information about local autism meet-ups. Anyone can call them about all kinds of things.



I haven't yet needed to inform my employers and I am living in Germany and have an "official diagnosis". Two diagnoses to be precise.

I'm not sure about some of the more peculiar public positions but you're not forced to share your diagnosis with your regularly employer at all. They have nothing to do with it. There's simply no law that generally requires people to tell their employers that they have a diagnosis of on autism spectrum disorder.

Now, if you had a Schwerbehindertenausweiß things would be a little different, of course. (Nevermind that those can be kept secret too but not making it official would kind of defeat the point of having one...)

Dear Sora,

good to know you'r German.

well yes, i can hide that i am a aspie and not telling my employer about it.

Well, I work as a temp worker here (zeitarbeiter bei Robert Half) and so I wish to get IT jobs with as little social interaction needs as possible. My last assignment was exactl the opposite, I was the communiction bridge between Operations and the UK IT departments. So I had to run around, communicate a lot with the staff around me and phrase what the issues are from germany into english with the tech bubble included. That assignment will be over at the end of this month after 3 month straight working under a lot of pressure and stress. I am near a bunrout or overflow. My neurodermatitis is running hot on me.

So, I wonder how to explain to my boss that I need assignment with less social interactions and more pure IT stuff??? I cannot go and tell him that I am an autist and need special attention because of that. He will think I am ill/handicaped!

I found a brazilian group for people on the spectrum on Facebook. Maybe there is a German group too?

I'm amazed that there is only one support group in a large city like Hamburg, but I think you're lucky to have found a group at all. I live in Aurich and can't find anything like an autism support or self-help group nearby, and without a car it's not easy to get around. My social anxiety also makes that problematic.

I understand your work related problems only too well. I've also had way too much social interaction and responsibilities in my last job, until the inevitable burnout (I'm in early retirement now). I can also understand why you don't want your employer to think that you have a disability, but I think the the main concern for companies is the better dismissal protection (Kündigungsschutz) of people with disabilities. If you explain your situation to your employer and assure him that you have no intention of getting an official diagnosis and a disability status, he might show some understanding.