So, I'm turning 20 next week and I still live at home. Most likely my birthday "party" is going to be my parents taking me out for dinner. I'm unemployed and not in school. I pretty much spend all my time on the Internet.
Until about 6 months ago I was part of a really close-knit group of friends. We saw each other literally every day, and spent long nights smoking weed and joking around.
Very long story made very short, I ended up alienating all of them. The problem is that I'm naturally an extremely antisocial person. People apparently consider me attractive (though I don't), and I know how to keep up a conversation when I want to. But I have serious problems connecting to other people; either I come across as needy and too vulnerable, or callous and just plain mean. To top it off, I don't really feel emotions the same way other people do. Either I feel nothing at all, or far too much over little things. I'd never really had real "friends" before this group. I tend to eventually drive away anyone who gets close to me, and that's exactly what happened this time.
Now that I'm alone again, I've massively reverted to a complete shut-in. I'm incredibly depressed. I've basically wasted an entire year on being a piece of shit stoner that I should've been spending getting in to college, so I'm only now applying to university. But it's so easy for me to slip into my old antisocial loner habits when I'm dropped into a new environment. It's either that, or put on the facade of being a witty, charming person, a facade that always works for a while but slowly slips, leaving the people who get to know me when the facade is up utterly confused as they watch me degenerate into a withdrawn emotional wreck. How can I change? How can I not be this way? Have any of you had similar experiences/circumstances? Am I doomed to repeat this cycle of being briefly happy and "loved", and then friendless and alone, for the rest of my life?
>>17195720
I could be completely wrong, but this sounds very similar to me, and I've been recently diagnosed with Aspergers. Might wanna check out the symptoms.
>>17195726
I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but having looked into it quite a lot, I feel like borderline personality disorder is more on the money. Although it very well might be aspergers. I have no clue.
>>17195726
I was going to say something similar
>>17195733
Well, then how do you expect /adv/ to help you? If you're unsure about your diagnosis, go visit experts in their respective fields, for BPD and Aspergrs and then make sure that your diagnosis is correct.
Then you find a therapeut, associations, whatever that provides support and help for your problem.
For someone who has Asperger, and was in a terrible depression two years ago, I've made considerable progress since then, that I did not think it would be possible. I still have big difficulties, but you need to find an expert to tell you what exactly you have to adress and how to go abou it.
And be prepared for a long journey. At least for me, I know that I never will be able to make my Disorder go away completely. But each difficult and painful lesson makes me a better person. for myself and also for others.
>>17195742
You're probably right, that probably is what I should do. But having been heavily medicated and in therapy for years at a time in the past, and having seen little to no change in my behavior, has made me distrustful of the mental health "industry". And having once been fuckbuddies with a therapist really drove home that they're usually just as fucked up and unsure of themselves as we are.
That said, I can appreciate that trying to get help is the healthy thing to do. The problem is that the self-destructive behavior that is part of the larger problem prevents me from doing that. Even if I went in to see a psych, all it would take would be one little thing to sour me on the whole thing and blow it off. The only breakthroughs I trust are the ones that come from within myself, although I'm well aware that's a stupidass attitude
>>17195772
>And having once been fuckbuddies with a therapist really drove home that they're usually just as fucked up and unsure of themselves as we are.
Sounds like story time.
Apart from that:
I can only speak for Aspergers and nothing else. But for me, the only way to learn to act in a way that isn't destructive, and won't alienate people is by doing it, by having interaction. Build an "empiric" reference system of sorts. I do somehting, and then understand what the reaction to my behaviour is. I lack the "logic" and intuition to understand human behaviour to a certain extend and I need to constantly rationalize everything that happens in a relationship. Of course this is stupid, because there is an infinite number of interactions, already between two people alone. But I think that I've the basics down by now.
Now, that I know what my disorder is, I have a good (female) friend, who knows about the condition and I can always go talk to her for advice and she puts the things in a "normal" context or explains to me why my behaviour might be wrong. Especially reagrding women.
And it gets better, slowly, step by step. I learn my lessons, albeit it means often to fail before I realize that I did something wrong. Then I move on and apply what I've learned. I mean, it fucking sucks of course, but it's also a lot of fun to learn how the world works and also a lot of fun if you manage to succesfuly apply something you learnt before and it works better.
>>17195720
Sounds much more like a personality disorder than aspergers.
I have NPD and when I have friends I thrive and have a lot going on but as soon as it doesn't benefit me or I'm bored I drop them. My longest lasting friendship actually was with someone else with NPD, but that was only 2 years. I was in the same position as you a few months ago but I dealt with it by moving out and then faking it until I got what I wanted, but it's kinda depressing that I can't really be myself knowing that if I was I'd be as alone as I was a few months ago.
NPD is something a lot of people refuse to believe they even have because of the connotations with the name but it's not really where you think you're better than everyone, it is mainly defensive.
>>17195794
That's solid advice, and I think having someone like your friend who could actually point out at what points I fuck up in my interactions with people would probably be pretty helpful
>>17195822
I agree that I probably have a personality disorder. I think BPD is most in line with my symptoms though. I fluctuate between having an incredibly low opinion of myself, even having extreme periods of depersonalization, and periods where people do nothing but annoy me and I feel like everyone's so much stupider or pettier than me.
