WHAT went wrong?

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Hey guys, I have aspergers. Luckily it was diagnosed early on at age 5.

My mother did everyhitng to help me in terms of making friends and social connections. Everything. She made me play structured board games with my brothers, and introduced" playing stuffed animals" to faciliate my imagination and install flexible thinking. When I went to grade school she got a job as a playground supervisor, with helping me in mind.

She helped foster interaction with other kids with me, organized games of kickball and tag i could be included in. Probably thanks to her help I had plenty of little friends in grade school.

Then middle school came and it all fell apart. My group of friends from grade school " kicked me out" and I had a devil of a time finding new ones. I alway had one or two, and though I did swimming, band, many plays, it just didnt work.

It was this way all throughout high school, and only in college has the situation somewhat corrected itself, hearkening back to my grade school days.

I just sometimes get so depressed thinking about it. I have aspergers, that my parents did everything to try and help. It did some good Im certain of that.

But all I have ever wanted was to have my social skills and social inclusion at NT levels. And now that I am 22 that has yet to happen

I have had a similar experience to yours. I had a relatively happy childhood up until middle school and the beginning of high school. Then things went very wrong socially. I realised that I was different, and sought out answers as to why it was so, which has led me to a diagnosis.

I've read that aspies in high school start to realise the impact that their social skills is having in a larger scale. This can cause depression. So I don't think you are alone.

I think my experience can be a testament to how hard ASD can be. Like I said, I was diagnosed young, my mom did everything to help, and it still fell apart at middle school. I had the depression big time in hs as well

Hey there. How much help did you have for counseling growing up outside of your mom helping you? Another thing to remember is that we do have a tough time communicating ourselves to others since we are difficult to read (body language, eye contact, etc.) I don't know what other details you feel comfortable sharing with us, but just recently I learned that it might be a good idea to "fake it" in social settings. By faking it, observe how others behave and talk with others. Act like you are part of the group and have a smile on your face. Be as relaxed as possible, and try and avoid looking tense. High school is done and in the past. Focus on the now and the future.

I had social skill training. And parents who were open to my social questions like " what did this mean?" what did that mean?"

I think my theory of mind wasnt quite up to speed either in middle school. I thouhgt people were mean who weren't thought Id " have a chance" with people who had no interest in me at all, and sometimes seemed silly in an effort to be funny. Sometimes.

I also never really invested in my activities the amount that would get me respect and frienship of those in it. Take swimming. If I worked my ass off in that water, and perhaps was one of the better people on the team, Im sure the guys may have overlooked my shyness/ idiosyncricies, since they would seem petty compared to my swimming talent and nice disposition.

Everyone liked me though. Like I never really annoyd people, and no one thought I was "wierd" at least not many. I just never really clicked. But I have learned as I have gone adn each year ive gotten a bit better

I'm not diagnosed, but my mother did a lot of similar things, interestingly, but in middle school I ran into the same problem. I think the thing is that at that age normal kids socially take off like rockets, and if you don't do the same then you get left behind in kid-ville.

I think the current theories of autism are flawed at best. One idea was that the reason that autistic kids can have social problems is due to spending too much time with their special interest. Or not making enough eye contact. Or because of stimming too much. All those things were seen as distracting away from socializing, so is was thought that a lack of practice led to the problems, so if you gave practice then there would be no social problems.

I think the truth is that none of those reasons is the real cause, but since people don't know what else to do those theories aren't going to be abandoned. And it's probably not bad stuff, it just probably shouldn't be expected with 100% certainty to do what it's supposed to do.

Right. None of those reasons are sufficient. The sufficient reason is aspergers! Though any leg up we get is much appreciated

Sometimes you can do everything right and still fail.

All you can do is get back up and fight on.

Your situation somewhat sounds like yours only my close friend and I went to different schools in addition to me going to Jr. high two years before she got there. We did everything together. Then when she hit puberty, my friend met her first boyfriend just before turning 12. Although she tired to introducing us by having him calling me once in a while, things fell through.

It was discovered that I was the odd girl who loved to obsess about Disney movies and their characters, while she was now interested in boys and dressing differently to impress them in addition to carrying on different types of conversations. She even proved to loose interest in me at her birthday camping trip as she not only had her boyfriend to keep her company but his friend as well which left me to be shut out of most conversations. Moreover, I was the laughing stalk of her entire weekend and so I avoided them and played with her little brother.

Later that year, as I returned to school, even the other special education students seem to notice that something was wrong since one of them gossiped and got other to exploit me whether they wanted to or not.

I was also alienated in high school by these people while managing to make one really close friend who was in her 50's and drove my to school each morning. In fact, that driver and I are still friends to this day.


However, what went wrong is our society and not us. The media and other socialization groups fed your friends about what was considered normal or not. They were scared of looking like outcasts for going against the norms of society. My friend, what you happened to be is known as part of a target group.

Social-skills can only get a person so far. Middle & high-school kids tend to care about popularity & being cool. It may be something as trivial as you not having the rite look about you or not having the rite interest or maybe something very subtle just being slightly off

^^^ Definitely this. Middle and high school kids tend to be cliquish and picky about who they hang around. It's nothing to do with you or your social skills, but more to do with the nature of the way teens operate.

It does get better. Since you're in college, you'll have better luck meeting people since they tend to be much more mature and accepting.

That sounds similar to me when I was living in tasmania I used to play in the street with all the other kids in our area both my sister and I were outside playing all the time.
The other kids never had a problem with me they were more accepting probably because we grew up together.

Then we moved to Melbourne it all went downhill from then I was in primary school where I was picked on and bullied, I escaped to the school library at lunchtime just to get away from it all.

I went to a special school after that I was a lot happier there and had friends (i still keep in contact with at least 2 of them now)

You know what? There are two things here that I thought of.

The first is that while you are in middle and high school, being cool and popular is part of the game. A lot of times, a teenager doesn't measure up to this person and or that person and so they feel insecure. So they find the urge to reflect and project towards others which can alienate them.

Then you have the cliques like I was talking about with those kids from special ed who exploited me. Every click has a leader of the pack who usually likes to control everything. This clique did and she is still mean to this day. This one would control one of my current friend now who wanted to include me but would enforce her not to. The other guy liked me as a friend but he really had a huge crush on this girl and wanted to please her. So he kept saying what she said.