Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm not sure what help or advice you could suggest. I'm not too sure what I am looking for. A quick summary of me: 25, diagnosed at 21, have anxiety and some on and off depression. Anyhow my reason for writing - I'm a bit embarrassed to say: I have no friends. I live in a rural area and can't drive. I had very few friends at school and they have drifted away over the years. I tried university twice - couldn't handle it and was stuck in a job I hated for years. I have started a new job which I am seeing vast improvements to my mental health. However, a niggling worry in my brain is that I am alone. I worry about it. All I have is my family. When they are gone, what will happen to me? I have no connections and also another embarrassing thing to say: I have never had a relationship (or done anything with anyone). I guess this post is to ask for advice. What should I do? Thanks
I wouldn’t worry about it my friend just let destiny play out for you. Life is life. Life will play out whatever way it chooses to play out, sometimes things are out of our control and we have to accept that. I’m in my 20’s and I thought x y and z about I should have experienced this by now etc. But only life decides how many friends you need and at what point. Many people who have lots of friends don’t really have companionship. Their friends may be more temporary. Real strong friendship like the friendships we made as children, just simply don’t happen or exist in adult life at least 90% of the time. For adults friends are just a means to an end. For a guy they might have friends who just accompany them to the pub until they meet a girl and get married etc. Then they don’t talk to their friends anymore. If you are thinking of friendship as in the way you made friends as a child it is not the same in the adult world. As an adult friends are more at arms length. You don’t spend every day with them like you did with your friends when you were a child. Just hope I’m helping here. I just don’t want to leave you thinking that everyone as adults has these amazing friends that they spend all day with etc. This is certainly not the case in 90% of adults lives I can almost guarantee. They are just a means to an end for most people there isn’t great value attached to friendship for most people. Obviously there will be exceptions. You can get people who have a real deep friendship fully platonic but it’s just extremely uncommon in adults (especially neurotypical). So my point is your the norm. Your situation is totally normal for an adult. Please don’t feel alienated in any way.