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Feel so Isolated with my "close" friends

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It's so anoying, It's been like that ever since I got diagnosed with aspergers, just like today when I go and hang out with them, a friend of mine also has aspergers but he fits in with the other friend who I don't like!! And then my other close friend who has a girlfriend, always hanging around with her now watching some movies more than once cos they went without me the first place. The close friend who I used to hang out with all the time has probably forgot about me since he has a girlfriend, and we still go on saturdays but with his girlfriend who we all knew before they were in a relationship.

I just feel so isolated from the group, like we were discussing about what movie to see next Wednesday, then my other friend with aspergers as well saying that someone else would get the range Wednesday ticket if we go as well, and they are seeing another movie earlier on together as well with Orange Wednesday, fair enough I said and I also said I won't bother going on Wednesday then. Plus I don't like that other "friend" of mine anyway. I'm fed up with my group of so called "close" friends, I don't seem to fit in, and when I get confused about something like I think that other friend was saying something that I understood as a threat to me, even my other friend who is a aspie as well backs him up not even understanding things from my point of view.

I just want to me alone anyway, I want to socialise with others, make more close friends like normal people but I just can't. I only have this group of close friends but apparently it's starting to drift away because I don't think they care. I just need some people to actualy care and understand why I'm acting that way with them but noone seems to understand me.

I probably do feel isolated a lot now, and prefer spending time alone, I'm 22, got a job, I want to live a normal life like everyone round my age does but I can't, that's probably where all the anger comes from because I want to have nights out with friends, clubbing etc but I don't think I'm going to cope, I just need to be in my room to be safe and reduce the anxiety and the emotions.

Parents

  • Hawk, what you are describing happens with transition from teens to early 20s without a disability issue, it just makes it considerably worse having aspergers.

    There's a mass of literature and film about early 20s angst. I'm reading one at the moment - Stephen King's "Joyland". The friends you made at school will start to go their separate ways, and there is this gradual break up that leaves everyone isolated in some way or other.

    The difficulty with aspergers is breaking away from the security of one group (even one that's disintegrating) and forming new circles of friends. If its hard for every 22 year old its harder by a long way for one with AS.

    Trouble is the solutions aren't out there. We are still a "parents on behalf of kids with autism" driven disability. The whole transition thing is under-researched and underfunded. With all the money invested in books on autism/aspergers, its one conspicuous area with a lack of literature and guidance.

    I don't envy you the pain of this transition (even though I went through it myself without the diagnosis, in an age when the diagnosis didn't exist). But I was already a loner by then, and could keep myself well occupied if I didn't have to socialise. I left school poorly qualified owing to coping problems, and had a lot of short term disasterous jobs between 18 and 21, then went to university and did a whole lot better. But even at 22 I remember it was such a struggle, with no-one around who had any understanding or was any help.

    What shocks me is, forty years on, the situation has hardly improved. 

    And I guess 90% of the parents on here are still dreaming of some sort of reprieve when their kid reaches 20 or 22. So no-one has done anything about it.

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  • Hawk, what you are describing happens with transition from teens to early 20s without a disability issue, it just makes it considerably worse having aspergers.

    There's a mass of literature and film about early 20s angst. I'm reading one at the moment - Stephen King's "Joyland". The friends you made at school will start to go their separate ways, and there is this gradual break up that leaves everyone isolated in some way or other.

    The difficulty with aspergers is breaking away from the security of one group (even one that's disintegrating) and forming new circles of friends. If its hard for every 22 year old its harder by a long way for one with AS.

    Trouble is the solutions aren't out there. We are still a "parents on behalf of kids with autism" driven disability. The whole transition thing is under-researched and underfunded. With all the money invested in books on autism/aspergers, its one conspicuous area with a lack of literature and guidance.

    I don't envy you the pain of this transition (even though I went through it myself without the diagnosis, in an age when the diagnosis didn't exist). But I was already a loner by then, and could keep myself well occupied if I didn't have to socialise. I left school poorly qualified owing to coping problems, and had a lot of short term disasterous jobs between 18 and 21, then went to university and did a whole lot better. But even at 22 I remember it was such a struggle, with no-one around who had any understanding or was any help.

    What shocks me is, forty years on, the situation has hardly improved. 

    And I guess 90% of the parents on here are still dreaming of some sort of reprieve when their kid reaches 20 or 22. So no-one has done anything about it.

Children
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