Any good social skills groups in MD?

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just want to join up with one wondering if any ones you would suggest. I'm 28 years old .

Someone recently asked that question on the DC Aspies listserv -- you? I just joined the list, just today joined this forum, still don't know if I have AS (might get a diagnosis tomorrow!), so I don't have an answer, sorry.... Where in MD are you? I live near College Park.

I'm 42, and have learned lots of social skills, by hard knocks back in school days..... Actually I guess that's why I started with this sub-forum, I figured I might actually have something positive to say on "social skills and making friends," as opposed to just wanting to shoot myself on "work and finding a job".

lol I'm the same guy. I'm in the Columbia area.

Hi neighbor Nice to "meet" you.

nice to meet you. so how do you find the aagw group? going to any of the meets?

Aaack, no ... LOL, one of the things that makes me think I have AS is that I vant to be alone... What's up with these sociable aspies anyway??? Movie nights? Road trips?? Yikes! I'm a little freaked out by it, actually.



Does that sound inconsistent, when I just said I have pretty good social skills? Well, I think I do ... people seem to like me ... I have made friends here in my little town. My house is on the market (if I manage to get a job I'll take it back off), and two different neighbors have let me know that they are seriously unhappy to see me go. I even go to social get-togethers of the ladies in town, and enjoy it (unless they get into comparing c-sections etc).... But I'm a quiet, stay-at-home kinda gal by nature, and by preference. I would happily be a hermit if I could figure out how to keep a roof over my head and food in the fridge.

But I am very, very glad these fora exist on the Net. It's amazing to see so many of my quirks reflected back in all these people.

Peace
Regina

lol you want to be alone but you have made friends? do you make friends by accident. by alone do you mean not totally alone, but mostly? lol AS and wanting friends. ah you do enjoy social get togethers.

lol sociable aspies. well it seems many/most aspies want friends but inept at making/keeping them but most are introverts. perhaps many don't have spend much time time with friends or none at all, that is the people that go to these functions? I think that's it.

Um ... I like to be with people I like. Somehow I ended up in a really cool town, with cool neighbors. Some quirky people around here, too

But I don't want to be with them <i>every day</i>. Once a week is <b>plenty</b>.

When I am able to go on retreat somewhere really solitary and silent, like the Trappistines down in Crozet or a hermitage I went to in West Virginia (away from the compu, too!), it's amazing. Stress I didn't know I had just melts away. I would <i>love</i> to be a hermit!

I am 30, I live in the DC area.

cool, Va or MD or DC?

Hi, Starygrrl. Nice to "meet" you.

the pretty good social skills is perhaps inconsistent with asperger's? but AS is, I believe at it's core a social impairment.
just took a look at the dsm criteria. maybe you can be good socially ?

but I read you are getting dx'd today. good luck!

Oh, the social skills are learned, not natural.

1st-3rd grade I spent in a wonderful little "model" school - what would now be called a "charter" school, I guess - where conformity was not expected. I never felt weird, although I do remember once I was invited to a birthday party and found myself surprised, and surprised that I was surprised since the birthday girl was in the circle I hung out with. I had one real friend at the time, her grandmother lived on my block and she spent the after-school hours there.

4th grade we moved, I went to a horribly conventional school, had no friends, was ostracized, became depressed (and stayed depressed until I discovered Prozac in my mid-20s). At the very end of the school year, we read a story that somehow gave me the idea that I had to MAKE friends, make people like me, and when we moved again to a new city for 5th grade I went at it with grim, fierce determination. With some fits and starts I learned to get along, it was like a life-or-death challenge for me, and when I was rejected it was devastated. I had horrible issues with men and sex, was raped etc., drank & got high & skipped school a lot -- puberty + depression + AS if that's what I've got, is not a good combination. I hit bottom in freshman year in college, melted down and it took 2 years to recover enough to go out and get a job.

As a grown-up I worked 19 years at an international organization ... mostly Latin American, so big on social niceties -- but being international, it was accepted that people wouldn't necessarily know how to interpret each other automatically, so I learned more in a forgiving environment -- I never really thought about that, but yeah, it makes sense.

I've also learned that most other people are just as insecure, which I relate to with great compassion, so I think about trying to put them at ease instead of the opposite. It makes me sensitive to them. I've been despised myself, I want people around me to feel worthwhile.

I'm kind of nervous about the Dr's appt today. It's a total, comprehensive evaluation, not just AS -- mental health and physical health as they intersect. I'm kind of hoping he'll say "damn, girl, you should be getting disability, quit looking for a job!" ... the job hunt is soooo overwhelming, I almost feel traumatized about it. So ... thanks for the "good luck", I need some.

Cheers
Regina

Just so everybody knows, I work in DC, I have live and still live in Northern Virginia and DC.

I have Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder and Nonverbal Learning Disorder. I have had Psych folks confirm this would be designated PDD-NOS in terms of how I manifest.

So much to learn! This stuff is fascinating.

The MD appt was inconclusive on the Aspergers, he wants to spend more time with me before making a dx. He did say my ADD is way undertreated and thinks taking lots of speed will make a big difference for me. I hope!

I guess this thread is pretty well hijacked....

Vivinator, are you looking for a counseling-type group? Like a group training on social skills? Or just low-stress socializing with other people trying to learn the same? I'm guessing the first, or you'd just go to DC Aspies movie night?

ah well maybe it's good to wait. my neuropsych has told me to see a psychiatrist about my executive functioning and anxiety issues. he's told me it'd be good to be on meds. currently I'm on no meds.
I would like both kinds of social groups. my neuropsych is the one that suggested social groups.

A group in towson meets next week and I think there is some professional assistance. posted the link here http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt99207.html