Found this site from ChatGPT, I've had a rough life

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Hey all, this might be a long post. Just wanted to share my story, and see if anyone has advice. I don't talk to my family anymore and I have no friends so I'm pretty isolated. But thanks for taking the time to read.

So, I guess like a lot of autistic guys, making friends has always been hard and I've focused on other things to make me happy. I was a 'golden child' in elementary/middle school, excelling in a lot of things and getting a lot of praise. Started losing motivation when I was like 14-15 and playing more video games, and I guess my parents felt there was something 'wrong' with me so I was sent to wilderness therapy. And man, for a 14 year old autistic nerd, that s**t was really traumatizing. High school sucked, because on top of all the social pressures I was still really messed up from my wilderness therapy experience. I ended up getting back into video games and formed a huge online community there, and played 12+ hours a day, but still managed to graduate high school. Did a year of community college while living with my Mom and playing lots of video games, then quarantine hit and I was stuck there until I was 20. After quarantine I went to an actual college, but I had experienced a huge growth spurt during quarantine, growing to 6'5, and noticed people treated me a lot differently now. I was still a kissless virgin and I wouldn't say I was interested in girls, but probably had a slight curiosity. Anyway college started and this girl from one of my classes became basically attached to me, and wouldn't leave me alone. I tried to avoid her at first but she was so persistent, and I guess that's the type of thing you do in college anyway, so I just went with it. Anyway she started forcing me into sex after us only knowing each other like 2-3 days, so safe to say all my sexual 'firsts' didn't happen in the most comfortable way. She started spreading rumors about what I was like in bed and pretty soon I'd have random girls coming up to me, touching me, making sexual comments, etc. Maybe a normal guy would love this but I was so unprepared to handle anything like that, and it took a huge toll on my mental health. I started cutting myself and I was either drunk or high for most of the next six months. Eventually I had to leave the school, bounced around a few treatment centers, and ended up where I am now. I was desperate to have more experience with girls, maybe as a trauma reaction, maybe I just wanted new memories to cover up the old bad ones. So I worked on building up my confidence, I was a line cook for a while, and playing basketball almost every day, and that period of my life is probably one of the only times I'd say was actually fun. But yeah, of course when I felt ready, I hopped on Tinder and started seeing girls. I had a few hookups, a few FWB's, then eventually met the girl who would derail the next year of my life. Things started out pretty great, we both had troubled pasts and histories of being used in relationships, and both of us treated each other better than any other partner had before. But she saw me as 'out of her league', maybe because of my height, and because she was a shorter girl with weight problems, idk. I loved her a lot, but jealousy was a big issue. She'd complain any time we went in public and a girl checked me out, she was incredibly possessive of me. I think she took advantage of the fact that I'm autistic and not very good at taking care of myself, and she slowly started doing more and more things for me until I was completely dependent on her. She changed into a different person, she got meaner and wasn't as fun to be around, but I didn't feel like I could leave because I needed her for everything. Eventually I decided that if I could get myself back into college classes, I could probably make it on my own. So that's what I did, and as soon as she realized I didn't need her for everything anymore, she left. That was at the beginning of this year, and this year has been horrible. On top of adjusting to college, I've had to adjust to taking care of myself again, dealing with social pressures, and my family stopped talking to me too. I passed all my classes this year and I'm happy about that but I just feel so lost. People aren't nice to me unless they want something from me. I feel like I've just been used my whole life. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't have the energy to put myself out there and get hurt again. And since I don't really have any positive relationships in my life, I feel like if I try to put myself out there and it doesn't go well, it would hurt so bad. Sorry for the long post, I just needed to get this all out there. Life is so long and confusing and I feel like I'm too weak to handle it all on my own

You've done an amazing number of things and you can be proud of all that you're done, and tried to do, whether it turned out well or poorly. As painful as it is now and was at the time, I'm sure you've learned from all your experiences. It's natural that you now feel wary after your relationships have caused you so much stress and pain, and maybe you need to take time to be on your own to heal and learn about yourself before you put yourself out there again. Good luck with everything. Thanks for sharing your story.

Keeping it brief:

From where I sit it seems like you're experiencing a lot of what the neurotypicals go through and believe it or not, you may be handling it better than you're inclined to think.
By that I do not mean everything is okay and you're exaggerating, what I mean is, a lot of folks out there in the NT world have similar experiences and can sympathize.
So I guess I'm just saying you might want to give yourself a little more credit.

Again, not saying you haven't had a tough time, I'm sure you have.
I'm suggesting that you're actually handling some of it better than lots of people in or outside the Autistic community.

Some of this stuff IS very hard to tackle for most people. Give yourself credit for trying instead of just giving up and withdrawing. You deserve some pats on the back....figuratively speaking, of course.

welcome throwaway to WP