Loneliness and Asperger's Syndrome

Few others I think can understand the frustration and difficulties that come along with being on the spectrum. I found an interesting website that sums up the loneliness…

I thought that I would include some additional information by sharing what I experience. The following italic text is from an email that I wrote to a neurotypical family member:

We have two different ways of communicating, that we both interpret differently. I tend to hear words. You sense hidden meanings behind them. Looking for those messages is not innate to me. When I do look, I am usually wrong. This is perfect for misunderstanding.

Relationships are not my forte nor is expression. Things most people find easy are difficult and unnatural to me. It does not mean, I don't care or feel; I just don't know how to show it very well or what to do. When I do know what to do, it often does not feel right, because I don't feel the emotion behind it. It feels like deception. Yuck! My problems with imagining what others feel makes it difficult, too. Feelings seem to be muted in those circumstances. Sometimes, my feelings are also delayed. This can appear as if I lack empathy, but I don't.

My sensitive nature or my 'thin skin' is how I navigate relationships. (I assume everyone feels like me.) It compensates for my weaknesses in the other areas, that I have mentioned in the previous paragraph. I use it as my guide to show what I hope is respect.

My bouts of silence are actually me processing what I have heard. People have noticed my moments of silence and usually misconstrue that as me being offended or uncomfortable. It is not.

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Social interaction is such a challenge for me that I have sought therapy to improve it so that I can relate to the neurotypical world better. Now, I am learning and realizing how this impacts relationships and all kinds of interaction with others.

One strategy I came up with is rules:

My use of rules also helps. Eg. I will not discuss my areas of expertise or ‘special interests’ with anyone. It takes effort but I do it to protect myself from criticism and boring others. I used to hear comments such as, “Okay, enough now” or “You are so boring” frequently.

Another rule I have is not to intrude. Sometimes, I can ask a lot of questions because I cannot figure out how someone feels. I try very hard to limit them so I don’t come across as nosey. Interpreting nonverbal signs is hard for me, even the emotions our faces convey. I have to compensate somehow, and right now it is with questions.

Show interest in others. Ask. People like that so I set this as another rule.

Without these rules to guide me, I forget. For most this is almost effortless, but to me it is tiring. I try.

I just hope this helps reduce the chances of coming across as arrogant, intimidating, shy, quiet, and boring.
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Body language is another issue for most people with an ASD. Most don't know how to use it properly or it does not match the emotion the person is feeling. My affect is usually muted but can be blunted depending on my anxiety levels and the situation.

Obviously, there is a lot more to body language than what I have just mentioned from the clothes we wear to tone of voice. I have never paid much attention to this, since I have always relied on voice. Looking for these faint signals is work, since I have to think and interpret them.

Often, I behave in a certain way because I am concentrating on what is being said or something internal is going on.

Here are some examples:

#1. I am a super smeller who easily gets nauseated. If one smells bad, I tend to keep 3 or 4 feet away. Some people are disturbed by this. I do it because I don’t want to gag in front of them. Do you want to see me throw up?

#2. When I talk with people, I rarely make eye contact. I have never done this, because I cannot focus on the other person’s words. I am not disinterested or trying to deceive.

#3. When I fold my arms or cross my legs it is for comfort. I don’t do that to let others know I am mad or want to be left alone.

I tend not to imply what I want with body language. I just ask.

My quiet and vague nature can deter people from getting to know me. My therapist pointed out that this can appear as if I am shutting people out when I have no such intention. Getting information out of me can take effort and wear people out. It can even anger some. This usually causes them to back off. Sometimes, I need to think about what a feel, since identifying feelings is a challenge.
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Life for me is existing in the periphery. Friendships have never been easy. I was the most unpopular kid in my school. Even at 34, I still struggle, since I am not charismatic. People tend to find me unlikeable or don't want to bother. It is depressing but I have accepted this. I make up for it in other ways.

I have decided to share my experience to let others know what living with an ASD is like. It is brutal but it isn’t a curse. It is a part of me that I cannot deny.

I'm one of those that don't feel lonely. That is because I was always able to make friends, friends I find interesting. Even when I didn't mix with people much for a year in a new city, I communicated with old friends through mail. These days I like my Internet friends, some I have known for more than a decade. I don't have many real life friends, but I have them as well.

I don't mind that so much. Sometimes I actually think I AM arrogant at times. I try not to be, and I faked it so much that I feel I'm losing myself.

Some people don't "allow" me to ask back. Some people seem to want to put me in the position where they ask me things, and I cannot ask back unless I really break their stream of words. It's not only on my part. They realize they can get away from having to contribute by trying to trigger me to talk about my stuff. I'm basically never told I go on about my stuff, because I limit it. I do wait for answers, I communicate rather than speak at. Only time is when I feel I'm lecturing is when I explain a fact, and it sounds.... lecturing. Sigh.

I'm socially clumsy because I am and because I allow it. I don't mind being different and sometime I use "not understanding" so I can just stop playing the "game" which I can play if I put my mind to it. But I notice some people actually appreciate a bit of fresh air. So I select situations where I don't censor myself. I also don't speak in metaphors, I speak mostly in absolutes.

Childhood was quite OK, so is adult life. Teens were the hardest to mix with as a teen myself, since normal teens are hyperfocused on socializing, and cut back drastically on content. They overdo the socializing stuff to find a balance later in life. Kids are in a way, "more" autistic in their style of communicating.

I have realized that sacrificing who you are, really isn't worth it. I'm not saying you should be rude on purpose or anything like that, but I refuse to blend in where I don't want to blend in. Who I am is very important to me. I do feel other people might have a problem understanding me, especially my emotions, but I think it is a lack of practice and sometimes laziness on their behalf. Almost daily I have to practice THEIR types of communication, so I know them better than they know me. Since they are many, I will just have to accept it. I don't feel inferior in any way.

I socialize when I want to and sometimes when I don't want to as well. I need time to myself. I wouldn't want the "normal" type of socializing, like getting drunk and annoying in a bar. I don't want to perfect that since I really would dislike it, I don't say I would fail it, just not interested. We have much more fun at, say, my night classes. Usually a lot of interesting and funny people show up.

This is just from MY OWN perspective. I don't feel lonely because.. I don't. I feel sometimes it is a shame people don't understand me, that can feel lonely I suppose. But I have realized there aren't people like me, not even on the spectrum. I mostly hang out with people with ADHD, we seem to complement each other well and we have fun. Even when true understanding is lacking.

I always knew, I was different. It wasn't a problem, prior to the age of ten when socializing and status were not important. My eccentricities were tolerated. Children were much more direct, that I don't recall guessing what their intentions might be. I was free to be me.

In adolescence communication became more subtle and indirect. For a lady who does not read nonverbal communication very well, this was very confusing. It made it extremely difficult to relate so I ended up existing on the periphery with no real friends. I lacked all the image, popularity and other superficial qualities that were admired.

I am glad this is over.

I agree with this. It hinders emotional growth.

As an Aspie myself I never actually experience loneliness. In fact, I rather enjoy being alone. However, occasionally I do desire to have some sort of intimate connection with someone else, but I don't really make an effort towards that. I'd rather stay introverted, presonally. As it might be expected as something an introvert would say, I think making new friends and keeping them would be too much work and not worth the effort ultimately, though I understand there are many advantages to having friends. Perhaps I am not very concerned about it because I have plenty of things to occupy myself with in the meantime, including books and music. But, I don't remember the last time I felt I was lonely.

I feel quite lonely much of the time even when around people...but yeah if people are going to ostracize and mistreat someone because they are different than the norm why would I want to learn to come off as more 'normal' to get along better with those kinds of people? I experienced a lot of not so good things at the hands of other kids and teachers at school as a child, and to me that is not motivation to become normalized that is motivation to remain disturbed by a society that's based on keeping up with the competition and playing the game of social hierarchy or whatever.

But does this mean I refuse to have any interaction with people...I just prefer people who can relate to me, or who I can relate to that have some similar experiences and ways of thinking rather than those who go along with mainstream society and all its ills...I like being around people I am accepted by I admit though sometimes I cannot even trust those people accept me, I get paranoid rather frequently that even those close to me just pretend to enjoy my existance to avoid making me feel bad or I get worried they're mad at me if I haven't heard from them in a while. I am I guess traumatized by all that ostracism and bullying I experienced as a child so I have a hard time convincing myself anyone would actually enjoy my company.

I am new on PsychCentral. I mentioned in my introductory post that I was diagnosed with AS on 4/12/1996. I often claim I've only had issues with loneliness since my paternal grandfather died on 2/5/2004. I barely miss him anymore, but if I say too much about him I'll start crying.

The very next night (2/6/2004), most of the friends I thought I had pushed me away within a matter of minutes. It started with the DeafBlind & those who defend them threatening to send authorities after me. Once I decided I'll never attempt to read sign language visually again & insist on tactile signing at all times because the Deaf sighted get angry when I stop understanding them, I was also ostracised from their subgroup in the signing community. Most sign language students are ladies who are dating/engaged to/married to men who are not also learning sign language. When their men notice I only wanna sign with them and shun their men, the men get jealous & break me & my female friends apart. Now I claim to be ostracized from the entire signing community. Since proving my auditory processing disorder in May of 2010, I have been using tactile interpreters a few times a year. But when I use interpreters is the only time I sign.

I can only understand a small percentage of spoken words, & only when listening conditions are absolutely perfect (only one person talking, no background noise at all, speech rate no faster than 80 words per minute, speaker does not have any foreign/regional accent throwing me off, etc). I cannot socialize in crowds of non-signers.

Any more I don't want a social life. At least the DeafBlind got me to accept human touch by showing me how good it feels to be touched in the right ways by someone I communicate well with. One DeafBlind lady decided to cuddle with me. She showed me that I can get ALL the touch I need plus so much more from just ONE person by cuddling with a girlfriend. Even though she was playing with my emotions, I learned from that experience that cuddling with a girlfriend is a far better way to get my need for touch fulfilled than being popular with the DeafBlind. The way she touched my hands to receive tactile sign is the only touch that I can only get from another tactile signer. All the other touches she gave are touches that that any able-bodied human being is capable of giving.

But I continue to read that having a social life is a prerequisite for having a girlfriend. Someone please disprove that! I cannot have a social life! I refuse to patronize most public establishments because anyone & everyone whose children are birth to age eight are so inconsiderate, letting their brats run around & squEEEEEEEEEEEal, which irritates me to the core due to my hypersensitive hearing! If I complain about the noise to the parents' faces, they snap @ me, insisting the reason their children squEEEEEEEEEEEal is "because they're kids", and "if they make me mad because they're kids" to "deal w/it". That is some BULLS***! One of these times I fear a loud shouting match between me & another patron of the Tustin Public Library where I go online because I do not have a computer nor internet in my home.

This morning I cried for half an hour over the fact that today is the 3rd anniversary of my last cuddle with the abovementioned DeafBlind lady, which means I have gone 3 years without much needed cuddles.

My first reaction to this post was: "Did somebody else live my life before me?" *Irony intended*

I certainly can relate to this, and I believe many of the other aspies I know will do the same.
This is definitely something I will have to take in to consideration the next time I feel overwhelmed whit loneliness.

Thank you for posting this

Thank you so much for posting your experiences...so much of this mirrors my own experiences that it is positively scary yet affirming at the same time! I had a difficult time in childhood particularly with making friends, and was puzzled when told by a well-meaning adult to "act naturally" to make friends. I've been told that I come off as 'aloof', and have learned to somewhat adapt as an adult--I'm 42 now--by smiling more and picking up some social skills over the years. I've had a couple of times where I have caught myself starting to ramble on about one topic too long or being too quiet but that was back in my 30's...

I also still am seen as a bit odd, but honestly it does not bother me anymore. It bothered me when I was in my early teens and wanted badly to fit in with everyone else and be "normal". I had been bullied all the way from kindergarten, so at age 16 just decided that nothing I was going to do would please everyone and decided that if they were going to tease me anyhow, I may as well be myself. The bullying didn't entirely stop, but I got more comfortable with who I was and started to learn how to stand up for myself and others.

I'm married and have a couple of close friends so didn't do too badly. Prior to getting married and having close friends, I did get lonely but it was pretty rare. Another odd quirk that I have is some little stupid event will happen (i.e.: mobile phone stops working) and I will start crying. The funny thing about it is that I'm never crying about the silly little event that set me off, it's always from all of the other events over the past few weeks and some other depressing thoughts on top of it that cause me to go off. That little habit of mine always takes my husband by surprise, since it's never the bigger events that set me off...

No one really believes me when I tell them that loneliness has not been an overarching theme of my life, despite always being alone.

I do have moments when I am intensely lonely. It's not so much longing for a friend as much as a deep hopelessness about never growing up emotionally and never "fitting in" anywhere. I am always embarrassed about my solitude. I don't like telling people about my weekend activities because there is always an absence of other people in my stories. I don't like always showing up to social affairs all alone. Alienation is an emotion akin to loneliness, I think. I feel alienated all the time.

But being with people is rarely something I want. It's exhausting work, being social. The upside of socializing with others is not readily apparent to me. Perhaps there was a time when I wanted to have friends, but I don't remember this. I always remember needing lots of space and preferring my own world above others.

My struggle is balancing blending in with others for practical reasons with being the lone wolf all the time. To have financial independence, you must deal with people and their complexities. There is no such thing as not "playing the game" when you have to feed yourself and pay the bills. Sometimes I really really hate playing the game, and I get depressed that it's such a chore. But I like being financially independent. So I keep up the struggle and just live for the weekends.

I agree with you Mr Venomous. It is definitely a lonely experience. I am a teenager waiting for an Autism assessment. No matter how much i tell people, they don't believe or trust me. Sometimes i wonder what is the point talking to a psychologist when he doesn't believe me too like all the other people in my life. I really want to have friends but I have problems making friends and maintaining them. I have only one friend currently but we are on the verge of breaking up too... I think it is best for us Autistic people not to have any friends as people don't understand us and they feel frustrated and depressed talking to us. We are only wasting their time.

Hello all ,
Thank you all for sharing I really learnt so much from all your experiences ,#I have a son who is 11 and is an Aspie which breaks my heart everyday as his mood can be so so low or dangerous only to himself ,I also know my Husband has Asperger's but at 43 he wont go to be assessed and I respect his decision ,I also have 2 other sons 1 is a typical happy go luck kid while my oldest is suffering low moods for 3 years now but since I was told I had BPD I can see a lot in him also ,well thanks all for the bits of information I got here its really helped and if I can ever help in any way dont hesisate and ask

agreed ...

Although we feel happy having someone to talk to about our interests and obsessions.

We have to just smile, nod and keep quiet with other people. If we start, we can't stop. So the best thing is to keep quiet and not start anything at all.

I went 38 years without being diagnosed. It is only in the last 5 months that the diagnosis of "AS" has been considered. I had never heard of it prior to that. However, when I read the description, I felt like somebody had written down almost my entire life.

SUPER sensitive to my environment (hearing, especially). I would think I was crazy because I could hear sounds that other could not.

Worse is my inability to make friends/meet women.

I have no 'friends', only acquaintances.

I have been out on 4 dates in my entire life. Everything went fine when we emailed/IM each other because ambiguity is inherent in the method of communication. When it came time to meet, I found myself either uninterested, unattracted or was the one who was a disappointment to them.

Now, being 39, the dating scene seems to have no room for someone who doesn't know how to date. I don't understand the nuiances of dating. I wonder if there are any 'groups' that cater to people with AS?

The WORST part of being 'me' (whether AS or just my emotional health in general) I don't even know HOW to love. I don't know what it is, how it feels and/or if I am CAPABLE of the emotion.

I don't know if anybody can say/do anything to help but I PRAY that a magic response will 'click'. Otherwise, I am facing the rest of my life ALONE! In which case, what do I have to live for?

The hardest part for me is knowing that other people are lonely and I'm just too...stupid...to help much. So often I feel I am doing them a favor by staying away, only to find out later (obviously) that was not a good idea for either one of us. Pretty much every relationship I've had that ended, ended that way. Oh, man, how dumb.

Kittycat, not true. You aren't wasting anybody's time and underestimate yourself too much.

A good psychologist can help you learn to communicate better. You're lucky that you're young enough to be helped. My generation recieved no such help.

Someday, someone will want to be your friend. They will NEED you to be your friend, and you will discover you can do this. I have only had a few close, close friendships in my life, but I found that one on one, I could do this. And they needed me as a friend. It was not hard at all, because love led the way. I only wish I could do that at will, lol.

So stick with the counseling, ok? It can help, but it's not magic.

So so wrong. What we need are people around us who try to understand, who make the effort to help us when we need it- just like we'd do for them. We have to make the effort to try and work through problems rather than blame them on the autism (speaking in general here- this tends to happen by habit rather than choice). I have had only 3 or 4 friends in my life actually "stick" with me. They're not "Neurotypical" or "normal" by any means- Their issues range from PTSD, OCD to possibly Schizoid. But they love me for who I am, despite the problems that being autistic bring. They get 'short' or upset with me sometimes, when I step over social boundaries that I don't understand. BUT instead of leaving me, they take a step back and help me understand what happened. They look out for me when I need it most. Like true friends. It takes a lot to find someone like that- but really, it makes life so much better when you know you have someone to lean on, someone you can just enjoy time with and not feel stressed out about being around them. Keep trying. I totally know how painful it is to lose friends, and how much it hurts to pick yourself up and try again. But really ,it's worth it. It's worth it when you find that one friend who won't leave you, no matter what you throw at them.

All of this is like a bright light suddenly blazing in a darkened room for me! I have always had problems hearing conversations when there are other noises going on around me and I was convinced I must be going deaf. Now it turns out that I'm simply unable to mentally filter out all the background ambience and focus on whoever's talking to me.

I often fly into a rage if I'm interrupted while concentrating on a task. I'm hopeless at multi-tasking.

Well, you get the picture!

Personally, I just prefer not to hang around people I would have to do that around. There are those that aren't so ignorant and judgmental though which are fine to talk to.

I am a loner - I push people away from me. But then I long for human interaction. I have always only been able to have one friend at a time. Which makes it super duper lonely when I have a disagreement with that one friend and I choose to punish them by distancing myself - which really only punishes me.
But I can't help it - I have currently been distancing myself from my bff for the past year or so. She asked me to email her tonight and I am purposefully not emailing her. I know nothing I am doing is punishing to her - she has replaced me - and I'm pretending to be alright without her. . . but I am so lonely. I really need to get over myself - I believe she would take me back as her bff. I might try though - make it my new years resolution to get over it. . .

I need some advice please ,as some of you are aware I have an 11 year old son who has Asperger's my husband also has it and spent most of his life hiding from the world (still does) Now my Son doesnt sit with us he goes to school comes home gets his homework done and then goes to his room listening to music :-( .My husband thinks thats ok but I know it is not and I try get him to come places with me (even tough I hate leaving house ) but I DO NOT want my son to end up like us , He say's he prefer's being alone but just sitting for hours with his ipod is NOT healthy and his team of doctors have said he may need an anti depressant :-( how can I give my son them at such a young age :-( Any of you lovely people go through this at a young age or anybody have any advice on meds for an 11 year old . Thanks for reading XXXX

wow, it is good to know I am not alone in all this.