Desperately Wanting Yet Pushing Away

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I don't really know how to start this, I'm not really asking for advice or opinions but it's a forum so it's open for that but I guess I just wanted to write this in order to get it out and I guess I wanted to put it somewhere that it could be seen. I don't know why. Maybe it'll help someone in a similar situation? Who knows. I just know that I'm sad and I want to cry. It's like people are reaching out to me, trying to help me, not many but a few and I want to reach out and take their hand and go with them but then that means going out there and I'm to afraid. I'll get rejected or hurt in some way. It just terrifies me and yet I don't want to lose them.

So the excuses start, I come up with reason after reason not to participate, not to join in or go with them and all along try to put on that I'm happy and okay when I'm anything but okay. I know what it's like to want something so badly but to never be able to have it, something like that really hurts but to want something so badly and deny yourself of it because of your fears? That's even worse. I feel like I'm just sitting in a room and I'm experiencing this lonely quiet second in time and suddenly time stops and it's just not starting again. I mean things go on, I go through my days but it's like life isn't actually happening anymore, it's like I paused a video game to go watch a movie on the other television since that's about all I do anyway.

I'm sorry this sounds a lot like self pity. I know people hate self pity but is it really so bad to just say it? Is it really such an abomination to talk about being anything other than happy? Because I've been made to feel that way by a lot of people.

I don't know what else to say. I'm talking to someone in instant messages now and they are making me transition from sad to angry from angry to sad and now it's all mixing and I feel just completely confused. Sorry just needed to rant.

I'm pretty much where you're at. I want people around me but don't want the circumstances that being around them would bring with it. I pretty much want things only on my terms. I have tried compromising to see if it would work for me, but even then it never works out, so I went back to being how I always was. The things that most people do socially I see as pointless. I only like doing things that lead to doing something. So, going to a bar is boring, but playing pool is interesting. If someone is working on a car project, I'll offer to help as to me that is a social outlet I feel comfortable in. I like situations I understand and can more or less control. I fear new situations with new people that I do not know well, so I avoid them. This happens even though I do want to be invited to whatever social event it is. I dunno, it's hard to explain. As to what to do, I wish I had an answer for you but I am in a similar boat myself.

I just thought of something else. It seems like you have an oppositional reflex. What I mean is that you want to say yes, but not having the time needed to process the invitation you automatically say no. What you might want to do is practice saying yes. The next time you get an invitation, just say yes and see what happens. This is NOT easy, but it may be the only way you will gain the confidence to become more social in the future. You may fall flat on your face but the reality is that the results of falling on your face socially are the same as not trying. Thus, you might as well say yes and see where it goes. This logic was imparted to me by a friend of mine years ago, and while it didn't end up as well as I would have liked, it did end up letting me gain more experience with people and helped me to learn a few more social skills. Social skills are one of those things that are not innate. Everyone has to learn them, be they an NT or an aspie. It's just harder for an aspie to learn them because they start from -5/10 while an NT probably starts from a 2/10.

Last edited by outofplace on 09 Oct 2012, 12:24 am, edited 2 times in total.

Well, you said you have a couple of people reaching out to you. How you choose to approach that is up to you. But at least people are reaching out to you.

I will make a suggestion, it probably wouldn't hurt to at least hear them out. You can decide then if what they have for you is right for you.

That's exactly how I feel! It's like so long as things are on my terms, like on my grounds then I'm safe and I'm not taking any risks like the risk of rejection. I wouldn't be so much putting myself out there but rather they would be coming to me. It's so much easier that way. It's like if you want to be around me, if you want to be my friend then come and if not then don't but if you go out there and say "I want to be your friend" and basically extend your hand out there's always the possibility of just having it smacked away which I figure wouldn't feel good to anyone. I think your advice is good though I also have to agree that it won't be easy because the fear and the anxiety is so much. I know when I get the invitations I really don't have a lot of time to think about it. I mean I just look at how I've been treated in the past and naturally my reaction is to push away and to deny and to say no and that's just a kind of automatic instant reaction. I guess if I had time to think on it more maybe I could work myself into believing something more positive instead of thinking of the worst possible scenario. Life is risks, I agree and as much as one can hate that it's just a fact that has to be accepted. You can be miserable trying to go out of your way to avoid them as I have done or you can take them and either get a little bruised or come out happy. It's just like I said the fear that paralyzes me, the assumptions that it's always going to be the same every where.

It's just become kind of hard for me to believe in most human beings these days. I mean we all have feelings and yet sometimes we treat each other as if we don't. It's like high school, how kids tease each other yet they should know that the people they tease have feelings just like them. I don't understand it. If one knows what hurt feels like, how can they cause it upon another? I just don't understand as a species why we aren't more united as one. I mean I know we all have our differences but we have just as many similarities, enough to know how to treat each other, it's like we're all human but we treat each other as if not all of us are human beings.



Yeah I agree and I will say I am fortunate that they are reaching out. I don't take that for granted and I do hear them out. And maybe I should listen, I mean maybe they understand the world better than I do? Maybe my thoughts aren't as true as what I think they are? After all they are the ones that have actually been around the people. I just don't want my over sensitivity to cause anything bad to happen as I'm so easily discouraged. If I go in with expectations and feel slighted in the least I just worry of getting upset and that's not really a good first impression.

This goes two ways though. Imagine how the other people feel when you reject their offers of friendship and companionship. Part of autism is the whole theory of mind thing and it's one of the hardest things to come to grips with. You need to try to think how you would feel if you were offering someone a chance to spend time with you and they rejected you and consider that when you reject their offers of friendship. The deficit in this area could explain why you are so alone. I know that it is part of my problem.