Who do you turn to for help?

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Family, friends, partner, social services?

I ask because I'm estranged from all family and relatives and have no friends or partner. I think what's most painful is to always feel that I'm the only person in the world in these circumstances.

I strongly relate to you, because I'm also estranged from family members many many years now. I currently do not have a partner in life and although I have in the past, I'm now resigned to there being nobody else now going forward.

On one hand I'm okay with that, because I don't want to be hurt anymore. On the other hand, I TOTALLY get what you mean about having nobody to turn to for help. Ever, with anything, big or small.

I also don't have what I would call close friends nearby. I have one person who lives where I used to live, and I keep in touch by email, but it's not the same as being able to have her in the neighborhood. However, she's the closest person I can call a good enough friend that I can vent about issues to her.

Other than that, more locally I have acquaintances, but the level of friendship there is not enough to go deep and turn to them for help either practical or just emotional support about something.

It's a lonely life but I consider it a kind of price I pay to not get hurt either. When I get super close emotionally to people they just wind up hurting me so, I'd rather be alone and just have to get by by myself. There are times, in a crisis, when that feels truly lonely though. I had to go to the emergency room recently, and others were there with a loved one. I had nobody to help me there or to speak up for me when I was slightly losing it and couldn't advocate properly for myself. It was a bit of a disaster, and if I'd had a good friend or spouse there to explain things on my behalf, things would have gone better. Now I'm in Elaine's situation on Seinfeld.....lol.

I'm estranged from my parents and talk to my brothers 2-3 times a year. I have a couple of friends whom I talk with on the phone fairly regularly, but almost never see. Bottom line: I'm pretty much by myself too. I've needed help around the house a few times and I'm fortunate to have a nice landlord and wonderful neighbors who pitched in at these times. I see a therapist 3-4 times a year, which helps for emotional issues. If I have a social question, I either ask my phone friends or I go to boards.

I talk to friends I know in real life and sometimes to some I know online only. It depends on what the problem is. I've called our local crisis line before when I needed to talk to someone, but unfortunately they don't give advice or anything really helpful. They just listen and tell you they understand and you should talk to whoever it is you don't have a problem with and even though you aren't considering suicide and you tell them that from the get go, they always act like you have a gun to your head with that gentle night time NPR announcer voice they use. They aren't helpful at all with a real problem you want a solution for, but they are helpful if you just want to vent.

One thing you can do is make an appointment and talk to a clergyman. They will talk to you about problems if you are religious or not and if you dont go to church or are athiest or whatever. Well the moderates do, the fundamentalist Christians don't. Oh, they will talk to you allright, about how Jesus can solve your problems and you brought them on yourself for not believing, so don't bother with them. Episcopals are good, Catholic priests are great if they are Jesuits and not dioscian priests or an order besides Jesuit. Rabbi's are wonderful, but usually very busy so make an appointment for a certain period of time. Offer to make a donation to the church or temple for any counseling you get. Do that as soon as you get there. Something like "I don't come here and I'm not a believer, but I'd like to talk to someone about my problems. I know you don't require it but I want to make a small donation to the church because you took the time to do this for me. Consider it my gift to you for you giving your gift of time to me. It's not payment, I really want to". They are all much less pressed for time and much less likely to try and sell you on religion if you do that.

A therapist may help. We have a local "Mental Health Agency" that is through a private organization but takes medicaid and sliding scale payments. The RN gives out heavy meds to some folks who have to come there every day to get them, they do therapy for folks on drugs (even kids who got caught smoking weed, which is stupid to have to do) and they have group sessions, anger management and all court ordered stuff. They also have a social worker who is their therapist there who sees people in her office. For $25 you can go talk to her anytime and she's good, she cares. She really does care and if you don't have the $25 or a ride to get there you can call her and she will talk to you on the phone free for 20 minutes which is about all you get for $25 there anyway unless you are seriously upset.

I'd go for the clergy if I were you. Give them ten bucks or something if they didn't help much. Give the money before you leave. Mention it when you arrive. Pay them based on how well they helped, after all it's a gift and the guy is already getting a salary for his job, which is this. If you don't like one guy, go to a different one.

Call religious organizations and see if they have counseling available.

Also, try and meet people and make at least one friend who you like and are comfortable with. Do volunteer work if you can, just something to meet somebody. If she listens to your problems though, you will have to listen to hers so be prepared. I have a friend who listens to me when she can (boyfriend issues of hers, he's possessive so she doesn't have a lot of time) but I end up listening to way more of her problems and solving them for her too. She never solves mine, she just gives me support. She sucks at solving problems, but I love her anyway.

So, try that. Let me know how it turns out. Where do you live?

Thank you all for sharing, it really helps me to know I'm not the only one. Thank God for the internet. I wouldn't have been able to survive this long without it.

I think what I really miss is having someone who is invested in the outcome when helping - a spouse, parent, sibling or very close friend.

I'm in Tel Aviv. Which means I stay away from rabbis, and priests stay away from me. It's all politics.

| wish we had a forum for practical advice, to help each other, now that I know I'm not the only one... Maybe I could start it as a thread...

Oh my, I strongly, strongly relate to this sentence:

Invested. There's the kicker! This is a thought and desire and sadness I've specifically had over all these long years of living without a family or truly, truly close friends. It's that thing, that investment, where not only is someone thinking "Oh dear, hope things work out for ya!" But rather that they love you so much that what's a problem for you is a problem for them and they are indeed emotionally invested in wanting you to be okay.

That is the thing I miss the MOST.

When I see someone with that look on their face like if they're loved one in the hospital bed doesn't pull through or keep the leg or even just get over the flu, they too will just die. Whenever I happen to be channel surfing and I catch one of those documentaries about a day in the ER, I find myself morbidly fascinated with the way the family members and spouses behave. I haven't seen that look on a person's face regarding me for decades now. It's like listening to a foreign language I no longer know.

A forum for practical advice is a great idea! You should contact Alex.

It could be quite literally for DIY stuff like anything from "how do I check the oil levels in my car?" to "how to go about finding a lawyer/plumber/ fix a hole in the wall/paint my own apartment" etc.

When I first lived alone for the first time, I had to start finding out stuff like that and I muddled through, but it would be great to have a pool of help in a place like here.

BirdInFlight, yes, that's what I mean, exactly! Advice from someone who cares but is not invested in the outcome is often, however caring and well-meaning, too theoretical, idealistic or quitter-like to work, it's often NOT what they would do in your situation. In your situation, they're likely to apply more effective, less orthodox-sounding solutions. It takes someone who NEEDS for you to succeed, to risk giving advice that may not sound nice to all ears but works. Especially in my case, when I often need advice of the "be cleverer and less naive" kind. That's the kind of advice I miss from having family and close friends.

Thank God for the internet and for Americans, so many of whom have been alone for several generations already, so they have lots and lots of practical help on the internet to substitute for a functional family or close friendship. And thank God that I know English and can surf their websites!

I'm still unsure how to focus the topic of the thread for practical advice. I'd like it to be specifically for the kind of advice you and I can't find anywhere else... But who knows, we may be able to create a really good tool for aspies there, such as I believe I did when I created the "First Time in History" thread that has been a sticky for so many years now... It has helped me and many others a lot, and there was nothing like that on the web at the time (don't know about nowadays).

Are you on Facebook Moondust?

Yes, but with zero friends.

I talk to my partner mostly. I / we also get a bit of help from a counsellor we visit to discuss my partner's autistic daughter - obviously we don't want to hijack the remit there, so we keep it to a minimum, but the counsellor seems to feel (correctly, I think) that an understanding of our dynamics is an important part of helping with my partner's daughter.

My 32-year-old son and I sometimes share our problems too.

I've also found WP a helpful community - I rarely start a thread to specifically ask for help (though it has been known) - much more often I post in existing threads and find out a lot about myself that way, my answers to thread questions are often rather new to me, and they clarify my thinking and greatly help me to understand myself.

I used to feel more of a need to pour out my heart to somebody. I saw myself as fundamentally broken and I felt that some great wizard / friend / mother figure out there might be able to fix me. But I came to think that I never really was particularly messed up, and these days I more see myself as generally OK, just that a bit of advice or emotional sharing sometimes helps me clear the occasional block. In practice I've always behaved rather stoically and have found it difficult to share my feelings and ask for help. It's much the same way with purely practical matters - I like to find out for myself, whether it's about coping with an emotional problem, honing my interpersonal skills, or just choosing an mp3 player. I get a lot from hearing about other people's experiences in matters that I've also experienced, and that gives me food for introspection, which I do a lot of.

Perhaps paradoxically, I also get a lot out of helping other people. There was a sad point in my life some years ago when I felt that there really wasn't anybody who could help me, and for some reason I concluded that the only thing for it was to try to treat others in the way I'd like to be treated myself - if nothing else, I thought it might teach me whether or not I was expecting the impossible. I've found that it seems to strengthen my self-esteem, which is otherwise at the mercy of immense feelings of guilt.

PM me. I'll add you. I'm not on that often, but I'll still add you. I also just went through and deleted about 100 friends on there. People who I don't really know or talk to that much but have added over the years because we both posted on a thread together, etc. I'm bad about adding people just to add them. Most people do that though, people with 600 friends don't usually talk to everybody on their list or even know who they are.

Also, Google "7CupsOfTea" I don't know if it's a .org or .com, but it's a support thing.

I come here.