Help needed to improve social phobea

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I know its my fault that I am an aspie. But I want to improve my social condition.

I am 21. Till now have passed a normal aspie life (i.e- introvert, unsocial, bullied by others....). But now I am feeling extreme mental pressure. Why cant I enjoy in a party? Why cant I face any new social situation? Why cant I make a good friend?

Until now I have tried my best to become habituated with these.But why should I? Why should I feel jealous and helpless when I see my classmates making frindship with new girls everday or enjoying in group gossip when I am trying to forget all these reading books or watching movies alone?

Why I am lonely?

Can anyone plz suggest anything to improve the condition....

We were not meant to be socially adjusted to the point NTs are, & we never will be. That's just the reality every aspie needs to grasp some day. I'll chill alone at a bar watching some big sports event on TV, see a group of people sitting at a table just chatting & laughing with no particular purpose, & realize I'll never be one of those people.

This does not mean we can't stake at least some claim in the social world? No way. Try to join in some activities that involve other people. I'm into a lot of sports & strategy gaming. When I'm immersed in these interests, I find myself to be comfortable & social with others doing the same thing. Of course, I'm not social enough to truly make these people my friends outside of the activities. However, just keeping a healthy drive to get out & do things that happen to involve other people goes a long way in feeling part of this world.

At parties, I find playing a game takes off a lot of social pressure.

For me, I crave structure, and I meet people better in an structured environment. If we're all sitting around chatting and I don't know anybody, then I've got a problem because I can't mentally sync up with anyone. I don't know how to go beyond "Hi," "How are you" and "So what do you do?"

That's why I'm joining an improv workshop next month. I can relate to people better when we've all got our thinking caps on and we're all working towards common goals. To me, it's a great ice-breaker. The same thing happens whenever I play board games with people or assist with some community volunteer work. I think this applies to anyone - if you want to meet people, do it on your own terms. If you have to go to parties, do whatever your thing is at the party, and don't get frustrated just because no one else is doing it. With luck, you might eventually meet people in the same position as you.

It is unclear to me whether your main issue is social phobia/anxiety or social skills.

If social phobia or social anxiety is an issue, you may need to focus first on dealing with the anxiety. No matter your social skills, it's tough to make a good first impression if you are sweating, your heart is palpatating, your mind is racing and your every instinct tells you to leave. Medication may be helpful for anxiety. For me, once I recognized the anxiety I was able to take steps to eventually overcome most of it. Now it is just the social skills and an urge to avoid social situations that I must deal with.

If social skills is an issue, then I agree with the other posts about finding a social structure in which you can fit. I would look for structured events/meetings that minimize the social pressures on an aspie to fit in but provide regular contact with other people that is focused on a particular topic. For example, a local shoe shop has regular classes for people who are interested in learning to run or walk for fitness. You just show up at a scheduled time and run in a group with others who are of similar fitness level and then go home. It is structured, the focus is on running and fitness, and there is very little social pressure while people are running and gasping for air. Full dislaimer: I like to run, but have never had the nerve to join one of their group runs (sigh).

I don't know if I'm much help, as honestly, though anxiety kills me the whole time, I've not had a single problem making friends since I've got into high school, but what I did pretty much worked. Go a few days kinda observing people(not in an obvious way), see a group of people with similar interests as you, grit your teeth and dive in. Pretty much I just forced myself to walk up to some people and say what's up. I'm not trying to brag or sound cocky, but since doing that I'm honestly one of the most known and I'd like to think well liked kids at my school, though the majority of people don't know I have AS. I still get super anxious when I'm talking to a group of people, but I always go with the mind over matter approach and it seems to work for me. I don't know if it will for you, but it never hurts to try.

One, it's not your fault that you are an aspie. If you must blame someone blame God.
By social phobia do you mean social anxiety?
Someone with social anxiety cannot simply go up to people and ask 'how's it going'.
You might need the help of therapy or medication.
I just got therapy and learned ways to overcome my social anxiety.

Not all aspies are alone, they can make some friends. At first I'm a bit apprehensive when it comes to talking to strangers, but sometimes I can speak to them and become good friends over time. I think meeting people online helps. Just pick a special interest and join a community message board.

I think practicing is a good way to overcome those fears/anxiety. You have to practice everything, like saying hello for example. I am 30 and it's now that i think i am getting over it. My point is that the more you are in social situations the better, because you will get used to them. Don`t be like me, i feel bad for not having done this before.

Is there any need to enjoy a party: A party is either fun and if there is no fun for you not there is no reason to attend; or obligation an obligation (and in this case I can ensure that no one enjoy it).

Your are 21, and there is some peer pressure to do this or that, but the best way to enjoy live is to learn to ignore peer pressure.



You had to ask yourself, which function this new social situation will have for you? There are only very few you really need to be part off: Those situations are mostly job-related and therefore quite formal. You need to learn some rule - that's it.



More difficult: Good friends will grow with you. You can't "make" them. They accept you in the way you are or there are not your friends.

I am diagnosed social phobia - a literal phobia, one where I tried killing myself from having to deal with social situations. From the sounds of it, you have social anxiety.

Taking responsibility is one thing, but blaming yourself for you AS is ridiculous. That is down to nature. If you don't cut yourself some slack your SP isn't going to get better.


You won't have all of that at once and honestly you will find that you will most likely be satisfied with some social life. If you tried to emulate exactly these people’s lives you will be exhausted and worse off.

You also need to be thinking about what you want to make the first step, not the whole staircase. Or this is my preferred way of describing it:

You have a wall that is your problem. It is very tall you can't climb over it. It is a strong wall with solid foundation you can't push it over. This is accurate so far?

You would assume that you can't destroy this wall? Maybe if you had some explosive to hand. But explosives are basically what the socialites have, you don't have that. What you have is brains. What would be the quickest way to knock a wall down, with minimal tools?

Well it is simple...

You chip away at the joins in between the bricks to loosen them, you can even use things like wedges and water to further weaken these joins. Soon enough you are a removing bricks almost effortlessly. But you don't even have remove every brick from top to bottom. Simply removing a fraction will cause the wall to become unstable and fall under its own weight.

Overcoming SP is similar to that. You can break through! In some areas the wall may slowly rebuild sometimes but as long as you chip a way a little as day thing will improve. It is a persistence thing, not a have everything at once thing.

How many friends would you be satisfied with? You might have no clue that is fine. If you have no clue about friendship best not to come up with preconceptions. You think our problems are bad I've met NTs who can't literally stand to be alone one second, not even half a second. They might go out to see people every night but it is never enough. Me personally I have two good friends and I can honestly say if I never make another friend it would be no great loss. I also only see them about once ever 2 weeks which is just about perfect for me. I never had a reciprocal friend before 23 so you are in the same situation I was at the same time I decided to try to make friends seriously and I was pretty desperate back then.

I found books by Gillian Butler (check Amazon.com) helpful to lean the basics of social phobia treatment. I manly choose her because she didn't make too many assumptions about the individuals reading, was straight forward not obscure, so it was generally applicable. It is only going give to a basic idea of CBT but it is not rocket science. She will mention things that are not relevant, but make clears these are not every case, just some of them.

Also you have to bear in mind that your social phobia is learnt like most peoples, but AS brings another dimension to it. It is more likely that not getting social ques/conventions contributed to bad experiences and bulling, rather just the some other drama that people not on the spectrum. But in a way that is better, because it might be easier to accept and know it definitely was not your fault.

That is semantics. It is basically the same thing. There in no clinical distinction between the two. Like anything it is spectral. What you mean is you have bad social phobia.

Actually what you described isn't enough information. Even with people with extreme social phobia, who are house bound 24 seven, and I have talked to some of them can want to overcome this. In fact in some cases they had a good social life before.

Avoidant Personality Disorder is more about not wanting to seek contact. I certainly have traits of that. I need a lot of time on my own. The social interactions I have are very controlled, and don’t like interference in that. It is fair to say the much social interaction I am not keen on, especially getting to know many people I'd rather not.

I have one really good friend. We might not respect each other at some levels (like he horses around too much) but we get along just fine in the end. However, I have a problem with making friends with his friends. I have extreme anxiety your case too. I get really really really nervous (when I'm nervous I mumble like hell). If anyone would offer help I would really appreciate it too.

When I'm around new people, I get really nervous as well. Even though it doesn't alleviate all my discomfort, if I put on a comfortable front, and don't show my discomfort, I can gradually feel more at ease. I don't know if that's deluding myself into thinking I'm comfortable or if it's just facilitating the progression of my comfort level, but it usually works.
When I focus on how on how uncomfortable/nervous I am, my discomfort just mounts and mounts until I feel on the verge of meltdown. I know I'm not the only one who has experienced this point.
I just try to seem comfortable so that others feel comfortable hanging around me and I can feel more at ease around them.

Also, someone said it earlier: Games help... immensely. There are rules of how to talk and what to talk about and, for me, that's more than half the pressure removed from the interaction. Just know what sort of game it is before you get involved. Sometimes comfort level is there for a reason. -_-''

I don't bother making frinds with their friends, and don't want to. They don't have problem with that.