Not being able to make friends is frightening me

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My depression fades when I'm around people, but when I'm on my own it comes back thick and fast and starts torturing me. My thoughts start 'bullying' me, like telling me things like "I'm useless", "I'm not worthy of any friends", "I'm really autistic otherwise I'd be able to make at least a few NT friends", "I am stupid", "I was a horrible daughter for my mum and a horrible sister for my brother", "it is my fault my mum is ill" and so on.
When I'm around people those thoughts go away and I can feel happier within myself. But it's not possible to be around people all of the time, especially at work where I'm working alone, with my thoughts taunting me. How can I not listen to these thoughts? It's hard to block them out.

Have you ever tried affirmations? When you catch yourself in that cycle, argue with it, dismiss it and invalidate it by reminding yourself of your inherent value and of your successes, remind yourself you've got friends, you've got a partner, you've got people who care and support you.

Depression might tell you you're silly for having to remind yourself of those things but just remind it, it's also silly to let that side of yourself have control when you've got so much more potential than that.

I can try that. But I don't always think in words or pictures, I think in emotions. So these thoughts seem to come more from the heart than the brain, then I'm already feeling the depression before I can think about it.

Also I cannot accept "Asperger's prevents me from making friends" as an answer, so I think coming to autism forums crying because of unwanted social isolation does not help my depression, because the answers are always "if you're on the spectrum you are unable to read body language, cannot connect with people and they don't like you" sort of thing. I just cannot accept that.
But I was reading in a magazine (a magazine that is aimed at NT women) about loneliness, and autism wasn't mentioned in the article at all. One woman around my age wrote that she has a husband and 3 small children but doesn't has many friends and isn't usually invited out with friends and so often feels lonely, isolated and depressed, even though her life is busy with her family. So knowing there are NTs out there with social anxiety or lack of friends makes me feel a bit better, rather than seeing my whole life through the autism lens. But I think knowing I have an ASD is really doing my mental health in and I feel I can only be cured by talking therapy. But I suppose therapists pull the covid card now and only do appointments over the phone or on video chat, but I prefer to go to a therapy room and talk physically, rather than from home. Plus it's another reason to go out.

I definitely wouldn't suggest it's autism alone, a part of it seems like self-fulfilling prophecy because of how much you've had to deal with feeling excluded. That part might come up in a lot of people who might deal with involuntary solitude - anxiety, fear of rejection, etc drive a lot of the struggle and sets things up to be more likely to not work out well.

I think therapy would help like you say, even potentially finding other groups online who struggle similarly. Even informal groups might help with reinforcing how you're not alone, but also potentially you might find people you click with.

A lot of my social isolation does come from fear of social rejection. I wish I could be like my cousin, who is socially awkward like me but throws herself at people without any fear of rejection at all. I think it's normal for humans to feel some fear of social rejection, but I'm at the extreme end of that fear (I fear too much) where as my cousin is at the other extreme end (she fears very little, if at all). But it seems to win her friends, even though I've often been advised by autism sites not to throw yourself at people because it will just frighten them away.
When my cousin was a child her teacher did actually tell her mum that she may be somewhere on the autism spectrum, but even if she is it still has never obstructed her ability to make friends. I can sense some social awkwardness about her but she's very unaware of it and hardly ever feels depressed or lonely. It's like if she's on her own she doesn't mind, and when she's around people she doesn't mind. I think she just lives her whole life on autopilot and doesn't seem to be held back by any emotions. I wish I was like that.


I think ADHD forums or social anxiety groups might work for me. I do love WP, it does help me in lots of ways, but it does constantly remind me that I have this autism and it doesn't help me feel happy about having autism.

About therapists that use covid as a excuse. Really has caused me grief too. And i find it hard to talk to a monitor and feel like am dealing with a real person. Am not seeing a reason to pay them if i am not seeing them in real life . It just does nt feel good , and i am needing that human feedback .
Otherwise i might aswell just be talking to Alexa or google echo , some other chatbot thing .
No human touch , no human money . i feel. There is a physical difference . athere are too many AI things already and had found many Schools IT dept.s have already been working on human interface formats for over ten years . i stumbled on a few in chatrooms that were sponsored as mental health sites, created by these college IT brats. Had complained to the moderators and suddenly that chatter disappeared from that site . Then as time passed on that same site ran into other versions years later . complained to site mods and those disappeared. but they did get more convincing .Very weird experiences .