Proud

Game Fanatic made his parents pretty proud this weekend when he attended the Supernova Pop culture show. Over the past few years, he’s been fairly isolated and had limited friendships due to his various anxiety, ocd and asd sort of issues. I added in the asd even though his diagnosis of autism is not official just yet. It’s just that it’s now his traits are so much more obvious than in the past so it seems worthy of inclusion. Going out in public to crowded places has always been a struggle for GF so when he announced his interest in attending Supernova months ago, we didn’t really think it would end up happening. Closer to time, there were questions about going along with other people we know but that didn’t work out for various reasons. He still wanted to go so the Scientist accompanied him to the show last Sunday. Apparently it was really crowded with many rude show-goers pushing their way around the venue. The Scientist told me later that GF started following him around until he said that GF need to take the lead and the Scientist would follow him. This wouldn’t necessarily work every time but it did on this occasion. Game Fanatic did go around to the things that interested him, including a panel by Mad Men, a company that distributes most of the anime titles here in Australia. He took charge of what he wanted to do and just got on with it. I have long known that when Game Fanatic sets his mind to something, he can overcome many of the obstacles and this is a prime example. The main objective in going to this show was so that GF could socialise but that didn’t really happen as it was just too crowded there. But GF did pick up information on a local anime group that meets so perhaps this will be a means develop more of a social circle for him. I hope he takes the same determination into the next social challenge he meets. Well done, Game Fanatic!