unable to make friends or form real connections

[vampire2002]

so i will be the first to admit i am lucky to have people who care for me in my life now. my family is treating me better than they used to, i've met new people in my therapy group who are kind and friendly, and i have a wonderful boyfriend who i know loves me dearly.

i'm at a clinic specifically for OCD & anxiety disorders. according to the therapists there, having social anxiety for a long time (as i have) can result in what they described as a "social skills deficit." i think this is a new term i learned to describe something i've been struggling with for nearly my whole life.

i have people around me who are kind to me now, but when i was young some of my family members were abusive and neglectful. i think this led to me not getting properly taught how to talk to people. my boyfriend has jokingly said that since i grew up without many friends and watched so much anime that i learned how i think people should act from anime. apparently this can be enjoyable at times, but also awkward in a lot of situations. so my personality seems a bit artificially curated.

if i'm being honest, i don't know if i've ever felt fully understood by anybody, even those i love most. i struggle to make deeper connections. i feel like nobody knows the real me, even when i try my hardest to be honest and express it. it feels like i'm always misunderstood and i'm worried people consider me weird / awkward / creepy. especially if they knew the real me, which i believe is a horrible person.

i've got one friend, who is also my boyfriend... i guess i consider my brother a friend too. and i count my four cats as friends, and my neighbor's cat too. that's the extent of it. i've been in therapy for about a month now, and i see people chatting and so happy to see each other, making friends, etc. people talk to me sometimes and i talk to them too, trying to be nice and friendly and still myself and honest. but i can't make any connections with people. people are always nice to me, but i'm still an outcast. i don't know what i'm doing wrong. i feel like i'm trying my best and doing what i'm supposed to, but i can't make friends. and it's been like this for most of my life.

i've had some friends before, most of them online, but even then i struggle to maintain friendships and don't know how to connect with these people, even people i like or find interesting or share hobbies with. it feels like an incredible mental effort to reply constantly. i'm the black sheep of my family and some relatives look down on me for my struggles. even the ones who like me, i am always pretending to be someone else around them because i know we hold different values and i don't want them to start to dislike me. i either can't tell people anything or i tell them too much.
even with my boyfriend, it's hard to talk sometimes. and i love them dearly. but it can be really difficult to communicate a lot of things, and i still have some secrets. thankfully, my bf is more patient than most and really tries to help me when i struggle to say things. i do feel like a slight distance has grown between us lately, but maybe that's just because we're both so busy.

the point is, i have felt lonely and isolated my whole life. my whole life has been spent feeling like an outcast. i've spent most of my life alone in my room. i worry i'll go my entire life, however long or short that may be, without anybody being able to know me, the real me, wholeheartedly. it's so incredibly depressing. i'm used to being an outcast, but somehow it always still stings, i'm so sensitive. i don't know how to develop these skills that seem to come so naturally to most people, despite me trying hard to work on them.

i feel so alone with my suicidal thoughts and they're getting worse again lately but i feel i have nobody i can talk to. sure, i have my therapists. but i don't wanna get pulled out of my clinic and forced into a ward. and i'm either not close enough with people to tell them, or we're close and i don't want them to worry or be overbearing and controlling (as has happened in the past when telling people about suicidal ideation.) it's so hard to know i have people around me who are kind, but still feel like i have nobody, in some ways.

i think I'm cursed to be forever lonely. i wish i could die without hurting anybody because nobody really knows me anyways, so the person they'd be mourning never existed to begin with.

 

[LunarEc]

Honestly relatable. I think it all comes to how you spent your childhood. I was born in a war among people who only wanted to kill each other. My father beat and made me bleed when I was a kid, he tells me and reminds me of how much I'm a failure. I was bullied throughout school. I couldn't speak to anyone because I didn't know how people spoke to each other or how they made any friends...it's like being introduced to a whole new world that you know nothing about. I never actually had a single friend in my entire life. Not even online. I think I came close to making an online friend when I was 15 but they got bored of me I don't know what I did but they eventually just ghost me. I try to act normal and like others you know like ask how is your day? what music you like? but it never seems to make them like me in any bit. They answer like one question and get bored of me. I remember being desperate for a friend at 16 years old that I made a reddit account and went to r/needafriend. I made a post and said a lot about myself and how awkward I am. All I got was a 33 year old woman who didnt care that Im suicidal but wanted business with my genitals and some other 19 year old dude who thought I was a girl because of my pfp I assumed? he started it off with weird questions like s*x related I shouldve just blocked him. I answered one of his questions (telling him Im a boy and answering the question) and then he called me a f*ggot and that I should've killed myself long time ago. I had no luck making friends anywhere and even when I tried I couldn't I relate to you thanks for posting this.

 

[Jorvak]

so i will be the first to admit i am lucky to have people who care for me in my life now. my family is treating me better than they used to, i've met new people in my therapy group who are kind and friendly, and i have a wonderful boyfriend who i know loves me dearly.

i'm at a clinic specifically for OCD & anxiety disorders. according to the therapists there, having social anxiety for a long time (as i have) can result in what they described as a "social skills deficit." i think this is a new term i learned to describe something i've been struggling with for nearly my whole life.

i have people around me who are kind to me now, but when i was young some of my family members were abusive and neglectful. i think this led to me not getting properly taught how to talk to people. my boyfriend has jokingly said that since i grew up without many friends and watched so much anime that i learned how i think people should act from anime. apparently this can be enjoyable at times, but also awkward in a lot of situations. so my personality seems a bit artificially curated.

if i'm being honest, i don't know if i've ever felt fully understood by anybody, even those i love most. i struggle to make deeper connections. i feel like nobody knows the real me, even when i try my hardest to be honest and express it. it feels like i'm always misunderstood and i'm worried people consider me weird / awkward / creepy. especially if they knew the real me, which i believe is a horrible person.

i've got one friend, who is also my boyfriend... i guess i consider my brother a friend too. and i count my four cats as friends, and my neighbor's cat too. that's the extent of it. i've been in therapy for about a month now, and i see people chatting and so happy to see each other, making friends, etc. people talk to me sometimes and i talk to them too, trying to be nice and friendly and still myself and honest. but i can't make any connections with people. people are always nice to me, but i'm still an outcast. i don't know what i'm doing wrong. i feel like i'm trying my best and doing what i'm supposed to, but i can't make friends. and it's been like this for most of my life.

i've had some friends before, most of them online, but even then i struggle to maintain friendships and don't know how to connect with these people, even people i like or find interesting or share hobbies with. it feels like an incredible mental effort to reply constantly. i'm the black sheep of my family and some relatives look down on me for my struggles. even the ones who like me, i am always pretending to be someone else around them because i know we hold different values and i don't want them to start to dislike me. i either can't tell people anything or i tell them too much.
even with my boyfriend, it's hard to talk sometimes. and i love them dearly. but it can be really difficult to communicate a lot of things, and i still have some secrets. thankfully, my bf is more patient than most and really tries to help me when i struggle to say things. i do feel like a slight distance has grown between us lately, but maybe that's just because we're both so busy.

the point is, i have felt lonely and isolated my whole life. my whole life has been spent feeling like an outcast. i've spent most of my life alone in my room. i worry i'll go my entire life, however long or short that may be, without anybody being able to know me, the real me, wholeheartedly. it's so incredibly depressing. i'm used to being an outcast, but somehow it always still stings, i'm so sensitive. i don't know how to develop these skills that seem to come so naturally to most people, despite me trying hard to work on them.

i feel so alone with my suicidal thoughts and they're getting worse again lately but i feel i have nobody i can talk to. sure, i have my therapists. but i don't wanna get pulled out of my clinic and forced into a ward. and i'm either not close enough with people to tell them, or we're close and i don't want them to worry or be overbearing and controlling (as has happened in the past when telling people about suicidal ideation.) it's so hard to know i have people around me who are kind, but still feel like i have nobody, in some ways.

i think I'm cursed to be forever lonely. i wish i could die without hurting anybody because nobody really knows me anyways, so the person they'd be mourning never existed to begin with.

As an autistic person i find this post very relatable. I'm in my 30's and a cis male, but I feel we have shared many similar experiences.I too don't feel like i can form deep connections with people, and i believe i'm incompatible with society.

Even if our specific forms of neurodivergence are different, i believe there is a common cause between a person like me and you being socially ostracized. Because we think differently about things and felt more comfortable being immersed in our hobbies, other kids, especially social cliques, decided to disrespect our differences and formed prejudices against us. Most form of bullying is not physical, but yet the school systems act like its the only form that matters. physical bullying is harmful in the short term, but Psychological bullying can ruin a persons development well into their adult life.

When i was in school, i found it impossible to form good friends, even if i made an effort to respect people and be nice to them. At most i could form acquaintances, but feel really troubled by the fact that everyone else seemed to have some really good friend. I am not ignorant of social ettiquette, i have learned to mask my natural autistic demeanor very well, and know very well how to behave around allistic people. I'm not awkward near people or try to push peoples boundaries, but i am not especially talkative. if anything, i am hyper conscious of peoples boundaries and really try to respect people and be considerate of them. However i become very quickly drained when talking to people, because i feel like i constantly have to uphold a specific social demeanor and conform to a specific set of social norms.

Having a narcissist for a mother absolutely made things worse. Being blamed for things that were not my fault, having my character constantly torn down, having my natural intellectual curiosity mocked, and treated like an object of humiliation and amusement further stunted me, disgustingly having my autism being treated as "the source" of my problems, when in reality its how other people disrespected me, simply made me immerse myself into my hobbies even more as a means of escape. For you that was anime. for me it was coding and gaming.

Even though i can convincingly appease social norms, the fact of the matter is that Being socially ostracized throughout my childhood, seeing people become good friendships or form romantic relationships, all while i was just regarded as a social outcast during those years, combined with the fact that i simply become drained talking with people and upholding norms that are not natural to me, makes me feel most comfortable doing what i like to do, where i won't be judged simply for doing those things.

I really wish I could have made friends that understood me and did not mind me being myself, rather than treated like garbage, or subject to peoples attempts to humiliate or psychologically abuse me. All of this has severely stunted me. I used to feel deeply troubled that i could not form a 'best' friend like so many other kids, or form romantic relationships like other kids. I have wanted to form really great friendships with people beyond a surface level, but it's hard to find people to relate to. I have also wanted to form a romantic relationship with the type woman who is very thoughtful if not outright brilliant, a deep thinker, empathetic, considerate, reasonably patient, and respects others while having self-respect. but there aren't a lot of people with that combination in general. I don't think my standards are too high, i think too many people in general simply embody too many negative traits and those are socially reinforced in a prejudiced and superficial society. There are far too many people who are judgemental and prejudiced and taught to be that way as kids. It doesn't leave someone like me or you much room to socially exceed just because we're 'a bit different'.

In your situation, you are fortunate to even have a romantic relationship with a young man. That sounds like a big deal from my standpoint. i don't even know how i'm supposed to even form a romantic relationship, because i was too ostracized to even try. I don't know where i could find a person who would really understand and respect me. What i remember with highschool girls, is that they constantly tried to humiliate me. It's only since the beginning of last year that I have friendships with women online who i consider good friends that i have very deep conversations with, but they are not romantic interest. One of them even wanted to make a dating profile for me not too long ago.

I believe you and I have had many similar experiences. There are obviously a vast number of unspoken details in both of our experiences. I detect many elements in your story that are very similar to my experiences, even if the specific circumstances are different.