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Xenologer
692 M Little Steps
PathStep 63 Compassion hearts64 Forum posts30 Forum upvotes48 Current upvotes48 Age GroupAdult Last activeMarch, 2018 Member sinceAugust 10, 2016
Bio
Dissociative bisexual white cis woman. Married and polyamorous. 31 yrs old. The Selkie Delegation. Pronouns: she/her/hers. #Pagan #Atheist #Multiple #ActuallyAutistic #blacklivesmatter #NoBanOnStolenLand
Recent forum posts
Why Allistic Parents/Guardians Need Autistic Friends
Autism Support / by Xenologer
Last post
 February 24th, 2018
...See more https://timetolisten.blogspot.com/2014/05/you-yes-you-need-autistic-friends.html So your child was just diagnosed with autism. Breathe. Breathe deeper. Relax. It'll all be ok. But you have some work to do. The first thing you need to do isn't find therapists. It isn't commiserate with other parents. It isn't become an AAC expert (though all of these things have their place!). It's something not in the autism introduction packet: you need to connect on a human level with adults like your child. You need to go make some Autistic friends. I don't mean a mentoring relationship, though those are extremely important and I am a big fan of mentoring (and mentoring your child & being friends with you are not mutually exclusive). I definitely don't mean "translate my child to me" (which is not a friend thing particularly). I mean find local Autistic adults with whom you have common interests and connect as equal human adult people. There are a whole lot of reasons this is the best thing you can do for your child: The link has a lot of reasons why this would be extremely helpful. It seems like we have at least as many allistic people in this forum looking to understand us as we do autistic people looking for support from one another, and those can be very different needs. They can still be compatible needs when allistic people are willing to relate to us as peers, though, and that's always easier to do when we're socially present as something other than improvement projects or half-people who need to be completed before we are relatable. Adult autistics are like your kids. The better roots you have in the community, the more support both you and your kid will have.
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