[Disclaimer: Please, no medical advice, unless you are actually an expert in endometriosis or have it yourself and think it'll be relevant]
Making friends is already a challenge, not just because of my Autism but because of my paranoia issues that I have due to my Emotionally Scarring Backstory. I have a lot of trouble getting myself over this "trust threshold" that lets people move from acquaintances to moderately close-ish friends. But my chronic pain is making it nearly impossible, and I'm actually starting to feel lonely rather than overwhelmed.
I know how to go to places where cool people might be and make friends with them. I even know how to get past that trust threshold--or at the very least, I've done it before--and become friends with people, even if I have to push myself pretty hard. I know how to get a sense for how well someone will respect my boundaries in the future and how to tell which people will probably make good friends. And I know how to have fun with people.
But when I'm in pain, I can't do it. Too much pain drastically lowers my social skills and my ability to tolerate overstimulation. Sometimes I can't even speak when I'm in pain, and sometimes I can't think. The pain seems relatively unpredictable, although there are certain positions that make it worse (like sitting and standing and putting anything in my vagina). The unpredictability means that it's almost impossible for me to schedule any fun times with friends because I never know when I'll be in pain.
Also, I think I'm just less fun to be around when I'm in pain. I don't want any one person to be stuck with the bulk of my "in pain"-ness, even if they claim to be okay with it, which is part of why I need at least one more close friend. People are very understanding, but this pain problem significantly slows down the process of me being able to have CLOSE friends rather than a bunch of acquaintances who I'm half convinced will try to murder me at some point. I need more close friends who can interact with me in person or I won't be able to handle the year and a half it'll take me to get my pain levels under control surgically.
What can I do to expedite the "close friends" process? How can I make more time to interact with people when I'm in so much pain so often and keep having to cancel events? I've found one coping mechanism: schedule the same event with the same person three times in the same week and hope I'll be feeling well enough to do it one of those days. But that eats up my schedule pretty quickly. Any other ideas? I want to get to the point where I'm close enough with people to be comfortable having them with me alone at my apartment when I'm in a moderate amount of pain, which takes a good bit of trust for me. And I also just need better access to friends and social interaction in general.
26 Oct 2016, 7:20 pm
