My Life really never started......

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...I remember right after high school moving away to college and feeling optimistic about about my life, my future social circle, what could happen at college. I never really thought about high school though after I left it. I just blocked so much of it out of my mind it was almost as if it barely existed. It just feels strange thinking about it now, because now I have a much better picture of how depressed I was in HS from not having any friends.

Ultimately I was a ghost in HS. I was avoidant and I didn't have any friends. The concept of how to make friends just wasn't something that was ingrained in me. Either because I just wasn't, or because maybe I had gotten burned really early on in life and that got me started on the wrong foot socially starting in elementary school.

When I left HS, I didn't see any of that, I just felt like it was everybody else, and not me. I think I knew deep down though that it was me, and I really knew it. I just didn't have the drive to better myself. I didn't have that struggle when I was in HS.

My struggle in HS was that I was lonely and I didn't have girlfriend, and I was an emotional guy. BUT I never ever let this show. I always tried to conceal this. As a result of blocking all of this, I never learned how to just be myself and make personal connections with other people. I just blocked myself off from everybody. I NEVER ever wanted to be "Emo" or have anything to do with people like that. I despised emo people. It just didn't seem like a "manly" thing to do.

I just missed out on high school. I missed everything. Not that there weren't opportunities along the way, but I failed to see them. I failed to have the teenage drive. That rebellious nature.

College was a waste as well. I moved away for college, but I just had no experience with people. I really failed in every possible way that I could have failed. I failed with girls completely, but it wasn't like I was rejected that many times. Comparing me with any other college student, I never really "tried". I let movies and television influence me on how life was supposed to be and what college was like. But as far as being "present" enough to make connections with people, I wasnt there.

Basically college was a complete waste. High school was a complete waste. My whole life up to maybe a year ago has all just been a waste. My life hasn't started yet. If anybody knows what I mean, I have too many lonely memories, too many times of being by myself, that something is missing inside me.

Maybe I am finally starting to mature emotionally? I really don't know. I just can't explain. If people on the spectrum are supposed to be 6-8 years behind, I was def. pushing the 8+ years.

But its just this strange feeling. My life really hasn't started yet. As bad as my high school and my college experiences were, I feel like they don't define me. Its almost as if there isn't anything that defines me. Whatever I need to create to define myself to have a social life, I have yet to do that. I never found my stride.

If you think about a guy or a girl that moves away for college, the experiences that go with it shape them into who they are. Maybe I have just smoked too much MJ, or drank too much.

Good luck! I feel a good twenty years late, but I am finding some happiness.

I can totally relate to this. There's always hope though. And on the bright side, you won't spend the rest of your life talking about college being' the best days of your life' (how depressing is that?)

Wow................I feel like i am reading my own diary,i can relate,well except for the MJ sadly i dont have any good advice,given that things aint got better for me but worse but thats a story for another time ,i hope things get better for you.

Aspies mature at a slower rate than NT's, so you totally can still be a kid at 25. I know that HS didn't define me, and looking back on how stressed and crazy I was in HS and how I wanted to grab a gun and blow everybody away (this was before school shootings became a regular fact of life) and how 20 years later I have no idea what happened to my bullies, where they are, what they're doing, and even better I don't care and they likely don't even remember me, it all seems so silly to hear NT's going on about HS nostalgia. Let's face it, HS sucks. After I graduated HS I deliberately did things that forced me to step out of my comfort zone, and I'm a better person today for it. If you find yourself in a rut, identify what's holding you back, then deliberately break that mold.

I'm still a kid at 35... but that probably doesn't help. Just saying it's okay, really. Btw I'm still finishing my bachelor's in BioChem that I started in 1996. Hope to return part time next fall.

I just wanted to add;
I am 25 now, and I feel like my emotional development has literally just caught up with all the harsh experiences I have endured. It has made me hardened, in a good way.

I can do more normal social facial expressions and so on. I am much less trusting (though I still find confrontation almost overwhelmingly impossible due to the Aspie thing of feeling other people's emotions as your own. It's therefore hard to countenance)

I don't pretend there is no work still to be done. But I am relieved to feel older and emotionally more mature.

When I was 20 I was ridiculously immature. My problems with theory of mind have been enormous, dreadful, dangerous; they're better now. But I still have to be careful.

I've noticed that whilst I notice non-verbal signals, for example, I second guess them. I don't register them quickly enough. I am trying to learn to improve on this.

'Cos if some creepy weirdo I have to engage with formally repeatedly looks at my tits (this happened recently), it's safe to assume he's being predatory rather than just noticing it but basically it registering as null in my mind.

Go easy on yourself.
Learn to accept the harsh ways of the world, build on what you have learnt and keep working hard to mature and improve your sense of self.
Don't give up

We develop slower, but we can get there eventually. Having a diagnosis is a plus from this point of view. Those without won't even recognise their own developmental delays necessarily
You're young enough to catch up, with the right knowledge.
I have known blatant-but-undiagnosed Aspies in their 40s/50s who were SO immature, and so unaware of their behaviour.

Diagnosis is definitely a plus

Sweet Pea hugs

Maybe you can make a list of things you enjoy doing and do those things on your list, to make your life more enriched. It might get your mind off of the loneliness that you're feeling.

Not to say I haven't also suffered the consequences of mistreatment and not being diagnosed. I have, amply; but I am glad it got figured out before it was completely too late