How have you adapted to isolation?

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I wish I had more time on my own. I could gleefully go days without speaking to another soul. Honestly, I've never been alone for very long.

I like the company of certain people, but if I could have their company for only a few hours (like in order to have another body in bed to keep me warm, and talk to them on messenger otherwise), I'd be pretty happy.

I would love to spend a week in a cabin somewhere, without hearing or seeing anyone else but cats or a dog. It won't happen, but I wish it would. I miss not having to speak for awhile, or not being interrupted a billion times a day.

I get a hell of a lot more done when no one's around.

I have basically been an isolationist all my life, not that I really wanted that. its just that people makes me really anxious, and I tend to get socially used and abused or rejected allot when I do try and meet people or get social.

One thing I have found, the less I socialize the worse I become, its like losing those social tools because of not exercising them, even though I never had much tools to begin with. the more longer I stay isolated the worse my social anxieties becomes.

I would love a friend or mate to be with or just hang out with, but as it stands I don't have ANY friends at all, never really had any, and what ones I did try to get to know stabbed me in the back more then once. people do try to take advantage of autistic people, I was more then once told I was an easy target because of my lack of social skills by those who take advantage of me.

I wouldn't mind the isolation so much if I had a mate or partner to share it with. I get really really lonely quite often, but don't see how I can remedy this without sticking my foot out the door only to get stepped on. so I keep my socializing to the Internet.

I was born without many of the instinctual social skills others do have, so I have to learn them, and you cant learn them without getting out and socializing, its a catch 22.

Sometimes, I sit with my headphones on and no music, so that the only thing I can hear is the fan and the faint squeak when the hard drive is accessed, so that I have a pool of near-silence no matter what else is going on around me.

I used to really miss people. Now, for the most part, I don't.

I think I've been resigned, rather than accepting it. Work has filled the place that, for other people, must be occupied by family and friends. I've watched my colleagues form friendships, but have never been able to join in. When someone speaks to me about a non-work subject I sort of freeze. I have nothing to say outside my special interests, and my main hope is that they'll go away.

Most of the time I do prefer my own company, but retirement looms and I'll then have even less interaction with the outside world than I do now. For years I've said 'when I hit 60 you won't see me for dust', but now I'm not so sure.

I have been alone most of my life. That does not mean I don't like or need human companionship, although my pugs fill the void admirably. I think that being an aspy may have had a contributing effect to being alone mostly. But I wasn't diagnosed until I was over 50 so I took responsibility for my own life and did not blame my loneliness on aspergers. I just put it off on my being a nonconformist. Now it is too late to blame my life on a wiring FUBAR, and I am so glad. For if I blamed my life on a wiring fubar I never would have- whitewatered, been a biker, had a labor career and a design career and I never would have tried to teach and oh so many other things. Lonely does suck but so do many things. All things being equal being a lonely aspy is not my whole picture and anyone who lets a condition define them is giving up before ever fighting. I will admit that there are times when the lonely is super hard. And thats when I hug a pug.

A lot of my isolation is situational -- small town, single mom, family AWOL -- but I've always been on the edge of any social group I've been part of, find it bewildering and exhausting to be in the middle (which hasn't happened often). My interests are very different from those of other single moms I meet; the only moms I meet who share my interests are far-better-supported than I am and don't really have time for me anyway, I'm not in their crowd. Old non-parent friends didn't really want to deal with the social constraints of my having a child. In other words, people go on with their own lives and forget me, mostly. Usually I don't have time for socializing anyway. I saw more of the moms when the kids were little and we all brought them to local activities, but the older-kid activities seem to involve crazy commitments of time and money, a lot of driving all over the state in minivans. I don't have time or money for that sort of thing.

I tried LD online dating for a while, but one after the next attracted brilliant, handsome, and deeply troubled men, well-acquainted with getting thrown out of places. One felt like a long-lost twin; came and stayed with me, then went home and killed himself. Another has enough trouble with AS that finding a steady home and job seem insurmountable troubles.

I've no idea what they think of all this at work (the isolation -- I haven't told those stories). My default is to assume that nobody's interested enough in me to gossip, but that usually turns out to be wrong.

How have I adapted to it? By being sad, I suppose. I'll have more freedom to socialize in a few years, and more freedom to move to an amenable place, but I get the impression that late middle age is like 10th grade -- by the time you get there, everyone's all cliqued up, bound into their families and longstanding social circles. I guess it'll be more drifters and other troubled people who never found their way in, and a lot of solitude.

I've always felt that I live in the world but aren't part of it. I guess I've 'adapted' by filling my life with work and my pets, and with hobbies that I can do on my own. I've tried to convince myself that I'm alone, rather than lonely.

I've had acquaintances and work colleages rather than friends. In my 20's I tried to appear more normal to them by inventing a social life that I could talk about. It got quite sophisticated! I had a girlfriend with a job and a family. We had arguments, went on holidays, watched favourite things on TV etc. All fantasy.

One problem is that the more I have contact with people the more I realise how much they have that I don't [especially friends and family], so I tend to avoid them so that I'm not reminded of it. So isolation tends to become a vicious circle.

How many of you pine for human contact?
I do. I want more than anything to be hugged and have a kind hand stroke my hair and tell me everything will be okay.
But there is no one and I know things will not be okay.

Are you generally satisfied with your own company or do you need to be surrounded by adoring friends/fans to feel happy?
I am my own best friend - because no one else really likes me, not because I want it that way.

Most importantly if you've had loneliness inflicted upon you how have you learnt to adapt?
My mom died last June. My daughter moved her family 1200 miles away from me three months later. I am all alone. I am not adapting well.

Sorry MissQ. That sucks.

I love being in solitude . I don't like being around human beings any more than absolutely necessary, but I admit to having the need to feel like someone knows I exist so I come to internet sites to exchange comments with whatever kind of creature responds to what I peck into the boxes. It is only when I make entries into websites and no one responds that I actually feel "alone." I guess I only tolerate the company of human beings when I have to, including my family members who I might have to ask for transportation sometimes. Probably that makes me a "user" of people, in some ways, but I understand that us not uncommon for Aspies. I hate "speaking," and much prefer to communicate through the internet. I cannot stand cell phones. Cannot stand human yaking, ringtones, text alerts. Those noises have caused me to break little things that may be around me. It's like people use their phones to hide behind, because they don't want to be in the middle of humanity any more than I do. Maybe my frustration comes from jealousy because cannot hide behind one too. It just seems like cheating to me. Why is silence so uncomfortable to human beings?

When I was a teen, I wanted to be a hermit when I grew up.When I grew up, I still wanted to be a hermit because social interaction didn't get any easier just more cutthroat. So now that I'm retired, the elimination of most social contact is a welcome relief.

As others have said, a close, trusted, understanding friend or partner is a need. Not just for security but also for the intellectual exchange and challenge. I am lucky to be in a relationship that works well most of the time.

Affectionate physical contact has always been a mystery to me. I've never felt a need for affectionate contact and have never been able to effectively navigate the gray area between affectionate and sexual. I still crave sex, but at my age getting it has simply become too much of a chore.

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