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That feeling of not belonging/fitting in

firemonkey

I don't know whether it's because I'm not a pure autistic person, I also have severe mental illness, but I find it hard to fit in here. Others here seem to have no difficulty bonding with each other, and chatting like they've known each other for many years. That's a great social skill to have., but one I don't have. For want of a better phrase I'd say other posters  here are 'socially adept' in a way I'll never be. They lead far more high powered lives. 

They have/have had good careers . Have good academic qualifications. I never had a paid job, and only did a bit of voluntary work. My academic qualifications stopped at 6 O levels. I've never pursued further education due to bullying related trauma.  I have to have a lot of practical support because of poor adaptive functioning ability.

Parents

  • It's not something I've allowed to get into my head when it comes to this forum, but I absolutely have in other environments. And I feel too ashamed to raise it.

    What I don't want is to guilt anyone into including me. If they don't want to, they don't want to.

    I do fall into a "I'm not as good as these other people" trap often too.

  • in reply to HMO
    HMO said:
    I do fall into a "I'm not as good as these other people" trap often too.

    I completely understand where you're coming from. It's so easy to compare ourselves to others and feel like we don't measure up.

    Remember, you are your own biggest critic, and it's okay to be proud of yourself for how far you've come. You are more than good enough, just as you are.

    My therapists words to me as this is something I also struggle with big time. 

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  • in reply to HMO
    HMO said:
    I do fall into a "I'm not as good as these other people" trap often too.

    I completely understand where you're coming from. It's so easy to compare ourselves to others and feel like we don't measure up.

    Remember, you are your own biggest critic, and it's okay to be proud of yourself for how far you've come. You are more than good enough, just as you are.

    My therapists words to me as this is something I also struggle with big time. 

Children
  • in reply to Char

    I appreciate that. It does feel like everything I've done is not good enough. 

  • in reply to Char

     I never had much luck with a therapist. The last trained one I saw, via mental health services, openly told he was seeing  me because other mental health workers were fed up with me.  He also said to me 'If you want to  be a good person..' as though I was some kind of moral degenerate.

    I've been i the psychiatric system since 1973 and it's only since moving to be near my daughter in September 2017 that I've been treated well . That's because my daughter set the record re a number of falsehoods about me that had become entrenched. That was done with the mental health services here in Wiltshire, before I moved from Essex.

    In Essex I had a  mental health team ,including pdocs, who thought that being hypercritical and negative about me was a good proxy for proper help and support. I was seen as being passive aggressive and obstructive because I didn't fit the expected pattern of good at everything/bad at everything/average at everything.   There was zero awareness that that's not how it is for some of us.

    I very much follow the common, but not universal , pattern among those who are autistic of adaptive functioning <IQ. There being a sizeable gap between the two. A lack of support for genuine difficulties  + struggling with the effects of bullying related trauma = psychologically toxic,highly damaging, brew.