Does having a diagnosis help people understand, do you think?
I really like people and wish I was better at being social. I'm not shy, in fact I can be very chatty, but I clearly don't come over well to other people, I find it hard to make friends and knowing that makes me anxious about socialising (vicious circle). I have made friends at various jobs before, but as soon as one of us changed jobs they'd stop keeping in touch and vanish. It hurt every time. I have a couple of friends from school, still, but we have grown apart somewhat with age, and in recent years they have told me that I haven't been supportive enough and need to do more for them to keep the friendship going. I'm not entirely sure what this means. I try and regularly message them on social media and meet up when we can, but I have other commitments and my mental health hasn't been great for the last few years so I don't always feel I can cope with much of that stuff. I do have some other good friends that I made more recently but we don't live close and all have a lot of other commitments which makes it hard to keep in touch regularly.
I was bullied throughout my school and university life, mainly by people who claimed at such point to be my friend, and whenever I get people suddenly vanish or get angry with me for some social mishap, it makes me really panicked, scared and anxious.
What I want to know is would having an official diagnosis help people understand that I really am trying my best? Or is it that if they find you obnoxious or don't think you're being the type of friend they want that they'll ditch you anyway? I really deeply care for people and feel loyal to someone very quickly, but obviously don't always show it well enough, and it breaks my heart when people keep walking away or telling me I'm not good enough or not trying hard enough, especially when I'm trying my best.
Any thoughts?
