I am in despair with my aspergers

Pretty much every day is the same. I have no friends other than a few who I almost feel like a third wheel around. Nobody talks to me except when I talk. I feel almost invisible to people. I have never had any after-school interaction with anyone, the only time I have been to a classmates house was school related, and speaking of school, sometimes I feel almost used, really the only reason people seem to talk to me is "hey what's the answer to this question?"

Sometimes I get a feeling my life will never get better. I'm in 8th grade.

I get how you feel. I was divorced last year in September. Now all I do is go to work come home and sit on the computer. I dont have friends off line and I dont want to go outside.

I am not sure if we all have something worth living for or is it just something people say so that they dont have to face the fact that sometimes some people are better off dead.

Vandslaux987 wrote:Pretty much every day is the same.

If you have Aspergers then you're probably inflicting this on yourself, autistics prize routine, predictability and sameness. Get out there, join a club, ask your friends what THEY do to break the days with ritual.

I have no friends other than a few who I almost feel like a third wheel around.

Only YOU can make yourself feel like a third wheel, you are responsible for your own emotions. Frankly speaking, yes, it's because you have Aspergers.

Nobody talks to me except when I talk

You probably seem unapproachable, it used to be the case with me - I basically learned that it was because I gave an air of wanting to be left along without meaning to. It's this thing people who naturally gravitate towards few friends, few interests and fewer smiles give off. You can start changing this by doing two simple things: smile and make eye contact, your whole world can change.

Even if it doesn't, you'll probably feel better, smiling releases endorphins.

I feel almost invisible to people.

Most of the time, yeah, you are, see above.

I have never had any after-school interaction with anyone,

Then you've never had a friend from school. Parto f being an actual friend from school is seeing them after school. This is why I don't consider people who I might work with to be my friends till they invite me somewhere. They're acquaintances

and speaking of school, sometimes I feel almost used, really the only reason people seem to talk to me is "hey what's the answer to this question?"

Being used is a two-part game, if you don't give the answer then you're not being used, have some integrity.

Sometimes I get a feeling my life will never get better. I'm in 8th grade.

If you're in 8th grade, here's two big truths for you to swallow:
1. Your life is going to hit a much much lower point than this at some point in your life, things are gonna get #######5, this isn't #######5, this is garden variety isolation that I'm willing to bet 1 in 5 of your classmates has, including the ones with friends.
2. Your life is going to get much much better at some point as well. Nothing is permanent. You will find heroin level happiness and gut wrenching harrowing saddness, occasionally in the same week.

-- Fri Feb 01, 2013 4:58 am --

I am not sure if we all have something worth living for or is it just something people say so that they dont have to face the fact that sometimes some people are better off dead.

Here's something worth living for that I lived through: Consider that if you kill yourself, the person who finds your body will never forget it, and their screams will block out the neighbors TVs.

You wont find relief from suffering in death, you wont find anything. You don't want to stop living ,you want to stop suffering. Relief can only be found in life.

Foxes is right, and there's not much I can add - but one thing.

Through one's teenage years, especially, hormones are flowing especially strongly, and mood is going to be impacted quite a bit here. So part of what you're experiencing is this hormone issue as well.

As Foxes said, things are impermanent - so what seems really bad right now will change - for better or for worse. Even if we're having a fantastic time right now, things are changing. Change is a part of life.. and can be seen as a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective. Which...this leads me to the point of perspective. Sometimes our perspective isn't exactly the truth of what's going on..well, the whole truth I should say. It doesn't mean your, or my, perspective is "wrong". What this means is that you need to keep in mind that you may not have the full story of what's going on.

Foxes suggestions in terms of friends makes sense, but the only thing Id like to add is you have to be happy with yourself too. There's a lot of value in being able to be alone, and be happy while being alone. Of course, if you're lonely, you should try to have at least a few friends. Being "unapproachable" is something I wish I knew how to fix better...I'm know I'm kinda unapproachable even now...although I do have a few friends, so it works out okay. Clubs is a good way to get to know people.

Yup, what they said..... The only thing I want to add is that 8th grade is KNOWN to be the WORST. For everyone, not just aspies, and for us it's even harder. I also had ZERO friends in 8th grade, I don't even like to think back on it, so the good news is that you definitely have hope for the future. Like TDT said, whatever your situation is now, it is NOT permanent. One thing about us aspies is that we do have the potential to learn social skills, and to make friends, and appear "normal" to most people, it just takes a lot longer to get there.
So just hang on, take this time to learn, practice socializing, expect to fall down and get back up a whole bunch of times, but know that at some point you will be able to look back and think of how far you've come.

my best advice is to try to cultivate your own interests and not be overly dependent on other people. definitely don't chase after them. let them come to you. being desperate is really unappealing to most people. and don't beat yourself up over this. it's not your fault. sadly, this is the way we get treated by other people. and it doesn't matter much how hard we try either. in fact, i think trying is possibly worse than not trying.

only yesterday i found out that 1 of the 2 friends i thought i'd made over the past 6 years has allegedly been complaining about me to a third party. i felt pretty upset about this yesterday and i'm not exactly ecstatic today either. i've been trying to make some worthwhile friends for nearly 50 years now and it simply doesn't ever get any easier, from my perspective. i think since i left full time education it's got a whole lot harder because everyone has their own little life and aren't interested in anyone else.

i wish i could tell you something more positive. just occasionally you'll meet someone that you do click with. in the meantime it's just a matter of not getting too dejected over it.

shock_the_monkey wrote:only yesterday i found out that 1 of the 2 friends i thought i'd made over the past 6 years has allegedly been complaining about me to a third party. i felt pretty upset about this yesterday and i'm not exactly ecstatic today either. i've been trying to make some worthwhile friends for nearly 50 years now and it simply doesn't ever get any easier, from my perspective. i think since i left full time education it's got a whole lot harder because everyone has their own little life and aren't interested in anyone else.

today i got barred from my local supermarket because of this situation. my so called friend works there and this has been the result of these complaints. at times like these my faith in human nature almost completely evaporates.

shock_the_monkey wrote:

shock_the_monkey wrote:only yesterday i found out that 1 of the 2 friends i thought i'd made over the past 6 years has allegedly been complaining about me to a third party. i felt pretty upset about this yesterday and i'm not exactly ecstatic today either. i've been trying to make some worthwhile friends for nearly 50 years now and it simply doesn't ever get any easier, from my perspective. i think since i left full time education it's got a whole lot harder because everyone has their own little life and aren't interested in anyone else.

today i got barred from my local supermarket because of this situation. my so called friend works there and this has been the result of these complaints. at times like these my faith in human nature almost completely evaporates.

I'm sorry to hear that, Shock. I'd like to tell you that I have come to respect you here on this forum and I think that people in your "real life" have not been appreciating you properly. Even though you say things more brusquely than I do, I usually tend to agree with you, and I appreciate your candor and the way you see the bottom of line of things. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I think you deserve to have some good friends.

slugger wrote:I'm sorry to hear that, Shock. I'd like to tell you that I have come to respect you here on this forum and I think that people in your "real life" have not been appreciating you properly. Even though you say things more brusquely than I do, I usually tend to agree with you, and I appreciate your candor and the way you see the bottom of line of things.

thanks. it's nice of you to say so.

slugger wrote:Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I think you deserve to have some good friends.

well, sadly the bottom line is this has never really hapened for me. and i'm getting too old to believe that it ever will. i still feel just like i used to in a group of people. completely isolated. and even with individuals i often feel awkward and disconnected. and i'm beginning to wonder if trying too hard isn't just making things much worse for me. i'm almost at the point were i feel like giving up on humanity. most people will be all sweet and nice to you to your face and then stab you squarely in the back the moment you least expect it and for no apparent reason whatsoever too. i've had far too much of those kind of people. but i never seem to know which they are until it's much too late.

slugger wrote:Yup, what they said..... The only thing I want to add is that 8th grade is KNOWN to be the WORST. For everyone, not just aspies, and for us it's even harder. I also had ZERO friends in 8th grade, I don't even like to think back on it, so the good news is that you definitely have hope for the future. Like TDT said, whatever your situation is now, it is NOT permanent. One thing about us aspies is that we do have the potential to learn social skills, and to make friends, and appear "normal" to most people, it just takes a lot longer to get there.
So just hang on, take this time to learn, practice socializing, expect to fall down and get back up a whole bunch of times, but know that at some point you will be able to look back and think of how far you've come.

I can attest to this. Eighth grade was by far the worst. I started off with no friends, a new school in its first year, so a lot of bad kids went there who had gotten kicked out of other schools. The first "friend" I made was two years older than me, in my class because she was held back a year, and I was a year ahead. She turned out to be into drugs, which for me at 13 was the worst possible thing. She was also a bully and had a vulgar personality, which I inevitably failed to notice.

She moved on from me, like everyone does and I was alone for awhile. Then I started spending time in the fifth, sixth and seventh grade classrooms to get away from the loudness of my own classroom. I a, thankful for having teachers who were nice enough to let me go even though there was no knowledge of AS in myself. I gained a small group of friends in the other slightly misfitted kids. I was invited to ones birthday party. But overall, they too outgrew me.

I then spent most of my recess time crying, and most likely making an embarrassment of myself. No wonder I had not friends. Sometimes the kindergarten teachers would take pity on me and let me help in their classrooms, I loved working with the little kids, and then ended up ditching the rest of my classes to help in theirs, which I loved. Sometimes I would get to the point where I felt like I couldn't breathe and I would get bad headaches and leave school early to go home.

SO, while eighth grade sucked, I made it through. I did have some good friends in high school, though still kept mostly to myself, but I graduated valedictorian, and I pride myself on my skills in school. There are still many times that I feel really bad, quite often lately, but I suffer through, knowing that things will pass, and good times will come eventually, even if they are followed by bad.

I also had a lot of online friends, on a Harry Potter forum where I spent all my time when I wasn't reading. These friends made everything a lot more bearable. If you can not get the courage to join a club, or there is not a club that fits your interests, I can almost guarantee there will be an online forum that will.

-- Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:35 am --

slugger wrote:Yup, what they said..... The only thing I want to add is that 8th grade is KNOWN to be the WORST. For everyone, not just aspies, and for us it's even harder. I also had ZERO friends in 8th grade, I don't even like to think back on it, so the good news is that you definitely have hope for the future. Like TDT said, whatever your situation is now, it is NOT permanent. One thing about us aspies is that we do have the potential to learn social skills, and to make friends, and appear "normal" to most people, it just takes a lot longer to get there.
So just hang on, take this time to learn, practice socializing, expect to fall down and get back up a whole bunch of times, but know that at some point you will be able to look back and think of how far you've come.

I can attest to this. Eighth grade was by far the worst. I started off with no friends, a new school in its first year, so a lot of bad kids went there who had gotten kicked out of other schools. The first "friend" I made was two years older than me, in my class because she was held back a year, and I was a year ahead. She turned out to be into drugs, which for me at 13 was the worst possible thing. She was also a bully and had a vulgar personality, which I inevitably failed to notice.

She moved on from me, like everyone does and I was alone for awhile. Then I started spending time in the fifth, sixth and seventh grade classrooms to get away from the loudness of my own classroom. I a, thankful for having teachers who were nice enough to let me go even though there was no knowledge of AS in myself. I gained a small group of friends in the other slightly misfitted kids. I was invited to ones birthday party. But overall, they too outgrew me.

I then spent most of my recess time crying, and most likely making an embarrassment of myself. No wonder I had not friends. Sometimes the kindergarten teachers would take pity on me and let me help in their classrooms, I loved working with the little kids, and then ended up ditching the rest of my classes to help in theirs, which I loved. Sometimes I would get to the point where I felt like I couldn't breathe and I would get bad headaches and leave school early to go home.

SO, while eighth grade sucked, I made it through. I did have some good friends in high school, though still kept mostly to myself, but I graduated valedictorian, and I pride myself on my skills in school. There are still many times that I feel really bad, quite often lately, but I suffer through, knowing that things will pass, and good times will come eventually, even if they are followed by bad.

I also had a lot of online friends, on a Harry Potter forum where I spent all my time when I wasn't reading. These friends made everything a lot more bearable. If you can not get the courage to join a club, or there is not a club that fits your interests, I can almost guarantee there will be an online forum that will.