So last time I did one of these on relationships where I focused on romantic relationships due to it being Valentine’s Day. And so now I thought why not go on to this subject next where I talk about my experience with friendship and the such so far and also give some insight into it as someone who has Autism. I’m pretty sure I have touched on it a few times before but this should be more extensive and focused on it.
For me friendships have never really been a big thing because originally I didn’t really understand them as I am the sort of person to enjoy my own company and so it led to me for a very long time not even considering it as something that should be worked on and I simply just wasn’t interested in it. During primary school I kind of had like one friend and that was it, this was plenty enough for me.
Secondary school is where things obviously changed for me and where my Autism made things a lot more difficult and also led to a degree of bullying due to me being different which put me off of people a lot more and made friendships seem like something that was too high risk to look for there as it appeared to me as though everyone was negative, but that was probably just because I was only seeing the negative people clearly and of course I didn’t notice the positive people as they would not have an impact in such a way as a negative person would.
As I have already said in previous blog posts secondary school didn’t work out for me and I dropped out after half-a-year due to teachers and staff there not knowing how to handle my learning difficulties and Autism as well as feeling like so many of the students there were not fond of me and that I didn’t fit in and so this led to a year and a half of being cooped up in the house and just spending time with my mum and no one else. I actually quite enjoyed it as, you know, no school, yay! That’s one of the coolest things ever for a kid, being able to stay at home all day playing computer games and going on the internet, watching TV and so on.
I didn’t really consider the damage it did to my educational prospects or the ability to make friends, which was already loose as it was, this likely destroyed the ability almost entirely, but even if I did consider it there wasn’t really much I could do, I certainly would not have been able to suffer any longer at a mainstream secondary school. After a long battle with the education board I was finally able to get a statement for learning disability which allowed me to go to a special needs school. When I arrived at this school I still wasn’t really interested in friends and I remained alone again, but the school was much, much better and everyone was a lot nicer and the teachers more approachable and understanding of my problems and I became very happy.
It was around about a year before I started really mingling with people and one of my big breaks came on a camping trip with this school, which was an end of year reward. It was there I finally begun opening up more and talking to other students, instead of just teachers. I made a few temporary friends there who I hung out with and played with for the duration of the trip and it was an interesting experience, some of the people I mingled with I’d later go on to play out with in my town a few times which was mind blowing to me.
So, it was basically steady from there but none of my friendships were solid as I simply didn’t know how to maintain them so after school finished it was on to college where once again, I would have problems similar to mainstream secondary, although not as bad as that. But I still felt alien there, no one bullied or anything, but I just felt like I didn’t fit in again and unlike the special needs school I didn’t really have anything obviously in common with pretty much anyone and I was not fond of anyone in my class as many of them often misbehaved and didn’t even want to be there.
That carried on for a year and a half until I was done with it and almost dropped out, although I did return to finish the rest of the coursework, but after that I was done with college. After this I was back home doing nothing again but it was around this time when I started wanting friendships again, as I had got a good taste of it in the special needs school. I went to contact a number of the people I had hung out with a few times back in that school but found that they had since moved on and had new friend groups and new lives elsewhere and were pretty much too busy and that was fair enough, it isn’t like I put any effort in myself to maintain those former temporary friendships, but as I said I also didn’t consider it as I didn’t know how to do that.
After that I spent lots of time with my mum and just doing many of the things I originally did on the year and a half off of education previously, including lots and lots of time on the internet, I was once again isolating myself. Eventually my mum had a brain aneurysm and everything changed quite dramatically, my sister became our new guardian and there was a large adjustment period where I delved myself even further into isolation probably just for comfort.
After about a year-ish of this period I finally opened up to my sister about the things I wanted to do in life and then the thing my sister then also suggested was making a blog, which I have done here. This is where I am at now, I have since made one friend on a chatting social media but it is a long-distance one and not in-real-life. I have now really dived into doing blogging and I am yet still to see if it works out, but I am trying my best and whatever happens, happens. If it works it works if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. But it gives me something to do and a possible revenue stream at some point in the future which can possibly lead to friends and other life goals.
But that isn’t the only thing I am doing I am also now going to a weekly meeting with a guide as sort, they are teaching me and my brother about Autism, working life, social life and stuff like that. Which is a start on the path towards a more independent life, which would become more easier to make friends among other things. I think it will be a long road yet and I obviously have my doubts as any sane person would, but I also still have hope.
So yeah! That is that. There is much more or even pretty much unlimited topics to come from the Me and… series, so make sure to stay tuned!
Thank you for reading this post, if you have any queries please Email me, you can find my Email in the Contacts & Community section. Please also follow The Weekly Rambler on Twitter and Facebook which you can access through the buttons at the bottom of this website. You can also use the social media buttons under each blogpost to share with your family, friends and associates. You can also subscribe to Email notifications at the right-side of this website to know whenever a new post goes up (you can easily unsubscribe from this at any time through a button in each Email notification), or alternatively you can use an RSS Feed Reader. Please also join my FB Group The Weekly Ramblers Readers Group where readers can more easily talk with each other and also with me whenever I am on, you can also find it in Community.