Life is hard

Nobody's giving me any support. And mental health services aren't interested in helping me either. It's not that they're under-funded or anything; they don't even try to help!

Mark said:

Nobody's giving me any support. And mental health services aren't interested in helping me either. It's not that they're under-funded or anything; they don't even try to help!

Can I ask what you expect that support to look like please?

I think you will find they do have very little funding for the volume of support that the community needs. I believe part of that is them not being able to recruit and train staff in the volumes they need because of the low salaries offered and the pressures that these jobs bring.

In the scale of needs, the "low requirements"  or "high functioning" or "aspergers" (chose the label you prefer) people on the spectrum have largely got the capacity to self support if they apply themselves, so are largely de-prioritised by the support services.

Not everybody has this capacity I realise but as a group we are probably low on the priority list for them and with good reason. Those with physical needs and much higher support requirements are the ones who should get the limited resources available.

I know this opinion will not be a popular one, but it makes sense when you take others in higher levels of need into consideration.

They could listen to me for a start. They don't even do that. That's obviously not because of lack of funding.

The main support I'd like is someone to teach me how to make friends. Some help with shopping would be good too. The NHS are supposed to help with both those things, but they don't even listen when I ask for help!

The book I recommend in my bio will teach you the basic mechanics of how "friendships" work. Read it at your own pace in your own time and you almost certainly will have a number of "aha" moments that I found will help you manage people better. 

Essentially I've found that obtaining friends is about sharing activities and interests and also knowing how to treat people nice, both of which are covered quite well in that book.

I found after reading it in my twenties that my life improved markedly and steadily.

The book I recommend in my bio will teach you the basic mechanics of how "friendships" work. Read it at your own pace in your own time and you almost certainly will have a number of "aha" moments that I found will help you manage people better. 

Essentially I've found that obtaining friends is about sharing activities and interests and also knowing how to treat people nice, both of which are covered quite well in that book.

I found after reading it in my twenties that my life improved markedly and steadily.