Looking for a friend

Post Reply New Topic

Hi,

So I'm a 25 yo male, a few weeks ago I was officially diagnosed by a doctor of psychology specializing in autism spectrum disorders, I am now meeting weekly to try and gain enough social skills to hopefully reduce my chronic loneliness and sense of total isolation from the rest of society that is one of the main triggers for my severe treatment resistant depression and chronic suicidal ideations

I've tried about 14 different medications, inpatient and outpatient therapy including CBT, DBT, and ACT. I also underwent 40 or so electroconvulsive therapy sessions both right unilateral and bilateral all with no response and many side effects from 60lbs of weight gained to amnesia for 2-3 years of my life.

Anyway enough with that as I doubt anyone would care let alone understand.

Right now I have no friends, I talk to my mom dad and identical twin brother (not an aspie) but our relationships are very unbalanced with me calling them about 4 times as much as they call me. The relationships are very unfulfilling as I never understand them or they me. That has been the pattern for any relationship on any level I've ever had.

Earlier this week in therapy my psychiatrist casually asked if I had ever met another aspergers patient in person as I might relate better to people with more similar brain patterns. I have no idea how to find an aspie in person and would be far to terrified to meet them anyway so I figured I'd try here.

I am a doctor of pharmacy as that is one of my special interests the other is astronomy/astrophysics/space exploration. Space is a somewhat stronger interest but I choose a career in pharmacy for the more promising job prospects and more stable income potential, it just seemed the logical decision.

Anyway if you would like to talk and see if we could get along or understand each other please message me

Also I really dislike it when people say meaningless social niceties with no evidence they really mean it so unless you actually want to have a discussion I would rather not get a bunch of 'glad your here' posts that express nothing more then the fact that the writer feels the need to follow pointless social conventions


Edit: 3/26/14 0647

Apparently I have not made my intentions clear, I certainly are not looking for a one way conversation about my special interests in place of a real relationship, I have tried that before and found it to quickly push people away from me. I don't want to restrict conversation to just my interests or what I want to talk about. Really I don't care that much about what the discussion is about, all I really want is to feel like someone understands what I mean when I say something and someone I feel I can understand, or if I don't can provide some explanation for their beliefs or thoughts outside of the oh to common excuse of 'I don't know, I just do' which I hear very often when trying to understand all my existing relationships (mom, dad, and twin)

I probably am not very clear about what I want out of a relationship but I really don't know what I want. All I know is that I have never had a relationship of any kind that felt even remotely fulfilling. I can't describe what type of a healthy mutual relationship I want as I've never had one and don't know what it would entail. I promise I will do my very best to be open to a new relationship to try and make it mutually satisfying and not like my existing relationships which seem to be quite taxing on my family members.

Anyway, that's really what I want, if its even possible, I really don't know if it is or if I am just to different from even other aspies for it to be possible.

thank you for reading

There is nothing to be terrified about. I am going to shoot you some pointless meaningless garble your way anyways. All of our social skills pritty much suck. Apparently you want to talk about special interests and call it a social skill. If that is what you want to do, and you want to work on your social skills, and perhaps meet new friends that are possibly autistic, or even not, then maybe you could try to join a special interest group or something. Just a suggestion. I know you have heard this before, but you need to get out more . This is something we are all good at... A one sided conversation. If you want to talk about the moon or whatever, I'm all ears. I dont know much about it though, except for the fact that it is a large round piece of dirt, the sun shines on it, and it revolves around me (just like the sun). I'm a mechanic, I fix cars. Forgive me if I sound like you, but if you want to talk about drag coefficient on a race car, or the head gasket I just fixed, we can have a wonderful conversation. That is my social skill. Have a great day.

The next new frontier is in your head, not beyond the ozone layer.

This is an interesting place. Mostly, you can get away with just being yourself. I don't think I'm the friend you are looking for, but you can likely find people who think like you do and have similar interests.

This thread might interest you, it's advice to new members. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx254758-0-0.html

And most people posting pretty much mean what we say, even if we include social conventions. They are to make our and other people's lives better, because generally people expect that and get angry when we fail to observe them. And then we get lonelier. You aren't under pressure here to do that yourself, just to make an effort not to provoke others into distress is nice. And most people here most of the time will make an effort not to provoke you into agitation as well.

I hope coming here gives y something, you've been through a lot.

Welcome to WP.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hello,

I am new as well but have browsed the site before. I am also looking for new friends or maybe a more fulfilling relationship that can be had with NTs. A few of my family members are on the spectrum, but I barely talk with one of them due to distance issues, it is hard to actually talk with my father as he does not seem to be mentally present but at least we can have interesting conversations about special interests, the other is my son (long story as to why I have one and do not want children) and I cannot really play the friend role as much with him as a parent. With regards to your therapist's advice, it may not be a bad idea, but as you feel completely isolated from NTs you might also feel isolated from aspies as they can vary an even greater bit. The thing that most seem to share is a sense of isolation and not belonging. Granted you may be lucky and find one that you feel less isolated.

I have also had issues with anxiety, depression, suicide, chronic isolation, and some form of PTSD, often feel odd talking to my family about emotional things. I am just starting to address these issues following a nearly fatal crash that destroyed everything I obtained by acting normal and ignore that I have these problems. So you probably know more about what works than I do. I found your tread trying to see if DBT actually worked with aspies, but I gather it is a bit too new to tell and as with most therapies it depends if it is applied based on the individual patient or based on the average patient. I gather that these would not work if it was applied based on the average patient for people that are far from average (like most aspies) but would work well if applied and modified to individual patients.

I am a student/researcher in neuroscience who eventually hopes to become a doctor in it, amongst other things. I also have interests in the varied subjects of astronomy and physics but never dared study in it as I do not think my brain is good enough at dealing with complex mathematical problems. Then again I did come up with an explanation for a physics phenomenon and later verified that I was right with a physics professor (but someone thought of it before me). So I guess I had some potential there as well.

With regards to people messaging you or just saying hi. I know it is banal social convention but some of us may not really know what else to do but still want to say hi and start some sort of conversation. I personally find it difficult to start a conversation with anyone as I am not sure what to say or do and am afraid how much I can say. I feel a bit more free on the internet as it is, for the most part, anonymous. So if I make myself out to be a fool I can always try again *awkward smile*. Perhaps to start a relationship it seems most normal to talk about special interest as a topic but eventually go into a more emotionally fulfilling relationship, but this takes time and patience. I guess the way I started a relationship with the only other aspie (not sure if this individual was aspie or not due to lack of diagnosis) I ever started a relationship with was you guessed it, special interest. Then gave it time and we talked about several other things that are more deep and personal. Unfortunately that relationship did not work out very well in the end due to personality factors and mental health issues on both sides. I decided to change to alleviate these issues this person decided not to even take responsibility.

Most of what I wrote is just my opinion and I am not saying I am right but I thought of saying hi to you anyways since we are looking for the same thing (a friend). I do not really know how else to start a conversation and since it is with an aspie will not bother with the typical NT manners of starting a conversation and will let the awkwardness drive me .

You mentioned PM so here is to both PM and thread I guess.