nobody cares about us

Post Reply New Topic

For the OP, let me borrow a piece that my therapist used when I first learned about cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT)for my depression and mindfulness.

So, in your situation if you really think nobody cares about you, simply (this is hard, but you have to work it out through meditation) pretend they do. Pretend people do care about you, and obviously some do and you don't even know it yet but in your mind right now nobody does. So, just try to slowly work your way there until you are in a lucid state. It will take some time and effort but it will work eventually.

When you get there BOOM! Flip it! Now, tell yourself..."I don't give a f!@#$ what people think about me. I am just doing my thing right now(Whatever that special thing may be)

If you get complimented say in your head: I don't give a f!@#$ what you think about me. I am just doing my thing right now. If you are insulted say in your head: I don't give a f!@#$ what you think about me. I am just doing my thing right now. This is easier said than done however, but the more you work at it, the more improved you will become.

I hope this helps you and everyone! I still use this,and it becomes more sophisticated the more you use it.

There was a time in my life that I felt the same way. 20 years ago, I was convinced that nobody cared about autistic people. I was also convinced that my job preparation specialists dropped me off to work at a factory, because they didn't want to put fourth the effort of finding something that would be more suitable and challenging for me. I was convinced that my parents didn't give a damn, because they kept telling me that they won't let me look for another job. It was like my parents wanted me to be miserable. My dad told me that the settlement that he cot from ICBC was going to go to my sister for her schooling and I wasn't going to get any of it because I already had a job. I was thinking about going back to school and taking courses to become a child psychologist. My dad didn't care.

I am marginalized but it suits me after a fashion.

Assuming that the OP wants people to care, why would the OP go through all the trouble of self-convincing that people do care, then saying "I don't give a f**k what people think about me"?

Convincing oneself that people care and then deciding not to care about them caring are inconsistent states of mind.

I think he is referring to times when people disrespect him, and not saying that is how he'd relate to the caring people he meets.

I've encountered some great people in life, ones who genuinely try to promote positivity for themselves and others. It can be hard to identify these folk though, and harder still if you tend to squirrel yourself away from the world at large. I thank what lucky stars I have that my parents are still here for me today, without them I would be homeless, or dead. This thinking gets dangerous, and it's landed me in hospital before now. Painful as it is though, I have come to understand I have to acknowledge my current dependencies if I ever want to overcome them. I desperately want to make it in life on my own. The unfortunate hand at play here is that in order to do so I'm slowly hardening myself to everything I feel threatens my moods. My problem with eye-contact with people has steadily deteriorated even as my moods have stabilised, oddly enough. I imagine that with all these barriers in place, if people don't care, they must certainly think I don't care right back at them, and I suppose that is a shared sentiment with at least some others here.

I think that when people see someone who is acting different due to autism,
they don't think "Oh that guy must have autism"
instead they think "Oh that guy's a tw@t"

my advice is try to be a cool fun friendly person to make up for giving a bad impression, it's no one's fault, it's just how it is

You have to take the current climate into consideration. The economy is bad, there is talk of terrorism, and the internet is causing huge changes in the world. There are a lot of problems and there is no filter to keep them at arms length because of the internet. Friendliness in general is down and so there's nothing personal about it. There is a lot of dysfunction in the human race. The other day I started to watch "the coming war on China" about bikini fase and although it was awful it made me remember that humans used to live in paradise and now they are so dysfunctional and dangerous to themselves and others. People even hurt themselves just to hide the feelings they can't deal with and are operating completely beyond their own limits. It's no wonder they have no time for people who are different to themselves.

I remember how it was living with a mother who did not take my autism seriously. There is a world out there that does care about autism. There's also a lot of people who don't. They don't care about anyone. But there are still many many people who are open minded. I became my own advocate because I lived with people who picked on me constantly and got angry with me over things I had no control over. So, I read up all I could about autism, started a blog, moved to a new city and now I'm around open minded people who listen to me - one of those people is even my mother.
Your mother is probably stressed out and not sure what your future will be so she's taking it out on you. That's what mine did. Well, mine has mental problems so it might be a bit different.

Most of us do lose our virginity at a normal time than average. And you know what? It ain't that great if you just jump in the sack with the first person that gives you the time.

It will get better. I mean, I felt like killing myself three days ago during the whole three days. I have depression though so it happens. We can't always blame people for our problems. Not saying you are as I don't really know your story but there is a way out of your funk.

You mean it's not the fault of the close-minded jerk who thinks someone's a twat?


Nah. This has been happening long before that. People feel uncomfortable around those who are different so they exclude them, bully them or try to change them.

I went through all of that long before social media was as widespread as it is. Before Obama was president.

While I don't feel any attraction to the idea of prostitution myself, fundamentally, every human interaction is a sort of transaction, and conditional on your bringing some kind of benefit to the other party. Viewed this way, I think hiring a hooker is far more transparent and honest than trying to play the asinine club/Tinder game if sex is all you want, doubly so for people like us who aren't likely to be successful playing that game anyway.

I'm 26. I've been diagnosed at 16 and from then on my goal was to be as "normal" as possible. I had to restrain certain aspects of my personality, and of course try to learn to communicate the NT way. Eventually, I learned to pass well enough to get a girlfriend in the "normal" way, to get friends in the "normal" way, to get a job in the "normal" way, etc. That took years and even then I never was very good at it, I suppose I was at a "tolerably quirky" level. It was the first time of my life where I could be expected to be out on evenings/weekend.

But in the end I wasn't happy because I had to deny every instinct I had and keep myself from doing most of what I wanted to do in order to fit in. There were days where I desperately wanted to be alone but couldn't, many others where I'd talk about nothing that interests me all evening while my inner self was screaming to talk about, say, the phonetic evolution of French from Vulgar Latin, but through trial and error I learned that very few people want to talk about that subject at all, so I restrained myself.

In the show "Black Mirror" there is an episode about a world where everyone is connected through some social media analogue and your rating (which is given to you by other users - kind of like reviews of you and the content you post on that social media) affects everything in your life, the jobs you can get, the loans you can have, down to what kind of car you can rent. The main character has to hitchhike at one point and gets picked up by a woman with a phenomenally low social rating. She tells her that she used to have a very high rating and that it dropped dramatically once she started to speak her mind and act the way she felt like acting at any given moment once her husband had died of cancer. Now she was alone, driving an old beat-up truck, everybody treating her with suspicion because obviously a person with such a low rating is some kind of child molesting freak. But no, she was just a normal person who was who she was. That episode marked me because it is such a spot-on analogy for the society we live in.

Your value might not be as conveniently assessed IRL as a 5-star rating as it is in the episode but as I wrote above, every interaction is a transaction. As long as you keep making people feel good/as long as you provide value to them, they'll stick around and they'll be buddy-buddy. If you stop activating the serotonin and oxytocin taps in their brains for too long, aside from truly exceptional people, they will be out so fast you'll swear you were (now ex-)buddies with Usain Bolt. This is the result of a society where not only nothing is sacred, but everything is expected as fast as possible and in ever larger amounts.

The first thing that happened to me is that I lost my job. I tried to find another one, but had difficulties. In the interim, the girlfriend was the first to go as "we weren't spending time together anymore". Obviously that affected me, but I thought I had a good support network. I think I was pretty reasonable in the amount of emotional support I asked from my friends. It was certainly less than I gave many of them. That lasted a while, but I wasn't any fun, so the new friends I had made started dropping like flies, one by one. While the life I thought I had built disintegrated around me I started to give less and less of a crap about appearances and more and more of my real self shone through. The more it did, the faster they wanted out.

I'd like to point out that my "real self" wasn't much different. I'm using that term for lack of a better one. I just discarded everything I thought I learned about NTs and started listening to my inner nature. Basically, I just started to speak my mind and doing what I wanted to do, like that lady in that "Black Mirror" episode. I always hated the phrase "be yourself" but it does work to an extent, as long as you accept what being yourself brings you.

It felt pretty bad for a while. I dropped out of graduate school (I was working and studying) and moved back in with my parents (I was living alone). I'm still recovering from the whole ordeal, and it has definitely scarred me. But if there's one thing I learned, it's that denying my nature will never make me happy. Only accepting myself and living according to my needs will allow me to be at peace with my life. We are conditioned from birth to draw validation from others. Even when you learn skills, it's usually to show them off and to be a benefit for someone other than yourself. I think the closest we can get to self-acceptance is constant self-improvement, learning things because that's what we want to do and learn, everyone else be damned.

There was a period where I hated NTs. Having lived as close to "normalcy" as I could get and then having lost it all in not even half a year, I had some idea of how society functioned and I thought it abhorrent. Obviously they disagree. Recently I've had my hatred morph into a "forgive them for they know not what they do" kind of deal (how liberating that is!) I think that for many of us, there is no real place in the society NTs built, except perhaps as a worker drone if you're lucky enough to live in a country that offers some support to people like us. I know that there is none for me, nor would I want one because the asking price is too high. It's a society where nothing is sacred and everything has a value and is bartered, even friendship, or marriage, or feelings. You're only ever as good as what you bring to somebody else.

It's true, they don't care about us, but really, they can't. As much as we get crapped on for having little empathy and projecting our needs and wants onto others, they do live in such a different world that they simply can't relate to us. It's really easy to resent their treatment of us, of course, but it's just the way it is. Thus "forgive them for they know not what they do".

What helped (and helps) me cope is to plan to carve myself a little niche besides their big mansion. I want to work just long enough to afford a small house and a small parcel of land in a very rural area, then try and fish/hunt/grow my food, live off the grid with solar panels for electricity, collect and recycle my own water, etc. I'm lucky in that I have a college degree in a skilled subject and with some aforementioned worker drone support, will probably be able to land a typical white collar job with accommodations due to my syndrome. Rural land is cheap so I might not have to wait that long. I'm on disability while waiting to be eligible for that support, but I'm saving a part of my cheque towards that goal.

Also, if you feel the sting of being a social pariah, seriously, get a dog. A dog is as close to unconditional love as anyone can get, and they're more worthwhile to know than most humans. Certain species of parrots are pretty up there too. Religion of the "personal relationship with higher power" variety probably helps if you're into that, personally I want to try but I don't know whether I'll be able to make it work for me.

Good luck on your path, whichever you take.

what you just described is a reality now in china. they just started using that kind of social rating to determine your status in their society, almost to the letter.

that's some interesting advice, thanks.
i've tried simply going down the 'idgaf' route, but i still end up with my anxiety attacks as a fight or flight response when people are nearby.
maybe meditation could be a good tool to help get to that state though.

i understand that point of view, but there's also another thing in that i'd want the mate to be attracted to me.
not only would the act itself likely be more enjoyable, but i'm sure you realize that we have a want for validation that isn't achieved simply through the act but in being wanted.
as per the rest of your post, i can say that i did read it all and that says something because i don't usually read really long posts.

i'm actually interested in checking out that show you mentioned now.. i don't see how one could be more of a typical loser than me (other than by being ugly i guess), so i'd probably be at the very bottom rung of the social rankings. it's a scary idea, the thought of not being able to hide that haha. i've considered similar ideas myself actually.

the thing about being an outcast isn't really about the emotional pain of being different or even lonely, but rather the fact that it just irks me that i'm disabled in this respect and don't even have an option, that they think i'm less than them.
i have been isolated for a very long time so at least now a lot of it could be considered 'self-imposed', but i was picked on a lot in school and never really had more than 1 friend (not that i felt much of a desire to have friends anyway).
another thing is the lack of opportunities that comes with being a loner.. that's gotta be the worst aspect i think.

anyways thanks a lot for the great post, and i hope you find some success in your life too. it sounds like you definitely deserve it.

Wow, I totally relate to this title.
I've spent 7 years in a row failing my math class, and the only help I've gotten were some notes from teachers to parents urging me to work my ass off just that tiny bit further. Yea, I spent a decade blaming myself then I sat there and realized...wait, if this was really my fault wouldn't I have given up by now? Nah, I'm just being forced and raped through the whole damn system like it's not my business (cause it's really not, I'm just helping the corporates at the top profit). I really hate everything and sometimes I want to die, then I realize I'm too important for that and it's these idiots who run our society who need to kill themselves. HONESTLY! I hate this crap and I'm so fed up with it. Back to what you said, WE don't have to deal with this sht. My plan right after I finish this damned "education", heh, more like social club, is to get the hell out of this area and into some forest where I can be alone and find my true uncorrupted nature that hasn't been ruined by constant force my entire life.

i have a bad habit of that tbh. while i'm right sometimes, it's mostly biology's fault (since i don't see the point in blaming myself either, i can't control inherently who i am - then again 'i' am my biology when you think about it).
i can't expect everyone in society to coddle me and go out of their way to fix my life or make me feel accepted.