I wish I was more outspoken

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I know, it's just...why me? Why did I have to be born with this and no-one else in my family? It's not fair.

I think I've calmed down now. Just a meltdown, that's all. Just got frustrated with my brain.

My mother got upset with me today because I had trouble putting on her shoes. She was just about to cry in frustration. She thinks I am "less" than other people.

I know how you feel----trust me!

Yeah I don't watch the news or go on facebook cos then I compare my reality with what people are sharing, but people only share stuff that makes them look good, or even embellish the truth.

Sweet Pea hugs

I'm just frustrated because of being the only Aspie in my family. Or even though anxiety, depression and autism-like traits run in my family it still doesn't seem to affect others the way it affects me and they still manage to keep up normal social lives and have never been lonely or friendless.

My brother has somehow been diagnosed with Asperger's but he was popular at school and very accepted by the other popular kids even though he didn't like sports and he was shy and didn't get involved in any after school clubs (in other words he automatically made friends like any neurotypical can). But he still had a large circle of friends that always came knocking round for him and had lots of sleepovers. Even as a young adult he stayed in touch with a lot of his friends and went clubbing and other things like that with them.

I have another cousin (same age as me) who showed more autism traits than me as a child but never received a diagnosis, and still has autism traits now but seems to always be doing social activities at weekends like like clubbing, partying and going to music festivals.

And of course there's the cousin that (unbeknownst to her) triggered my resentment and self-hatred, and although she has always been somewhat different and living with her head in the clouds and lacked social development as a child (more than me) she still seems to have friends that she makes and keeps in touch with and it makes me angry.


Hear this out:
When we were toddlers I was actually the social one while she was behind, even though I was a few months younger than she was. She had notable speech and language delays and lacked eye contact and wasn't communicating and seemed in a world of her own, while I had reached all of those milestones before her and was developing like any normal typically developing toddler. But throughout our childhood we seemed to have swapped neurologies - I became the problematic ADHD/autistic brat with social and emotional problems while my cousin turned NT and seemed to attract friends. f**k knows what happened.

But this has depressed me so much that I have lost all interest in life and last night during the meltdown I stared out of the window in the direction of the train tracks and had to stop myself from going out there and jumping in front of the next train. That's how bad I feel about autism. Well, it isn't really autism to blame because of other people in my family that share similar autistic traits still seem to get along in life socially. So yeah, it must be me. I must be a bad person who just makes any potential female friends my age run for the hills. Maybe I'm ugly, really ugly. Or just dumb and ret*d. I don't know.

I mean, you can't blame me for feeling so resentful about this. I've had so many incidents in my teenage and adult life with female peers, they either ended up bullying me or rejecting me or not being interested in befriending me even though I made an effort to get to know them. If there were two other girls together I was the third wheel, always, and this wasn't just the wrong sort of girls, because it's happened everywhere I've gone (work, clubs, volunteering, etc) with all different types of girls. And I've experienced once too many times where girls have arranged to meet up but have never asked me or invited me. And then I see my socially awkward cousin who just seems to have no problems at all. I feel so downhearted.

I feel resentful, yes.....but if you allow it to rule your life, you will never be happy.

People tend to emphasize the negative in their lives, and just totally forget about the positive.

I think the autism just frightens me, that's all. It makes me wonder what will become of me later on in life when my boyfriend and most of my close family members have passed on. I worry that my lack of friend-making skills will cause me to become isolated and die alone.

Also I just don't know why I'm born with ASD. I keep feeling angry about it. I can't accept it. It gets to me sometimes. It makes me feel alone and isolated, like all my peers (even Aspies) are in this big, social bubble, all making friends with each other and chatting and laughing and being accepted, while I'm forced to be on the outside looking in at their backs as they huddle into their huge group and know exactly how to find and keep each other as friends. I'm just kicked out of the big friendship bubble because I'm not good enough, I'm useless and lacking something which I'm not sure what, and I feel isolated and confused.

That's probably the best I can explain how life is for me at the moment.

My social skills aren't that bad really. I know how to be around people, and I've been told that I'm "easy to talk to" and "a good listener" and "very empathetic". Those are 3 key social skills for a start. But it doesn't win me many friends, especially females my age.

The time when I had the most friends was between the ages of 3 and 10. After then, friendships have come and gone, some very fleeting, and usually with non-NT peers or much older people. I can't ever imagine me ever befriending NTs my age. Whenever there are NTs my age around, particularly females, they always ostracize me, even if they seem quiet and serious.

It just makes me feel miserable. I wish more people would contribute to this thread too.

Yeah it sucks, is all i can say ....

I'm just frustrated and insecure because of being the one out of my whole family with the least friends, whether other family members have AS traits or not. My cousin has always struggled academically, which was visible in her social performance too, but that still didn't stop her making friends. I got diagnosed at 8 with AS and I've been working hard on social improvement ever since and now I've come to a point where most of my neurotypical behaviours around people come naturally, and recognising body language and empathising with others aren't things that I struggle with at all. Yet I still lack friends in my life.

Friends don't have to be in love with you and there for/with you 24/7. The way I see friends are:-

- People that want to spend time with you, even just meeting up once a month
- People that automatically include you in their plans
- People that tell you personal things and that there's a mutual trust between both/all of you
- People who like you and enjoy being with you
- People who stay in touch and usually (not always) like or comment on your Facebook updates (if they are regular Facebook users too)
- People who give you their phone number (especially if they don't use social media)
- People who accept you and understand you

If you have a lot of people in your life who have most of the above then you have friends and you know how to make friends.

The reason I compare myself to my cousin is because we're comparable. There are a lot of similarities between us, ever since we were children, and I've always felt she had some Aspie traits.

I can't ask her what her magic secret is, because I don't want to come across as jealous of competitive and I don't want her to know I'm feeling this way.

I wonder if your cousin is jealous of YOU in some way….

No, she's not really the sort of have feelings like that. She just goes through life with her head in the clouds and only feels anxiety or depression very fleetingly, if at all. Honestly, she wouldn't want to be me. Who would want to be me?

She's the sort of person who is happy in her bubble and doesn't really worry about what other people are doing. She was in an abusive relationship for 10 years and seems to have come out of it completely unscathed, where as most of us would be traumatized by how she was treated. I wasn't treated as badly as she was yet I am traumatized by past experiences.

Meh, you never know?

My mum (probably ASD) always wanted us to have a smile on our faces to stupid extremes.
That doesn't mean they aren't hurting on the inside, just can't express it.

That's *my* history, though.

And my mum said to me while I was going through my divorce
"I need you to be happy, so I can be happy, so I can paint happy pictures, for God!"

Ugh.

This took a turn.

I was originally thinking of this song. skip the interview until 2:20

How are you now?

I identify with being the third wheel and all my friendships over the years have fizzled out.My ex left me (bullet dodged). I don't try to read into why that is, it just is. Talking to checkout people or a waitress and strangers online is about all I have socially. Perhaps I will volunteer or join a group or go to a coffee morning but I'm not that fussed. If I'm lonely when I'm an old man I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I'm just living in the day.

I don't know you but you seem sensitive, and read into people a little too much and come to the worst possible conclusion! Also maybe there's something in you that wants a lot of friends but also doesn't want to have a lot of friends. It's a big workload and commitment. I only need a very small amount of socialising and people tend to want more than I can handle. I get tired very quickly. I actually fear making an acquaintance with a stranger at a pub because I don't want to hurt their feelings when I need to escape! (Which would probably be in 5 minutes )
I think autistics who are undersensitive have a much easier time of it in this exhausting, frazzling society.

I wouldn't want to change my logical brain, I'd miss it. Thinking deeply is valuable in a world of superficial people, some people don't even know what its like! As long as it doesn't become pathological rumination. I think if you swapped another person's problems for a moment you'd soon wish for yours back!

Yes, I am too sensitive and I do read too much into what other people are doing compared to what I'm doing.

I think I have jealousy traits in me. We all have at least one negative trait (nobody's perfect), and my negative trait appears to be jealousy. But is it actually jealousy, or is it just the fact that I'm insecure about myself and my disability so I feel frightened when other people are getting along well socially?
I just can't handle the answer "you've got less friends because you're autistic, all your cousins have more friends because they have social skills". Agh, just f**k o**!