I introduced myself a while ago but like I said, that was then and I'm a somewhat different person now. So I'll reintroduce myself!
This is going to be a bit long.
When I was a kid, my sister(1.5 years younger) was always pretty popular she had lots of friends etc, I was always unpopular and bullied. Around 2nd grade even my friends began to make fun of me, my sister turning her friends on me in some cases. When we reached 6th grade was the height of the urban, hip-hop sort of culture, my sister fell right in and made many friends. At this point we transferred to public school, till that point I'd always been in private school.
I did not fit, I dressed different I was shy anxious and weird. Kids being kids picked up on it and I was bullied relentlessly. My attendance dropped off low in 6th grade but the school system gave me the benefit of the doubt and tried minor intervention. By my return in 7th grade the social isolation was almost all encompassing outside of a few friends I had outside of school. These two friends introduced me to MTG. From there I had a card store to go too, and really it was my world for the next 3 or 4 years.
I went to the store every day, almost literally, met my two best friends who I maintain to this day and I thank fate till this day my disposition towards fantasy worlds saved me for once. My attendance in school and the bullying got worse, I flunked twice.. and was in a lot of trouble, they kept sending me to doctors who wanted to either commit or medicate me heavily. I was a wreck at this point in my life.
Well on my 3rd run through of 7th grade I was totally out, weird and older than all the kids? I had no chance you know? They made me take a grade eight proficiency test and skipped me to highschool rather than flunk me again based on the results, so saved myself two years!
We moved south, till this point I lived in the north section of NJ very inner city, now I lived the south end of NJ very.. well rural by comparison. Nowhere was reachable by foot, and really it's still that way. I had no friends what-so-ever and eventually began attending alternative school for what they called, "defiant" and "passive aggressive" behavior.
I made a friend who would eventually sell me out there there, because of my refusal to smoke pot, I'm serious. I dropped out my senior year only returning to night school at 22. I got my highschool diploma at nightschool before my 23rd birthday and that's fine and well. In the time period of 16 to 22 I had many failed relationships the longest of which lasted about 2 weeks, only because she didn't see me for about 9 of those days.
At 17 I became addicted to Final Fantasy 11 an online MMO which sucked up most of my life, at 18 it took almost ALL of my time as I was in TOTAL social isolation. I played 12 hours a day till 22 when I dropped it, cold turkey. I'm glad it kept me alive but it also kept me avoidant. That's not good.
When I turned 25 Final Fantasy 14 came out, the new MMO and I was much more conservative and easy going now. I still played a bit too much but I accept that this is who I am, I'm a gamer at heart. I love the PC and the internet, plus with voice chat my entire circle of current friends plays the game. I talk to them via Teamspeak almost daily, so it's not just an impersonal thing like the previous one was.
Diagnosed autistic at 28 after years of struggling and seeing doctors finally one is willing to slap a label that isn't "opositional" or "lazy." Not to say I like referring to it as a label, but it helps me get through the days sometimes. I'm currently filing for disability benefits and waiting, over a year now.
I met a girl on the game, she lived far but traveled for me, oh did I mention I'm too scared to drive? I mean she really traveled, 6 hours each way! We lasted about a year and I think the only reason that was is because we saw each other on the game Final fantasy 14 daily and were only near one another one weekend a month or so. She was an angel about it, she dumped me before my 30th birthday.
Now I've got very little going for me, I work a few days a week because it's all I can take, can't even get in a car, no social life and I'm feeling hopeless helpless and alone but I'm trying not to lose...
Hello my name is Rob, this is my glossed over summarized life story. Advice please, did you deal with anything similar? Any ideas on exercises I could do or steps? PM me reply here whatever you're comfortable with. Or just say hello!
06 Oct 2015, 6:13 pm
In regards to the exercise, are you willing to walk outside/in your neighborhood? Maybe you can try walking about 15 minutes/day and increase the duration when you want to. I like to walk at night because it's cooler, there's less people around, and it's fun to look up at the night sky. If you prefer to stay indoors, then there are exercise videos on youtube that you could try out. Hope that helps.
