Saturday Soiree -- 24th January 2026

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@Blackcloud wrote:

@Ruby26 thank you ❤️ and hopefully I won’t end up dropping out of the program like at anytime before it ends in December this year lol but at the same time I lowkey have a feeling it’ll happen, but as of now I don’t like to think that way. 🤞 I just hope that I can feel more comfortable in general being in the workshops/classes with the other participants around, especially cause I have a support person (support worker) coming with me hopefully to every workshops I’ll need to attend within the 40 week period (40 workshops/classes in total of the year). 🙂

@AlwaysMyself

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@AlwaysMyself

I really liked your perspective to keep an open mind even though part of you is predicting that you will drop out early @Blackcloud .

I am hoping that if/when things get difficult with the social aspects that having your support worker will help, but also that you will feel OK to take a session off - rather than feeling the need to pull put all together. Its like having a flu - people can miss a session or few; life happens! 😊🥰 and 40 sessions is a lot, so a couple here or there shouldnt be a problem, right?

@Blackcloud it's a common autistic thing. I would highly recommend books and blog posts by Donna Williams. Nobody Nowhere: The Remarkable Autobiography of an Autistic Girl (Used) | Awesome Books

Polly's pages (aka 'Donna Williams')

My psych reports always mention the lack of expression in my voice and face.

I'm sorry that you had such a hard time at school. I had no friends from Year 7 to Year 11 and I struggled a lot with making friends throughout all my school years. It has only been as an adult I have been meeting other autistic people and forming friendships.

My mum just pretended I was faking all my difficulties and would punish me for failing to make friends.

Pressure to conform to NT expectations is something I've really struggled with. I think the amount of pressure I was under as a pre-teen and an early teen is what caused me to develop schizoaffective disorder.

I have wished to be NT because that would have meant being able to belong in my family. But more recently, I have been sick of their attitude about disability and I'm wondering if I'm better off being distant from them anyway.

@AlwaysMyself you are right, even just missing a couple of sessions wouldn’t be much of an issue as long as I’m able to participate in most or all of them throughout the program this year 🙂 thank you for that! ❤️

@Ruby26 yes I already know about it being a common autistic thing so no worries 🙂 I’m not really into reading books though, I bought a Britney Spears memoir last December and have read only the first two chapters on the day I bought it but after that I haven’t been going back to continue reading it 😅

Yeah, making friends during school is definitely a huge struggle for us that are that way 😞 everyday I would sit in classes by myself and even if there were people sitting next to me they obviously only talked to their friends around them lol. Even talking to different counsellors and a few psychologists over the past 11 years havent been helpful at all especially when they all use a traditional/pathologising approach..

im so glad nowadays there are some neurodivergent experienced mental health professionals that use a neuroaffirming & depathologising approach and even glad that these services exist! Ever since I started using one of those services, I haven’t looked back. And that’s the same for the psychologist I’ll be seeing soon as well!

Even my own family doesn’t embrace being ND and expect me to act like an NT, like even my mum knows that I have autism but yet she still wants or expects me to act like an NT. My younger sister is non verbal and is low functioning autistic and my parents show more respect and appreciation to her… I’m not at all close with my sister anyway but you get what I mean

@Blackcloud @Ruby26 sorry that your family and peers havent accepted you for who you are. Sending hugs and acceptance.

I have noticed that i, unintentionally, gravitate towards autistic or people with autistic-like-traits. 🤭. I like honest straight-shooters who just be themselves.

One of these people recently commented how they liked that i also just accepted their children's ND behaviours, without question or batting an eyelid lol. I love peoples non-typical things. Makes life more interesting when we have diversity.

@AlwaysMyself I love that about you my friend, embracing ND peoples typical ND traits even when you’re not one of us 🙂 you seem to be one of the rare individuals in this world (‘rare’ as in it’s rare to have someone that’s NT to actually like, embrace and accept NDs as we are) I thank you so much for your love and appreciation for us 🤗 ❤️🫂

Well, i dont think my friends consider me NT... but im also not diagnosable adhd or asd to my knowledge lol. But i do recognise i have a lot of asd traits and resonate a lot with it on the mild end of it @Blackcloud 😉😊. Probably also helped that my best friend in mud-primary school had quite impactful ASD. I didnt know at the time - i just accepted her as she was and never questioned it. I learned later that it was autism, and she had learned a lot of coping behaviours to manage her frequent meltdowns.

@Blackcloud I would also sit by myself in high school, and everyone would refuse to pair up with me for work we had to do in pairs. Primary school was much worse, because the teachers would make up seating plans to force me to sit with the kids who were the worst of the bullies. Teachers blamed me for not "trying hard enough" socially.

I haven't really had a lot of access to psychologists. My mum used to go in with me to see them and made it all about what she wanted so I would end up just having to sit there and listen to them give my mum sympathy for being stuck with me. I'm starting to think it doesn't really count as therapy since no one was actually interested in me and my feelings.

I did see three psychologists on my own and two were really good and one was really terrible. I'm glad to hear that you've found services that are neuro-affirming.

I'm really sorry that your mum expects you to act like an NT. If you go into autistic communities online, you'll find the differences between how you and your sister are treated are very common. I don't have any autistic siblings myself, but it has been hard to see how much my parents prefer my NT siblings over me.

@AlwaysMyself haha aww I see, and that makes sense then about having a lot of asd traits even just through self-diagnosed. I’m sure your best friend in mid primary school knows how much you meant a lot to her for her to be accepted by you, that was very kind and sweet of you ❤️❤️❤️ ahh yeah…the frequent meltdowns totally. Back in school I was forced to fully 100% mask my autistic traits because if I dared to cry in school and unmasked all these other traits that I may or may not have gotten, that it’d be a major embarrassment in front of everyone in the class/school. I was even too scared to cry in school so I learnt and got so used to holding back my emotions

@AlwaysMyself thank you for your support. The world would be so much nicer if more people were like you.