who has trouble making friends & feeling different from everyone else?

One of the things that really frustrates me is I don't seem to know how to give the right cues to become part of a conversation. I seem to have to butt in or just give up waiting for an opening and walk away. I am talking about conversations at social gatherings where others walk up and join the conversation without issue.

I hate feeling not as sharp because I was extremely intelligent in school. I'm sure it's not a side effect everyone gets though. The meds also make me less creative. I used to write stories all the time and can't think of plots any more. I used to draw in pencil & charcoal, mainly faces, and I was good at it (as long as I could work from a picture). I found a bunch of those drawings I did cleaning my office, signed and dated '96. I don't think I've drawn since then. I should probably re-try my hand at it. I have a nephew would took up painting and is getting very good at it, starting from very basic concepts that were nothing outstanding. He lives 4-6 hours away though. But there are times my parents keep my 2 nephews, and then they are closer. The nephew who paints is 13 but strangely outgoing and not isolating the way you'd think a lot of teenagers would (his 11 year old brother definitely isolates, he barely comes out of his room whenever I visit my sister). But my mom already had the boys a couple weeks this summer; she probably won't have them over again. I need to ask though.

Oh, and there are also the medications that make you randomly forget common words you know. I taught microbiology lab to undergraduates when I was in grad school, and one of the meds I was on had me forgetting the names of very basic microbiology equipment, microscrope parts, even E. coli, for crying out loud! College microbiology labs use strains of E. coli that do not pose much threat to humans (well, I wouldn't eat them off an agar plate or drink a media tube of them). They are basically the gold standard in college micro. I had to go off whatever med that was.

But I still are on some that make me forget common words from time to time or form sentences that are a little weird because I can't think of what I want to say the right way when I'm talking. The words all come out, just in a very strange order. It doesn't happen all the time, thank goodness.

The other issue I always get is dry mouth. I hardly have been on any psych med without that side effect. I chew a lot of sugar-free gum because it. My dentist also says the dry mouth is not good for the health of your teeth.

One med gave me ringing ears, either Effexor or Wellbutrin, I can't remember which, but it went away when I stop the med.

Some meds cause fatigue, like Seroquel. But for me, the Seroquel I take puts me to sleep at night and by morning, I don't deal with the fatigue. If I'm up later than intended after I have taken my night meds, I really start slurring my words, like I'm drunk or something. It is very noticeable by both my husband and daughter.

Some people deal with weight gain, but I only had that issue on the first psych med I took, Remeron, which I never researched. I was always hungry (never full) and tired on it. When I researched it, I found out that nearly everyone on Remeron reacts to it this way, so it is not often prescribed (I was recovering from anorexia, but uncontrollable weight gain and not feeling full is not the way to do it).

There are tons of side effects, varying person to person and in intensity too, changing with the med cocktail you usually take as well. Medication is not an exact science.

Oh, me too! I don't know if this is something I inherited from my father as I think he is on the autism spectrum with Aspergers, only in his case, he doesn't read the social cues or care and just keeps talking over everyone.

But for me, I can't always read the cues or know what to say or find an opening, and I care about it and feel left out and different from everyone else. Being around other people in social situations (parties especially) stresses me out to no end. Now that my daughter is in school, she gets invited to birthday parties, and when we go, I never can comfortably talk with the other parents and usually sit off to myself. Also, I don't drink (at some of these parties, beer flows freely). It's not good with the meds, but in reality, I've just never been big on drinking, sometimes a glass of red wine with dinner if the host had it, but since my husband doesn't drink either, we don't have alcohol in the house (probably a good thing as a lot of people on my mother's side of the family are alcoholics).

Yes, I had a clear moment in second grade where I realized that I just wasn't like others. (Previous to that year I didn't talk to anyone at school. Too shy.) I definitely have issues with trying to make friends. Had one big social increase in late high school/early university (where my first massive depression hit and I had to drop out), but it was an anomoly (very likely some hypo involved, but who knows for sure). I, too, just don't click with people. Then like 9 years ago, I met someone with whom I totally hit it off(!) It was awesome!
He died.

That sucked big time. The only such person in my adult life, took some 25 years to find, then it was gone within a year (or 2??? I'm terrible with time.) We did have a LOT of fun for the 9 months we got to hang out though. (We lived in different locales after those 9 months, hence the time weirdness.)

A couple other fits and starts, but nothing really lasted. I have a VERY hard time letting people in, and I'm sure not going to bother if there's no click to start with. Most of the time I'm just a listening someone, nodding at various junctures. Unless they hit on a topic like one of my obsessions, I really don't have much to say. I just can never quite relate. Cannot relate to women (you will NEVER find me yapping with the invariable gaggle in the kitchen at a social gathering, and once crawled away underneath a table to get away from "women talk"(!) Lol.) And people seem to be weird about your being friends with guys, so where does that leave me, you know? I do like dogs!

Yes!! This is me too.

I'm the oldest of 3 sisters. I've got the typical first-child personality traits, perfectionistic, straight A student, great in school. My middle sister also is very typical of middle children, a peacemaker, fits in easily, talks to everyone, people feel comfortable around her right away. Out of the 3 of us, she has the most friends. My youngest sister is a bit of both, I guess. She is 5 years younger than I am, so growing up, it was a large enough age gap where she remembers being home alone with my mom all the time before she started school. Nowadays, the age gap isn't an issue. But she was like me in getting straight A's through high school and college. She could make friends much easier though.

I am so sorry about the loss of your middle sister. I don't know if a person ever gets over a thing like that. My mother was 1 of 5 kids. One day, when she was around 13, the oldest (the only boy) and her oldest sister both drowned swimming in a river, caught in a current. They were very young, around 19 & 17. My mom has never gotten over it and neither has my grandmother, who is still living. My poor grandmother has had a very tough life, that just one of many difficult things she's had to endure. And it happens that she shared her birthday with her son who drowned. Neither my mom nor my grandmother or aunts talk much about it.

I'm just not very social. I'm 51, female, been on disability benefits for 20 years, divorced, no kids, parents dead and not in touch with my surviving siblings. I haven't met anyone who appeals in a long time. I have one conversation a week, with a Scrabble mate who picks me up. I prefer when we talk about Scrabble tho our lives do have parallels in that she has limitations due to some side effects from chemo from years ago and i have limitations due to bipolar and neither of us is well enough to go in Scrabble tournaments which pains us both. We're just club players.

Other than that, i'm on my own. I have a sweet dog for company and i enjoy talking nonsense to her. I mean, i'm really on my own -- not like people who say they're alone and then you find out they have a loving spouse and children and parents and siblings, like in that novel, supposedly about loneliness, by Douglas Coupland, "Eleanor Rigby." What a crock that was.


I don't really mind. I don't really have anything to say. Also, twenty years ago when i was extremely sick for a few years and became destitute, there was nothing to do but socialize, as that was free and i think i talked enough for a lifetime then. I remember talking on the phone for three hours once. Now i don't even answer my phone. It's been years since i talked on the phone socially.

I'm too exhausted by my meds to pursue friendships. I don't really see the point. If the topic is not Scrabble-related i quickly lose interest. I'm glad to be middle-aged and past all that pressure to be social i felt as a teen and young adult. That was awful.