Our Impact

Meet Oliver, an AANE Community Member

Listen to Oliver share his story in the video or read it below.

My name is Oliver.  In 2021, I was a PhD candidate beginning my dissertation. For years, my life had been organized around an academic schedule. Suddenly the familiar structure of classes was gone, and my daily struggles became increasingly insurmountable.

Before, I could push myself through the “hard parts.” Now, making a phone call became the biggest task that I could do in a day. Human interaction left me completely fatigued. My social anxiety became debilitating. I was passively suicidal, and I knew I needed to find more support.

My research about what I was experiencing led me to the possibility that I was Neurodivergent. It was a very exciting and difficult moment, and it left me feeling completely isolated—until I found AANE.

In 2023, I joined a support group and, for the first time in my life, saw similar struggles and sources of joy reflected in the people around me. I was finally in a space where I didn’t have to guess my way through layers of social protocol. I felt safe enough to share things I had never told anyone, from my “niche”interest in minimalist opera to the exhaustion of maintaining friendships.

The validation and community was life changing. My perspective underwent a seismic shift from, “I’m struggling, but it’s ok—I’m surviving,” to “I’m struggling, it’s not ok, and I will find ways to struggle less because I want to live.”

I started to discover who I am, separate from inherited notions of what I thought I should be doing. I learned to follow things that felt good and to unpack things that felt bad. I realized that getting a diagnosis was important to me, and with the unconditional support I received in my group, I eventually pursued and received one.

This year, it has been especially critical to have a space where we can be vulnerable with each other, where people take our concerns seriously. As an Autistic Transgender person, there is no other place where I feel so fully seen and supported. In my AANE group, we’re able to uniquely affirm and soothe one another. I like to think all of us take that feeling out into the world, and that it reverberates outwards into all the other spaces we’re in.

Joining the AANE community, I met people with lives different than I had ever imagined—lives attuned to their needs and desires, rather than to societal expectations. I realized that I get to decide what a livable life looks like for me. It is one of the most precious truths I learned from my group, and it’s one I hope everyone has the chance to discover.

If AANE has made an impact on your life or the life of a loved one like it has for me, I hope you’ll join me in making a gift to sustain their vital work today. Thank you.

“I am the parent of an Autistic daughter. What most people don’t know is that I am Autistic as well. The sense of acceptance, community, and trust I experienced at AANE gave me the confidence and the courage to get a diagnosis. With my diagnosis came a tremendous sense of relief, and a powerful new self-knowledge. I am now unafraid to share who I am.“

-Mark, AANE Community Member

“AANE was one of the few places I found with a virtual support group specifically for Autistic adults of color…. Above all, the group has been validating: I am not alone, and what I experience is real.”

-Seung, AANE Adult