Mental health club!

[Deception He/Him]

1 minute ago, Myst said:

Social Anxiety sucks

True. Should I put that on sharder one liners? Lol.

Whenever I find a new place (new school, sports team, whatever), I always make about 3 really good friends and just completely alienate everyone else without meaning to. Then I end up getting bullied, and the 3 good friends I did make get bullied by association sometimes. It sucks. Does this happen to you?

[Aeoryi she/her]

5 minutes ago, Deception said:

Aaand there is the problem. "You will withdraw from spaces you are not". So, (school/college/work - not about to reveal my age)? Yea, I think I'm stuck for a while. Besides I have a massive friends and followers network on Roblox so sometimes I literally pull waves of friendly people behind me when I enter a server, which definitely helps. A bit harder to do that in real life.

I mean I've always associated roblox with children imo so I assumed you were on the younger side. Older folk have a way about words that's unique to them alone, in that sense.

6 minutes ago, Deception said:

Real life friendship making:

I tend to avoid prodding people who don't want to be prodded, but for the most part a lot of it comes down to making friends organically. So like, I have a few friends who I've made by being teammates with them, or doing labs together with them. Sometimes we have mutual friends, or I let them copy my homework or we talk about test questions.  So I make acquaintances really fast. But trying to force social interaction like this reads as extremely uncomfortable for both parties- you want friends who are friends with you because you share common ground, not friends who are friends with you for the sole sake of having someone to call a friend. 

5 minutes ago, Myst said:

AND IT DOESNT GET BETTER ONCE YOURE ACTUALLY FRIENDS EITHER!!

Me: hey [name]

Them: Hi!

*awkward silence*

Me: so… uhm… How’s life been?

Social Anxiety sucks

Try asking them "how's this thing going?" Or "did you hear about this?" Or a loaded question that helps a lot. 

Like with my friends, we always joke about how physics class has time dialation to always last longer, or that if you zone out for thirty seconds you'll just be so far behind you might as well give up. And in math, I and my friends just make fun of another person (lovingly, of course). In acting, my friends share gossip with me that I would've never known of before. 

but once again you gotta let things just flow organically. 

2 minutes ago, Deception said:

True. Should I put that on sharder one liners? Lol.

Whenever I find a new place (new school, sports team, whatever), I always make about 3 really good friends and just completely alienate everyone else without meaning to. Then I end up getting bullied, and the 3 good friends I did make get bullied by association sometimes. It sucks. Does this happen to you?

I protect my friends with a fierce compassion and I am on good enough terms with everyone to the point where a lot of people are friendly to me- granted, it did take many years of growing a reputation as a person people could like, but it was well worth it. 

definitely before secondary, I had problems with a small friend group and then being picked on by the sharks of the grade.

Protect your friends. And they will protect you too

 

[Myst He/Him]

3 minutes ago, Deception said:

True. Should I put that on sharder one liners? Lol.

Whenever I find a new place (new school, sports team, whatever), I always make about 3 really good friends and just completely alienate everyone else without meaning to. Then I end up getting bullied, and the 3 good friends I did make get bullied by association sometimes. It sucks. Does this happen to you?

Oh no, I usually don’t make friends with the people when I join something new, I talk to those three people when I am at that thing and nowhere else.

But I also don’t alienate anyone either I’m sure if I went up and talked to anyone on the swim team, despite the fact that I only talk to two of the people on it, and know the names of like 5 of them, they’d all be chill with me.

I have good friends though

4 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

Try asking them "how's this thing going?" Or "did you hear about this?" Or a loaded question that helps a lot. 

Like with my friends, we always joke about how physics class has time dialation to always last longer, or that if you zone out for thirty seconds you'll just be so far behind you might as well give up. And in math, I and my friends just make fun of another person (lovingly, of course). In acting, my friends share gossip with me that I would've never known of before. 

but once again you gotta let things just flow organically.

That’s great and all except for that I don’t see them often enough to be able to make that loaded question, if that makes sense. 

[Deception He/Him]

2 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

but once again you gotta let things just flow organically.

Which works unless it doesn't. And the entire problem with autism is that the definition of things "flowing organically" is just totally different for an autistic person. Sometimes things work, generally if the other person is also ND or if you just get really lucky, but a lot of the time they just don't.

6 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

Like with my friends, we always joke about how physics class has time dialation to always last longer, or that if you zone out for thirty seconds you'll just be so far behind you might as well give up

Joking does seem to be a universal language of sorts between autistic and neurotypical people, so that does help.

6 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

I mean I've always associated roblox with children imo so I assumed you were on the younger side. Older folk have a way about words that's unique to them alone, in that sense

That assumption, again, may or may not be correct. I will not reveal my age. Sorry.

[Aeoryi she/her]

5 minutes ago, Myst said:

That’s great and all except for that I don’t see them often enough to be able to make that loaded question, if that makes sense. 

ah okay, no worries then. 

they sound like they want to talk to you about stuff. If they've talked about things they were going to do in the past (like buy a car or a dog or paint their hair green) you could ask them about that. If you really haven't seen things in a while, you could ask how things are going. But if these friends were not super close in the past, you can still ask these sorts of questions and you'll get to know your friend even better! It's quite good. 

I think a lot of the time social anxiety really strikes hardest at the start of a conversation, before you get talking, so having a few strategies to "get over the hill" so to speak is probably beneficial. (You don't have to use the ones I provided either! But having a plan can really really help)

[Myst He/Him]

2 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

I think a lot of the time social anxiety really strikes hardest at the start of a conversation, before you get talking, so having a few strategies to "get over the hill" so to speak is probably beneficial. (You don't have to use the ones I provided either! But having a plan can really really help)

This.

That.

Yes.

[Aeoryi she/her]

3 minutes ago, Myst said:

This.

That.

Yes.

Glad I could help

[Deception He/Him]

Ok I don't want to sound like I'm advertising or something but you should check out the new RP that I'm trying to start, I think it has potential to be really fun.

You can ignore this if you want but I think you would have fun.

[Myst He/Him]

18 minutes ago, Deception said:

Ok I don't want to sound like I'm advertising or something but you should check out the new RP that I'm trying to start, I think it has potential to be really fun.

You can ignore this if you want but I think you would have fun.

I’m not good with RPs, I tend to be active in the beginning and then I fall off pretty quickly

[Keteᛕ He/Him/His]

I didn't know one could cry on the last day of school.

But this morning I was kicked from a chat group directly after I confirmed my AuDHD-

I just can't believe this.

So I cried. I managed to suck it up around my parents, but I cried.

[Verdance he/him]

55 minutes ago, Through The Living Ketek said:

I didn't know one could cry on the last day of school.

But this morning I was kicked from a chat group directly after I confirmed my AuDHD-

I just can't believe this.

So I cried. I managed to suck it up around my parents, but I cried.

nooooo

i hate that

7 hours ago, Deception said:

Good point. Sure would understand you better than some random kid struggling with a completely unrelated problem like it sometimes is in mental health groups.

I guess there's also just also a very strong correlation between people that are active on this forum and people with mental health issues, neurodiverse people, and a lot of other minority groups. I don't know if this is because of the actual topic of the forum or just because there is such a good diverse community here though.

I actually don't think I've seen a single real insult, bad cursing, slurs, or even any hate against the LGBTQIA+ community, which is very common on the internet. Someone could post a question here with "Gay | Trans | Autistic | Depressed | Latino" in their signature box in big red letters and (from what I've seen at least) get the same responses as a random typical white dude. This is rare on the internet, although it is getting better. I think this is one of the real reasons people like us gravitate towards this forum.

 

Ok ok sorry. I'm not trying to judge. I just think it's interesting that everyone here is on a book forum of all things. I'm including myself in that "everyone".

6 hours ago, Aeoryi said:

we uphold a high community standard on the shard. You will not see bigotry of any kind here.

Ehhh i make decisions with ambiguous amounts of responsibility related to the internet all the time

i actually appreciate it when something like this gets pointed out

the real moral problem with this child is that he plays roblox

[Keteᛕ He/Him/His]

1 minute ago, Verdance said:

i hate that

And I can't talk to them IRL bcos they're my old Atlanta friends from before I moved, and I don't want to contact them individually.

I just feel so unimportant and unhelpful and unwanted

I just don't get it none of them were toxic but they just all seemed to become toxic once I said I was autistic. I didn't even do anything. And I'm not the only one who moved away from Atlanta, so it's not that either.

[Verdance he/him]

5 minutes ago, Through The Living Ketek said:

And I can't talk to them IRL bcos they're my old Atlanta friends from before I moved, and I don't want to contact them individually.

I just feel so unimportant and unhelpful and unwanted

Thats actually really rude

im really sorry man that sucks

[#1 Taln Fan he/him]

7 hours ago, Deception said:

still... a book forum? Not telling people to stop using this, it's really good, but again: a book forum? Really?

It is interesting yeah. And as a reminder: while I think this forum is better than many out there, it’s still fully visible to everyone with an internet connection, and that’s a good thing to keep in mind.

7 hours ago, Aeoryi said:

we uphold a high community standard on the shard. You will not see bigotry of any kind here.

While maybe less than some forums, there are unfortunately still some trolls and assholes that show up from time to time. They just get banned swiftly 

[Keteᛕ He/Him/His]

5 hours ago, Through The Living Ketek said:

I didn't know one could cry on the last day of school.

But this morning I was kicked from a chat group directly after I confirmed my AuDHD-

I just can't believe this.

So I cried. I managed to suck it up around my parents, but I cried.

...and even though now I've had the guts to text two of them individually- there's a read receipt but no response for both of them.

[Deception He/Him]

16 hours ago, Myst said:

I’m not good with RPs, I tend to be active in the beginning and then I fall off pretty quickly

I don't care, you can still join. If you are inactive for too long we can just kill off your character lol.

11 hours ago, Verdance said:

the real moral problem with this child is that he plays roblox

Hey! Roblox is fine...

sometimes...

If anyone bullies me on Roblox I can just say "I would have given you 300 robux but you were mean so now I won't" and they believe me for some reason and get all nice lol.

So, employing that tactic, you can avoid bullying. Mostly.

Yea ok roblox is toxic. Fine.

 

[Usseewa]

22 minutes ago, Deception said:

If anyone bullies me on Roblox I can just say "I would have given you 300 robux but you were mean so now I won't" and they believe me for some reason and get all nice lol.

thats ... not good imo

but maybe u said to it for the toxic argument

23 minutes ago, Deception said:

Yea ok roblox is toxic. Fine.

for some divine comedy

 

inhaventplayed roblox in yearsss

[Deception He/Him]

The thing is, I don't really mind roblox because the hate is coming online from strangers. I couldn't care less what random online people I met 5 seconds ago think about me. It only hurts if it comes from someone I know reasonably well, or if they say it in person.

Spoiler

Sometimes I even treat the Roblox stuff as a game. When someone tries to be hateful, I keep acting all friendly to them and see if I can push them to overextend so far even they are sorry for their actions. Everyone has a point at which they say, "ok, that was a little too rude". And it's so worth it when the random hater starts apologizing for no obvious reason.

In fact, I would say that as a baseline, I have great self esteem, confidence, happiness, and other mental health. Maybe even top 1%. The problem is, autism, and specifically autistic masking can really affect a person. Everyone has limits, even if they are quite high, and being constantly avoided in public is definitely a way to find them.

* re-reads response *

* bruh it looks so much like bragging *

* I'm not bragging I swear! *

 

Edit:

Why has this topic been dead for the past 3 days?

Edited June 6 by Deception
Added the part labeled "edit", duh

[GG0z He/Him]

Hi, umm I was recommended by Usseewa to join this thread yesterday, so here I am

don’t really know what to post here yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out

[Verdance he/him]

1 hour ago, GG0z said:

Hi, umm I was recommended by Usseewa to join this thread yesterday, so here I am

don’t really know what to post here yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out

Welcome! Feel free to ask questions or just vent if you need to!

[Deception He/Him]

1 hour ago, GG0z said:

Hi, umm I was recommended by Usseewa to join this thread yesterday, so here I am

don’t really know what to post here yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out

Welcome!

[GG0z He/Him]

10 minutes ago, Verdance said:

Welcome! Feel free to ask questions or just vent if you need to!

10 minutes ago, Deception said:

Welcome!

Thanks! I will once I feel the need to, like yesterday. I feel better now, but that probably won’t last

[Deception He/Him]

Just now, GG0z said:

Thanks! I will once I feel the need to, like yesterday. I feel better now, but that probably won’t last

The pinnacle of optimism.

No, I know what you mean.

[GG0z He/Him]

Just now, Deception said:

The pinnacle of optimism.

No, I know what you mean.

Yeah, thanks. This is the most supportive community I’ve seen ever.

[Deception He/Him]

3 minutes ago, GG0z said:

Yeah, thanks. This is the most supportive community I’ve seen ever.

Thanks! I'm still surprised too about how nice everyone is here. Haven't seen a single toxic post since I joined. 

Good enough community that I was able to put "autistic" in my signature and nobody laughed. Imagine trying to do that on ... well, literally anywhere else.