Published on 12, July, 2020
I have started my second year at a small university. I didn't make any friends last year and now I am spending all my time on my own and I am feeling really bad about this. There are no clubs that do anything that I would be interested so I am spending all my time doing things on my own which is making me feel really down.
I have not had any friends in years and I used to feel ok about this but recently this has made me feel really down however I feel really anxious in social situations and I do not know how to start to make friends or even start to chat to people so I feel traped in a cycle.
I imagine uni would be worse than school for ASD's like us partly why I didn't go myself. Go out on student nights I guess depending on how your anxiety is you'll meat people but just be careful though. Nuros will try to take advantage of ASD's So keep your wits about you but try and be sociable at the same time.
I found university to be much more enjoyable than school, which I hated with a passion. Consider, you are studying just one subject, and one that you have chosen because it interests you, both of these features play to autistic strengths. The added bonus is the proportion of knuckle-dragging bullies decreases hugely in the transition from school to university, and the people you can have intelligent conversations with increases to a similar degree.
Yes, people were more intelligent at university so I got on better with them. We all said that it was nice to meet people who knew what we were talking about instead of staring blankly when we tried to have a conversation.
But the emotional side was a killer because I hadn't had a boyfriend before and I started getting involved with boys, which I was unprepared for.
I also couldn't tell who was genuinely nice and who was just making fun of me/using me, so that didn't help. I'm better at that now.
I think socially university wasn't a waste of time. I did make some friends there but unfortunately had a nervous breakdown in the final year so the friendships went a bit south. It was good for learning what I can and can't tolerate in life. I also learned to live with other people, budget for food and fuel, look after myself better in life.
But yes. Job-wise, uni was a waste of time, it was just good life experience otherwise.