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AWG Secular 12 Step Self-Esteem Group 🚀


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Zoom access and meeting times Meeting description Workbook Readings
Zoom access and meeting times

Meetings are every Tuesday from 11 am to 12 pm Eastern US Time. See Meeting Time in a Different Time Zone (normal calendar)


* Zoom link not working? Search the meeting ID below in the Zoom meeting database and then use the code to sign in: 

Meeting ID: 824 1142 4876
Code: 781927


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Meeting description

This is a secular 12 Step meeting focused on self-esteem recovery for late-identified autistic women and members of all other marginalized genders (nonbinary, gender fluid, MTF/FTM trans, agender, autigender, and more). 

We meet each Tuesday on Zoom, practice the AWG 12 Steps using the AWG 12 Step Workbook, share in response to weekly readings, and participate in the optional co-mentorship program if we so desire. 

It is not mandatory to turn on your mic or camera. Coming to listen is totally fine. By taking part, we hold space for others, and ourselves, to participate in a way that is manageable for us as we exist right now.

It is not necessary to actively be doing the AWG 12 Steps in order to be a full participant. Any contact with the group and its resources can be beneficial as long as it’s sustainable for each of us as individuals. Many of us participate simply by attending meetings.

As we participate in this meeting over time, we might find ourselves seeking to…

  • Find our own concept of self-esteem and grow toward it
  • Come to discover a more realistic sense of our place in the world
  • Reassess our relationships, especially in terms of our responsibilities towards ourselves and others
  • Come to understand personal boundaries, their roles in our lives, and how to develop and maintain healthy boundaries
  • Understand the concept of nonviolent detachment and how and when to enact it
  • Develop more manageable lifestyles
  • Develop a sense of self that leads to more health, well being, and manageability in our lives
  • Release others from the responsibility of defining or reinforcing our sense of self-esteem
  • Form personal goals about self-esteem and self-concept based on our own understanding of our own needs, as they exist today

AWG 12 Step Self-Esteem Readings

Discovering my averageness

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Pre-identification, I might not have had my life together, but I felt special, exceptional

Self-diagnosed autistic people like me sometimes get accused of "just wanting to feel special". The truth is, though, that I feel less special post-identification than I ever have before. Pre-identification, I was quirky, edgy, gifted, tortured… there was something "extra" about me that wasn't like other people. The more I learn about autism and late-identified culture, the more I realize I'm actually pretty average.

To be honest? The loss of the specialness feels like kind of a defeat. Pre-identification, I might not have had my life together, but I felt special, exceptional, which kind of excused it in a way. Now, I still don't have my shit together as much as I'd like to, but there's no mystery to it, no romance. I used to be able to tell myself, "I might be messed up, but at least I'm not boring". Now I'm less messed up, but I do feel boring, especially when I imagine how others might see me now versus how I used to be.

Step 3 asks us to "make a decision to initiate a process of letting go" of pre-identification perceptions and "to cultivate openness to new perceptions of ourselves". I've been able to let go of a lot, and it's been good… but I find myself grieving my sense of specialness, outsiderness, un-figure-out-able-ness Has anyone here been through anything similar?

Share questions:

  • Pre-identification, did you ever feel special because you were different? In what ways? 
  • How do you view that specialness today? Do you still feel special in the same way, or not as much? 
  • Do you think the sense of specialness might have been linked to other cultural ideas, for example outsiderness, quirkiness, talent, darkness, romance, creative suffering, intelligence, "not going with the crowd", or something else?
  • There are so many kinds of autistic people. As you get more familiar with the community, has it been possible to start to differentiate yourself, identifying talents, interests, an aura, attitudes, values, or other attributes that stand out in the autistic context? 
  • As you work on your self-esteem, has it been possible to come to value things about yourself that you're glad of for their own sake, outside of comparisons with other people? 
  • Any tools, resources, or strategies to share?
  • Anything else to add?
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AWG 12 Step Self-Esteem Workbook

Step 1

We admitted that despite our efforts, many of the factors affecting our sense of self and self-esteem seemed out of control, leading to increased unmanageability in our lives.

Step 2

Coming Soon

Step 3

Coming Soon

Step 4

Coming Soon
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