Felt different my whole life. Have recently been looking into Autism to explain why I’m the way I am.
I hear about autism a lot more than I used to and watching Christine McGuinnes my family and autism was just huge for me on the path to accepting myself.
I desperately want to have some close friends. I dont click with NT women and have always gravitated towards females who also were a bit quirky.
If you’re autistic, what has helped you make friends, or connect with people who get you? Any good websites or group meet ups? I feel like there’s a lot of autism online but actually meeting people in real life is difficult, but I guess that’s down to our ‘masking’.
As a 61 year male in the exact same situation. I have some very close friends or so I thought, I had to be rushed into hospital with urosepsis last Sunday night, on Monday morning I required some items from home for during my stay, I called 7 of my so called friends and all claimed to be too busy, despite my worrying condition, needless to say, I will be having words when I get out of hospital and back home.
I have two children, both on the spectrum and it was only after I realised some of their habits and behaviour was similar to mine, that I decided to do something. I spent some time, looking online doing research and doing tests/online questionnaires to try and gauge my possible whereabouts within the ASD. After the online tests, I calculated I'd scored 87%, I also started to write down what I thought I did differently and what I thought were habits/"stims". A few days later I went to my doctors with my findings and a letter was sent to the local mental health dept. Since then, I've had an initial interview/consultation and the result of that was a hugely positive confirmation that I was on the spectrum and help would be given.
The down side of of this, is the wait until I can be given a counsellor, I get a monthly update from the office, but it could be near to christmas before I get an appointment and this is from initial diagnosis in February. But I would recommend you seek assistance.
As for making new friends, I try all the time, a couple of times a week I go to coffee shops, book shops and the like and try and strike up a conversation, sometimes I get to chat, sometimes I'm ignored, but only you can do this, remember, you are not limited by your condition. For me it's been an opportunity to make the most of my quirkiness and I like it.
Go out and talk to people, the majority do not bite.