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Loneliness being autistic at uni

SummerBerries

Sometimes it just really hits me how lonely it is being autistic. I'm going into my second year of uni with no friends. As well as the loneliness I feel like I'm missing out on that "uni culture". I know it's partly my fault because I commute, but I just feel so distant constantly in my whole life and now it's hitting me that I'm not gonna make any friends at uni either. I just feel so isolated. I just want some friends but it seems impossible when people have already established friend groups in first year and I always struggle to actually connect and feel accepted by people. I'm just ranting really because I feel upset that I don't think I'll ever have a proper friend group

Parents

  • I found that I did not make any friends on my course, but I lived in a traditional hall of residence - now almost an extinct type of student accommodation - where I made good friendships with half a dozen people. At 61 years old, I am still in touch with two of them.

    I'm afraid that to reach our goals and aspirations it is often necessary to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. For the first two or three weeks in hall I was very miserable, meal times, in a refectory with 160 other students, were a torture due to anxiety. However, it didn't last, and I fairly soon became comfortable and talkative. I even started to enjoy the new freedom of living independently from my family.

    I found that doing a PhD was much more autism-friendly than an undergraduate degree, but this may vary depending on the subject, my PhD was in molecular and cell biology.

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  • I found that I did not make any friends on my course, but I lived in a traditional hall of residence - now almost an extinct type of student accommodation - where I made good friendships with half a dozen people. At 61 years old, I am still in touch with two of them.

    I'm afraid that to reach our goals and aspirations it is often necessary to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. For the first two or three weeks in hall I was very miserable, meal times, in a refectory with 160 other students, were a torture due to anxiety. However, it didn't last, and I fairly soon became comfortable and talkative. I even started to enjoy the new freedom of living independently from my family.

    I found that doing a PhD was much more autism-friendly than an undergraduate degree, but this may vary depending on the subject, my PhD was in molecular and cell biology.

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