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Do you ever feel like all change is bad?

Peter

I often feel like a change is bad it seems like every single event that happens that’s out of my control is always negative. There just never seems to be a situation where something spontaneously happens in your life without you expecting it and the change ends up being good rather than bad.

Every time a place I love has a sign on its door, every time a friend or a family member tells me they need to talk. Every news article about some scheme the council has for the city, my heart is filled with dread because it feels like something is about to change and it’s going to be bad.

The last good thing in my city was probably the new cinema opening up, even though it’s a nice cinema it has taken business away from the other cinema which is now struggling. The last good thing to happen in my family was probably my brother getting a job. And that wasn’t really so spontaneous, I helped him a lot trying to get that job, and now he’s got it unfortunately he just doesn’t have as much time to support me anymore which I appreciate of course. The last really good change in my friendship group, well I think the last time I made a new friend was probably something like 2017.

It didn’t used to be like this. As an autistic person I’ve always had a complicated relationship with change. But it used to be that even if bad change seems like it often outnumbered good change there was still good change there. People would leave my life but new people would come in. The café me and my mum used to like going to might close but a new place would open.

It’s been so long since I discovered a new thing I could enjoy. A new class I could go to, A new club night I could regularly attend, A new attraction I could patronise, A new person I could really connect with.

It’s been so long since I met anyone I felt I could develop romantic feelings for. And I have to say that even though I’ve never been in a serious relationship to miss it, I miss just having someone I feel that way about.

At what stage in our lives do good spontaneous things stop happening? At what stage do we stop meeting new people we can make a connection with? stop just stumbling onto things that we can enjoy? To actually make good things happen in your life is such an effort and it’s feels more and more like banging your head against a brick wall as life goes on.

Parents

  • You mentioned clubs and classes. I think something like that would be very good because you met new people and get to do an activity that you enjoy at the same time. Are you sure there's nothing? A language class? Volunteering? Just as an example, I like parkrun. It's a nice community. Even if you don't/can't run, everyone is super grateful if you volunteer.

    I think almost every kind of change is stressful. But something being stressful doesn't mean it's bad, it's just hard while you're getting used to it. For example, last year I was living with my mum and it was comfortable but I planned to go back to university. I was extremely scared and stressed and I wanted to retreat and call it off actually. But it turned out to be a very worthwhile 'risk' - I am much more satisfied with my life now even though it's harder than what I was doing last year. I would definitely not go back. No change at all gets very boring and depressing after a while, and I think that's worse than transient anxiety/discomfort.

  • in reply to BassFace

    I tried volunteering for our churchs local homeless outreach. But by the time I got the DBS check I was working again and it conflicts with normal office hours. 

    that would be a problem with classes as well. I start a new job on Monday and I can’t do any classes conflict with normal office hours.

    if there was an evening course on Japanese perhaps but I’m not aware of any.

    anyway either volunteering or classes I’ve never really made any close connections through them before.

    exception being my martial arts class. where I happened to bump into three people were all into anime and video games. and they kind of adopted me into that group. that said that martial art class died in the pandemic which is also in that group cut ties with me.

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  • in reply to BassFace

    I tried volunteering for our churchs local homeless outreach. But by the time I got the DBS check I was working again and it conflicts with normal office hours. 

    that would be a problem with classes as well. I start a new job on Monday and I can’t do any classes conflict with normal office hours.

    if there was an evening course on Japanese perhaps but I’m not aware of any.

    anyway either volunteering or classes I’ve never really made any close connections through them before.

    exception being my martial arts class. where I happened to bump into three people were all into anime and video games. and they kind of adopted me into that group. that said that martial art class died in the pandemic which is also in that group cut ties with me.

Children