Chapter Fifty-Two: Meeting Other Aspies
| Q: | So, how did you go about meeting other Aspies? Was it a scary thing to do? |
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| A: | Yeah, you know, it was! So now we move on to the last chapter of my past story, which takes place only about six months before I started writing this book! |
After my initial diagnosis, it took me many months to seek out and join any real-life Asperger’s groups. Part of me really liked the idea of having a support group and being able to find like minds to socialize with. I wanted someone to discuss this diagnosis with. But I think part of me was still rejecting the idea that I could be like anyone with a label.
I made excuses to myself—the driving distance to the nearest group was just too far down an unfamiliar freeway. Driving the freeways of Texas wasn’t something I was yet comfortable with. “It’s too hard.” I think the real reason I wasn’t making the effort was that I was afraid of what I was going to find.
I recall having a discussion with Angel (actually, it was part of the last one-on-one discussion I ever had with her) in which I expressed my concerns that I didn’t think I would fit in with other Aspies. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go into the group among others who might be a lot more low-functioning than I was. Maybe deep down, it just sounded too confronting. I’m able to pass as normal, I told myself. I’m a competent person.
I didn’t want to think of myself as being like these other Aspies I imagined up. It’s disturbing how badly the media stereotype of Asperger’s was ingrained in my head, and I really was vain enough to presume that I might be the only normal-seeming one.
However, despite my initial reservations, I jotted down some dates and locations of the closest Aspie meetup group in my diary and considered it for a while. Then, one particular month, I just decided, that’s it, I’m going to make the effort to go to one of these things. And a heavily pregnant me jumped in the car and drove down to Sugarland, Texas for the first time. It turned out that with little traffic, the drive only took around twenty minutes. All those months of freeway fears had been completely unfounded.
My first meeting started out a little strange. I arrived a few minutes early and was ushered by a rather outgoing (no doubt neurotypical) young man to write my name down on a sign-in sheet and go sit at a row of chairs. I didn’t realize it at first, but I’d been directed to the parents’ section. I suppose being heavily pregnant and nicely dressed must have given too much of a “normal,” parent-like impression for anyone to ask me my reasons for being there.
As usual, I felt uncomfortable sitting with the group of strangers and having to make small talk. There were periods of uncomfortable silence. I wanted the meeting to hurry up and start.
At one point, a guy approached the group (another adult Aspie, I was soon to find out). He was social and made funny jokes/banter that immediately put me at ease. His humor was spot on for me and struck a chord. I found myself grinning with genuine liking. Then he wandered off to talk to another group. And as that group walked together past the back of the parents’ area and out of the room, I suddenly knew they were the adult Aspies.
I didn’t know it because they were weird or embarrassing looking. It was more the feel the group gave me. They were characters, a collection of unique-looking people interacting in a close, friendly, open way. You could tell a few of them knew each other well. What wasn’t there was that feeling of pretense and false enthusiasm—fakeness—that I usually get when I see a group of people talking.
These people weren’t showing off or trying to be subtly better than each other. They weren’t dressing to impress or giving off airs of importance. They were simply enjoying each other’s company. All that, I got at a glance.
Suddenly, all that shallow superficial crap just melted away. I wanted to go where that group of people was going. I wanted to know them. I asked one of the hosts who the group of people walking past were and where they were going. The host confirmed what I already knew. “That’s the adult Asperger’s group. They meet in a separate room over there.” I explained that I was in the wrong place and excused myself.
Then off I went to join the adult group in the back room. I filled my name in on a sign-in sheet and took my place in a circle of chairs. There were only around ten to fifteen people in the room. It was so much more comfortable than the other group. I knew now that I was going to enjoy this meeting.
I don’t remember what topics were covered in that first Aspie meeting, but I do remember walking away from it on a high, relieved and amazed to find so many people like myself. It was a mentally stimulating, meaningful, enjoyable conversation. I’d been craving that mental stimulation for so long. It had been badly lacking since I’d left work and had only social engagements to attend.
There were a few in the group whose behaviors were more outwardly challenged. They stood out. But for the most part, these people seemed outwardly “normal” too and comfortable to be around. I’d been completely misguided in my preconceived ideas about Aspies. More than that, these people felt safe to be around, completely safe and open. No airs required. I felt so comfortable being myself there, and I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that to that level anywhere else. It was like coming home for the first time.
The group gathered socially at a restaurant after the meetup. I skipped the meal the first time but went to every one I could thereafter. I also joined various individual gatherings outside the main group.
A few months in, the League was created.
At one of our early League gatherings, I remember the group discussing the topic of acceptance versus belonging and how, for the first time for pretty much all of us, we suddenly felt like we were somewhere we really belonged.
To be “accepted” is to have other people tolerate you and allow you to join them in their various activities. Most of us had experienced some degree of this with our regular friends. However, to “belong” is to really feel like you’re at the heart of the group, to have people value you and want you there. To know you’re around “same.”
I can’t begin to express how experiencing a group like this changed my world and how it took away my need to try and be anything other than myself. Suddenly, I had friends and a social niche, and it didn’t matter anymore what the rest of the world thought of me. I stopped trying so hard to fit where I just don’t fit.
I began to attend the expatriate mums’ groups less and less. I’d become busier now and no longer found it yielding when I had so many other things to do. From day one at that Aspie meeting, I felt more comfortable and connected with the people around me than some mums I had been trying to befriend for a year or more. The driver to keep fighting a losing battle was no longer there.
Other members of the League were expressing the same sorts of things:
David N. wrote:
| I got out of bed today and wished that I could sit and have some coffee and visit with my friends, the League of Extraordinary Aspies. I feel such a connection and sense of community with you, something I’ve never experienced before. A sense of belonging. I feel that I can truly be myself around you. I feel welcomed. I feel hopeful. I feel inspired! The NT world, by and large, has always been a frightening, troubling, uncertain, anxious, storm-tossed place for me. Thank you all so much, dear friends, for the haven of your fellowship. |
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John J. Ronald wrote (in response to David finding friends in the League):
| Glad it has helped, and I also feel that finally once again I’ve found a small circle of friends I can truly be myself around as well. It’s been a LONG time since I felt that way… |
My discussions with the League members also seemed to inspire me in amazing ways. Early on, one of the men in the group, David N., told me he found me so expressive and insightful and encouraged me to write it all down. Suddenly, I felt like people might actually want to hear what I had to say. I began writing this book and have been working on it ever since.
Another member of the League, Josh, was an inspired photographer. Looking at his nature pieces made me want to go out and photograph things too. That love of nature and eye for the beauty in my surroundings has always been in me. I’d considered studying or taking up photography before. Seeing it done so well flipped an “on” button for me, and I was suddenly in love with the world around me and had to go capture it on camera.
In a short time, I had more things I wanted to do than I possibly had time for. Not just wanted to do, but felt driven, had to do. Where had this buzz been all my life?
One day, it occurred to me why having a place in society made such an impact. It was because until now, I’d been depressed for most of my life. Being alone and alien to everyone around you leaves you wanting, and depression is a natural and common consequence of isolation.
Because I’d learned that other people don’t like you when you act down, I had spent lengthy periods of my life suppressing it and acting “okay,” at least until it got really bad. However, it was always there, with the exception of a few brief happy periods in life (early childhood, the end of high school, and some of my university and childcare studies).
Now it was like a fog had been lifted. I wasn’t just happy because there were things going on around me. I was happy because I was connecting to and belonging with people who valued the real me. I felt alive and wanted to explore who I was more and more and love myself more and more. Since I’ve found this side of me and seen so much beauty and value in what I can do, I can’t imagine going back to feeling like I have no purpose anymore. Creating and sharing my life and learnings with others has become my purpose.
I am an Aspie, and I’m on a mission to show the rest of the world what a wonderful thing that is. I’m so proud to be an Aspie now that I see all the beautiful and brilliant things that come with it. It’s the best gift life could have given me. I love spending time around other Aspies who share a common way of seeing things. I’m so happy to be me.