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Is there an "ASD culture" If not, should there be?

Should there be an ASD culture?

  • Yes, we need to take more control of our community

    Votes: 13 72.2%
  • No, it is in our best interest to blend in with neurotypicals

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 4 22.2%

  • Total voters
    18
I'm not sure if any exist or not, but an ASD friendly store would be ideal. I'm not a big fan of shopping. I feel uncomfortable sometimes when there's not enough room in the aisles and there are too many people around. Sometimes, I can get freaked out when I'm looking at something and someone hastily reaches over me without saying "Excuse Me".

I would love to be able to go to a store that is not loud or overly bright. A store that is extremely well organized and without scanners (the beeps bother me) A shopping experience with no music, and good acoustics so there isn't a bunch of echoes everywhere bouncing around. The store would just sell good quality basics. Nothing trendy, foods or otherwise. If the store sold clothing it would be all extra soft, extra pockets, large pockets, sorta unisex-ish, no age clothing. Nobody would want to "help" you, and with everything so logically and sensibly organized without any extra chaos, very few would ever need help. That for me would be the perfect ASD friendly store.
 
Men are so wimpy these days. BF? <Oh no ... runs away crying...> Yeesh. BF's come and go. It's not like you were married or something.
Well it's my kids dad, I doubt I would ever get married again unless there was some big legal advantage too it. Like maybe he was getting really good insurance from his job. We don't even have to be legally married for him to claim me on his taxes so idk that paper just doesn't seem important and if you get it and break up you will spend thousands and thousands trying to get rid of it. Which actually just reminded me he is still legally married to someone else, lmao. It took me years and years to get out of the marriage to my ex that I married right out of high school and thousands and thousands of dollars. It will just never seem important again to go through that just for the state to have some kind of stupid record of your relationship status.

But as far as that guy goes, idk, I find it a bit strange that people assume or think they're going to find some magical fantasy relationship from someone online, which I guess was what he was looking for seeing the way he ran away. I was just looking for a chat buddy more or less. Bah, his loss, wonder if he's still single, lol. It was just facebook, lol.
 
I love ❤️ this so much.
This book series I've been reading, she describes herself as a polar bear lost in the rain forest full of frogs, tigers and other rain forest animals but certainly no other polar bears. <3
Not specifically about Autism but about her being a geek and nobody liking her geekiness and her not fitting in at all.
 
The Castro District of San Franciso for gay people, Venice in California for beach people, Greenwich Village for beatniks, artists and musicians; these are neighborhoods where like attracted like until it developed their own culture.

Thing, we're still pretty rare, aren't we? But as a young adult, knowing such a place existed, and that I would fit in there, would have lured me there.
 
If there's supposedly 1:72 of us I wonder what the ratio is for 1:?? for gays, 1:?? for etc etc

Even the midgets/dwarfs have their own community somewhere if I'm not mistaken and there has to be much less than 1:72 unless the larger majority leave to go find more like them. I maybe see 1 in like several hundred people that are under 3-4' in my area. One pizza delivery lady was one, my son saw her and was like, "SHE SO SHORT!" I was wtf, but he's only four and it was the first time he saw a less than 5' fully grown adult, then I tried to get him to watch Austin Powers a bit but he wasn't making the connection.

And if there are 1:72 of it it would make sense to run into at least a few more than one for many hundreds of people, I guess most of us are hiding. :(
 
I would love a culture that didn't make me feel like I'm a freak. People judge my looks one way and then when they start talking to me they assume everything I'm trying to say and then get offended when I tell them I'm not saying that. I get all wound up and anxious and by the time we get to the nitty gritty of my point they've lost interest. If they haven't, chances are they want something from me at the end of the conversation. It sucks getting that worked up and passionate about saying something only to be met with "meh" :/

My personality type is always one to help and provide solutions but people don't want to hear that, they want hear validation... obviously I'm validating your problem if I'm trying to provide a solution, right? :/ I mean it's just not me.
 
Never mind need, because that's for an individual to determine, but wouldn't it just be nice to have an ASD culture? Wouldn't it just be nice to be among those like you, stripes among stripes rather than being a lone stripe in a world full of spots?

Agree with everything you wrote...

...apart from this;

There are so many reasons I don't ever see it happening, the most cynical of which is that it would require neurotypicals to care enough to part with significant sums of money to make it happen.

I don't believe in complaining unless I can do something about it.

I don't believe in going through the normal channels, like healthcare, education or charities to effect a change.

I certainly don't believe in waiting for people who are not affected to make change happen.

I believe in the power of the individual to exert disruption on anything they care enough about, and I believe in the power of a whole **** load of people working together towards a common goal.

If you look at any social movement that affects massive change, they usually have their seeds in a very small number of people who started a movement, and then a chain reaction was created that became unstoppable.

Often the repercussions are felt for decades and even centuries later.

Who in the British Empire would have believed that one man could unite a nation and a peaceful revolution could wrest away the jewel in the crown from the largest land empire there has ever been? Starting with zero power, zero money, zero organisation, zero experience.

Gandhi's most sensible option would have been to sit around complaining, but he didn't do that.

I'm not likening myself to him in any way, but I'm not going to sit around complaining either - change must come, and that's the only outcome I'm willing to accept.

I have the outlines of a plan, and I've started on the smallest part already - I wasn't planning on making this public yet, but I've had some bad news, and this thread came up, and I just thought to hell with perfection or completeness.

The first small step is to create a blog where people on the spectrum can write about their own experiences as slices of their lives. I'm thinking like the Chicken Soup of the Soul books, but about us.

http://www.aspielife.net/

I'm still working on the design, and I only have a few posts up, which are not that great yet.

The reason for this site is that one of the most helpful things I've found is finding all you guys who share my experiences, or at least understand them. I want a site where newly enlightened aspies (or any spectrum people ) can dive in and suddenly find themselves not alone any more.

So many of us feel alone for so much of our lives, and this cannot go on.

There are millions of us.

To start with we need to build tribes, communities, and groups to make this world easier for us and the people who come after us.

So, anyone who would like to contribute to this blog, please PM me. We will have rules, and a focus so blogging will not be random. If you've never blogged before, I'll supply support and Wordpress usage videos. I'll supply questions to answer for blog titles ideas, and help as I can. (I do that as a day job already)

I want AspieLife to become the place NTs and media channels go to get an understand about our lives, not ******** sites like Austism Speaks, and the like. Journalists will choose the most reliable and the most interesting "at the coal face" accounts.

Only we can provide that.

I often think that in ten years time people might look back on what we start now and see that this was when the wind changed direction, and started to blow in our favour.

We just need lots of people to start blowing, and eventually it will - there is no other acceptable outcome.


I hope that didn't come across as too gung-ho.
 
Agree with everything you wrote...

...apart from this;



I don't believe in complaining unless I can do something about it.

I don't believe in going through the normal channels, like healthcare, education or charities to effect a change.

I certainly don't believe in waiting for people who are not affected to make change happen.

I believe in the power of the individual to exert disruption on anything they care enough about, and I believe in the power of a whole **** load of people working together towards a common goal.

If you look at any social movement that affects massive change, they usually have their seeds in a very small number of people who started a movement, and then a chain reaction was created that became unstoppable.

Often the repercussions are felt for decades and even centuries later.

Who in the British Empire would have believed that one man could unite a nation and a peaceful revolution could wrest away the jewel in the crown from the largest land empire there has ever been? Starting with zero power, zero money, zero organisation, zero experience.

Gandhi's most sensible option would have been to sit around complaining, but he didn't do that.

I'm not likening myself to him in any way, but I'm not going to sit around complaining either - change must come, and that's the only outcome I'm willing to accept.

I have the outlines of a plan, and I've started on the smallest part already - I wasn't planning on making this public yet, but I've had some bad news, and this thread came up, and I just thought to hell with perfection or completeness.

The first small step is to create a blog where people on the spectrum can write about their own experiences as slices of their lives. I'm thinking like the Chicken Soup of the Soul books, but about us.

http://www.aspielife.net/

I'm still working on the design, and I only have a few posts up, which are not that great yet.

The reason for this site is that one of the most helpful things I've found is finding all you guys who share my experiences, or at least understand them. I want a site where newly enlightened aspies (or any spectrum people ) can dive in and suddenly find themselves not alone any more.

So many of us feel alone for so much of our lives, and this cannot go on.

There are millions of us.

To start with we need to build tribes, communities, and groups to make this world easier for us and the people who come after us.

So, anyone who would like to contribute to this blog, please PM me. We will have rules, and a focus so blogging will not be random. If you've never blogged before, I'll supply support and Wordpress usage videos. I'll supply questions to answer for blog titles ideas, and help as I can. (I do that as a day job already)

I want AspieLife to become the place NTs and media channels go to get an understand about our lives, not ******** sites like Austism Speaks, and the like. Journalists will choose the most reliable and the most interesting "at the coal face" accounts.

Only we can provide that.

I often think that in ten years time people might look back on what we start now and see that this was when the wind changed direction, and started to blow in our favour.

We just need lots of people to start blowing, and eventually it will - there is no other acceptable outcome.


I hope that didn't come across as too gung-ho.

Omg no not preachy at all please tell me how I can help you
 
The Castro District of San Franciso for gay people, Venice in California for beach people, Greenwich Village for beatniks, artists and musicians; these are neighborhoods where like attracted like until it developed their own culture.

Thing, we're still pretty rare, aren't we? But as a young adult, knowing such a place existed, and that I would fit in there, would have lured me there.

Supposedly there are relatively large number of AS people in tech hubs, such as in and around Silicon Valley, the Silicon Forest in Portland, OR, Austin, TX, Boston, etc.
 
I think that it would be a great idea to have ASD communities, as long as we don't separate ourselves completely from neurotypicals. Its important to interact with people who are different to you, because if you don't you might start to forget that they exist, or that they are just as human as everybody else.
 
if you ASD people want to create your own culture, and separate yourself more from your fellow humans, go ahead. its not something i can control.

personally, im against it, because its jsut another way to seperate people. aren't we all separate enough as is?
 
if you ASD people want to create your own culture, and separate yourself more from your fellow humans, go ahead. its not something i can control.

personally, im against it, because its jsut another way to seperate people. aren't we all separate enough as is?
i see your point,as segregating yourself from everyone isnt good if at the same time you dont involve yourself with society,but what if you do involve yourself in society every day and all you want is a small area of ASD friendly stores,clubs etc so that you can be part of a likeminded community who understand if you meltdown in the street,who understand why your non verbal,who understand why you might be blunt etc,take the gay village in manchester for example;they dont ban hetros from going there,they welcome everyone who accepts LGBT culture,itd be the same concept for an ASD community.
 
if you ASD people want to create your own culture, and separate yourself more from your fellow humans, go ahead. its not something i can control.

personally, im against it, because its jsut another way to seperate people. aren't we all separate enough as is?

I don't see it that way. I see it as us creating spaces where we are "normal." And then we can come together, more :)
 
Other than this forum I don't think I really interact with anyone on the spectrum (that I'm aware of), I wouldn't know where to begin.
 
I
if you ASD people want to create your own culture, and separate yourself more from your fellow humans, go ahead. its not something i can control.

personally, im against it, because its jsut another way to seperate people. aren't we all separate enough as is?
I don't believe communities need to separate, they can integrate, and generate understanding and garner support.

They can also choose how outsiders see them.

Perfect example is the LGBT community. 30 years ago there were just isolated and downtrodden pockets.

Now there is a world wide community with huge backing and support from people outside the community. Something that would have been impossible to predict all those years ago, as they were consider wierd and defective. Now they are considered as bringing diversity to our world, by many people at least.

They have built a nation, and the world sees them in totally different way than it did 30 years ago.

Where would they be now had they not started building communities and cultures?
 

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