Looking for people to connect with

Hi sphynx, I see you posted this a few days ago so I hope you are feeling better.  You used to play recorder.  I am also a recorder player, it is a lovely instrument.  I mainly play music by Handel, Telemann, Loeillet and Hotteterre.  Why did you stop playing?  Happy to chat!

Hi, thank you very much for your reply. Lovely to hear about your recorder playing! I stopped because of a combination of performance anxiety and experiences that knocked my confidence.

Still pretty lonely - had some painful friendship situations recently so it may persist for a while. Thank you, a chat would be nice :)

Shame your confidence was knocked, that tends to be autistic life though - anxiety and difficulties mean your brain isn't focusing fully on success, and mistakes can happen and that dents us, and if you keep feeling dented you get to bad place.  Even successes can be painful and not really feel like success.

I've had to learn to manage anxiety, it was probably present through childhood onwards but had no idea what is was or could describe it to anyone.  Its only in the last few years I've worked on it, and using mindfulness and a CBT self-help book i've more recently developed better thinking and its gone away.  Not life changing, still autistic, but confident with that and moving forward.

Painful friendships/relationships can need time to recover from, and distractions like music and thinking better can help, so be kind to yourself and heal.  I'm in that place, others here also.

I love that, thank you :) Tiny autistic guardian angels would be brilliant, but as you say hard to find

No trouble, I just try and pass on advice or ideas that might help.  Autistic people can kind of need another autistic person sat on there shoulder ready to step in and warn us or give advice, but of course that can't happen, tiny autistic people are rarer than normal sized ones.

Ah of course, Thich Nhat Hanh - I love how he has worked to create an ecoBuddhist movement. Thank you for the link.

I have been working on the clinginess, and always give people space when they ask for it, but there’s a long way to go before I find a balance.

The selectiveness is harder to explain. Again, I have been working on it, but it’s not easy to find those deep, mutual connections - for anyone maybe, that’s partly why they’re so special.

Thank you for replying so consistently and in so much depth by the way, it’s very generous

https://plumvillage.org/podcasts/the-way-out-is-in/

Thich Nhat Hanh died recently but he was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk that set up Plum Village Tradition, his version of Buddhism I guess.  Known as the 'father of mindfulness', not actually his idea as ancient thing but he led to it becoming popular worldwide.

Too clingy is not good, and no cling at all is not good either - you can lose people either way.  Staying in between is best.  

Being too selective means you might not find anyone that fits, and you might learn more about people and yourself from people different to yourself and who you might normally try and connect with.

I can relate somewhat as I've been too open and naive in the past and now feel I need to be more selective, but not too selective.

https://plumvillage.org/podcasts/the-way-out-is-in/

Thich Nhat Hanh died recently but he was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk that set up Plum Village Tradition, his version of Buddhism I guess.  Known as the 'father of mindfulness', not actually his idea as ancient thing but he led to it becoming popular worldwide.

Too clingy is not good, and no cling at all is not good either - you can lose people either way.  Staying in between is best.  

Being too selective means you might not find anyone that fits, and you might learn more about people and yourself from people different to yourself and who you might normally try and connect with.

I can relate somewhat as I've been too open and naive in the past and now feel I need to be more selective, but not too selective.

I love that, thank you :) Tiny autistic guardian angels would be brilliant, but as you say hard to find

No trouble, I just try and pass on advice or ideas that might help.  Autistic people can kind of need another autistic person sat on there shoulder ready to step in and warn us or give advice, but of course that can't happen, tiny autistic people are rarer than normal sized ones.

Ah of course, Thich Nhat Hanh - I love how he has worked to create an ecoBuddhist movement. Thank you for the link.

I have been working on the clinginess, and always give people space when they ask for it, but there’s a long way to go before I find a balance.

The selectiveness is harder to explain. Again, I have been working on it, but it’s not easy to find those deep, mutual connections - for anyone maybe, that’s partly why they’re so special.

Thank you for replying so consistently and in so much depth by the way, it’s very generous