[Blueberrybook]

I have felt different from other people most of my life that I remember. Some of it was sensory issues I outgrew (wouldn't wear jeans until 4th grade, had to wear socks inside out). However, I very clearly remember a time in kindergarten or first grade when my teacher arranged a class game outside. I wondered why in the world other kids seemed to be having a lot of fun, but I was not having a good time at all, and I hated it. I was a loner on the playground, had a friend in elementary school, but basically she dropped me in middle school and since then, I had no friends in school. I went to a small school, graduated in a class of just over 100 students, and knew everybody. I had chats with other students (mostly over classwork since I was valedictorian), but I was never invited to parties or to do anything outside of group projects outside of school. I always had a hard time sleeping (now I only sleep well because of my med cocktail). I never can remember the names of people I meet the way other people seem to. In high school, I hated my appearance, and often felt left out of things and conversations. I had no idea what in the world was wrong with me. My sisters made friends easily. Everyone else seems to have friends. It is so depressing

When I went to university, I made my one and only good friend. She ended up becoming a vet and eventually moved to Connecticut, so I haven't seen her in years.

I don't know why in the world it is so hard for me to connect with other people and make friends. My only friends right now are my 2 sisters, and they are sort of built-in friends. I took my daughter to all the library groups from baby time through preschool and didn't click with anyone. I never clicked with anyone at church or the gym even though the people were friendly. I tried a group there of women with issues like depression but couldn't get into it. I tried playgroups when my daughter was younger, but again, never met anyone I did a thing with outside of the group meetings, and my parenting style was much different than theirs, so I quit the group. I've been in the PTO and not gotten friendly with anyone. I've gone to adult crafts at the library (usually composed of all women). I belong to 2 book clubs, like the people there but don't do anything with them outside of the meetings. I don't understand why in the world I can't seem to make a single friend I can do things with outside of a group and talk to and relate to. Everyone else seems to have friends. I can't seem to relate to most women, even other mothers, especially since I have a child with so many sensory issues.

And nowadays, with all my psych issues, I don't even know who would understand or even want to be a friend with me. What would be the point? I'd drag everything down with my problems. I recently found out a girl I graduated high school with lives and works not far from my house. Occasionally, I ate lunch with her at school. Instinct tells me I should maybe try to reach out to her on Facebook Messenger, at least get together for coffee or something and chat and see if it's possible to become friends, but I'm scared she won't like me any more. I am definitely not the same person I once was in high school (the overachiever with straight A's). My memory is just not the same and not as sharp as it was before I got on psych meds. I can't do have the stuff I did in college, things like organic chemistry, memorizing complicated biochemistry cycles. I've lost my art creativity. I lost my writing creativity.

I feel like so many of my life experiences just vary from other people so much now. Plus, I live in Texas. This state has to be one of the most conservative states in the whole United States, and my political and parenting views are much more liberal, so it's hard to relate to people that way too, if they start talking politics or parenting, and God knows what they'd think if they knew I had a mental illness. Once, somebody from the neighborhood (after a school shooting) wrote on Nextdoor that they believed everyone with a mental illness or taking a "ming-alternating" drug (by which they met a psych drug) should be on a government watch list. Everyone who responded agreed with them. How can I relate to people like that?

Can anyone else here not make friends or fit in? Did it start at an early age for you? I never had feelings that I was better & above everyone else. Even when manic, I never had feelings of grandiosity.

[unaluna]

Me too. I thought they never had parties where i last worked, then i realized, i just never got invited. My parents were very against me and my brother making friends. We are barely friendly with our cousins, who we spent a lot of time with. And the older i get, the more stingy with my time i get.

[TishaBuv]

I relate a bit to what you feel. I’ve always had a best, inseparable friend or bf, or I’ve had a small group of close friends. But I always felt different from the “normies” and gravitated to the quirky friends.

As an adult, it’s been harder to make real friends. People make friends with ulterior motives of business networking and I refuse to play that game.

But I’ve found that everyone is receptive to getting together for a meal and a movie once in a while. Everyone likes getting an invitation from a friend. Just don’t be a downer by saddling friends with your troubles. Be good company.

[UpDownAround]

I have had a lot of problems with this all my life. Mood swings were a big part of it, but I am quirky even when stable. I am bad about boundaries and taboos. I get taken seriously when I am joking.

[Hobbit House]

You struck a major chord with me. I remember the same disconnect when I was a child. I grew up in a Catholic Orphanage, suffered through a lot of abuse and couldn’t connect to any of the others who were in the orphanage.my adult life has been the same. Luckily I met someone on No Longer Lonely, a website for mentally ill people. I met my wife there. We emailed for a year and met. We got married July 3rd 2005 and just celebrated 14 year anniversary. We are still not social people, we have no friends either who are not online but we don’t care. We have each other.
I can’t tell you’ll find the love of your life online, but you will find friends!

[hexacoda]

I only had a couple friends, but a few acquaintances. One friend just decided she didn't like me anymore one day, another chose my ex fiance over me, and the third I kind of humiliated myself with when I was psychotic and have since avoided. I am just not meant to have friends. I'm too afraid of embarrassing myself again even if I do somehow find someone who wants to be my friend.

My difficulty making and keeping friends started in my teen years. I do not think that my bipolar disorder (which surely started at 14/15) was the main initial reason. Some bad experiences with rejection and disappointment in others were surely the preliminary causes. However, my hypomania/manic behavior did sabotage friendships in my later youth, and still does to a degree to this day in my mid 40s, but I still think the original causes form the root of my issues."

When I say I have difficulty making/keeping friends, I'm mostly referring to female friends (I'm a female). I never recall having these issues with males. I have rarely had issues with comfort around males, and I have also experienced far less judgement from males. I'm not saying all females are judgemental, but my issue makes me more wary of their judgements. I tend to put up a glass wall between myself and other females that doesn't usually exist between me and males.

I was always a very flirtatious woman with men, and enjoyed talking to them. As mentioned, I was much more formal with women. This is not to say that I didn't have female friends at times. In fact, I was well aware of my issues with other females, so deliberately went to a college within a large university that had a female-only campus. Though most of my classes were on other campuses that were co-ed, I lived only around other women. I'm sad to say that my bipolar disorder AND my psych issues with women ruined those friendships eventually. I do not keep touch with any former female friends from university or high school. I do keep in touch with old male friends.

I had some female friends at jobs, but they were not strong friendships. When I left the jobs, the friendships ended. There was one exception, but that friendship ended when she had children. Unfortunately, her life was so different than mine (on disability), that the friendship didn't survive. Plus, there were so many times that I "disappeared", acted strangely, or just gave far less to the relationship than I received, which eventually ended it. Looking back, even with that determined work friend, I still always had a bit of a glass wall in place.

I've been married for over 20 years to a wonderful man. We have never had any marital troubles at all. I've been blessed to have him. He's stuck with me through the worst of times. In fact, he never made it seem like he was tolerating me. He always seemed to support me because he loved me deeply and knew me more than anyone else in my entire life. With me, though it takes some time to trust, once I do, I am very committed and love forever, very deeply, just like my husband.

I was very close to my mother, and love my sister very much, but my my psychiatrist (a male) has pushed me to work on my issue of relationships with women. Over the years, he has strongly urged me to have female therapists. I've had some rough roads with them. I only ever addressed my relationship issues with other women with a therapist I had for 5 years. We only started to work on that therapy goal during the last weeks of our time together. She ended up closing her practice for family reasons. That was so disappointing for me. But I found a WONDERFUL female therapist to replace her. One that I immediately clicked with and felt fully open with. Then such a sad thing happened. She had to move her practice far far north in my state. My husband is actually driving me there every other Saturday while I trial two other therapists. I will soon need to choice one of these trial therapists. I think I know which one may be best. I hope that with her I can make some progress with this therapy goal, but it is difficult reversing a tendency that I've had for so many years.

I have trouble making friends, for me it's a mixture of things:

-my illnesses scare them away

- I don't like people

- I find it difficult to start conversations

- many experiences that people have had I've not had, so their's not really much to talk about.

my idea of a conversation is sitting with someone saying meow said the dog and woof said the cat.

who finds that stimulating?

Originally Posted by unaluna

Me too. I thought they never had parties where i last worked, then i realized, i just never got invited. My parents were very against me and my brother making friends. We are barely friendly with our cousins, who we spent a lot of time with. And the older i get, the more stingy with my time i get.

I've had this too

someone I know was throwing a christmas party and one of their friends go to me, so are you coming?

that person turned around to her friend and goes...

no she isn't, she's not ****ing invited

I guess they don't want my boring company their

[Blueberrybook]

Originally Posted by Hobbit House

You struck a major chord with me. I remember the same disconnect when I was a child. I grew up in a Catholic Orphanage, suffered through a lot of abuse and couldn’t connect to any of the others who were in the orphanage.my adult life has been the same. Luckily I met someone on No Longer Lonely, a website for mentally ill people. I met my wife there. We emailed for a year and met. We got married July 3rd 2005 and just celebrated 14 year anniversary. We are still not social people, we have no friends either who are not online but we don’t care. We have each other.
I can’t tell you’ll find the love of your life online, but you will find friends!

I did meet my husband, oddily enough through online dating (back when online dating sites were just starting up). I had a ton of bad dates from that site. I read the email from my now-husband and nearly deleted it. A couple weeks later, I re-read it and thought he sounded interesting. I wrote him back, and he didn’t respond (I didn’t realize at the time he had gone to visit his parents in California for Christmas, and they did not have internet). When he got back to Houston, he emailed me, we started talking on the phone, and then met. After 2 or 3 weeks, I knew it was going to be a long term relationship. He proposed to me spur-of-the moment around a year later. We ended up eloping and are coming up on our 14th anniversary on August 4. We have a 10 year old daughter who is extremely intelligent but comes with her own set of parenting challenges. So at least I have my own little family though my husband doesn’t always understand the need for meds or that bipolar is there for life.

My mom is fairly understanding, and at least, I get along with my 2 sisters well. My sisters are really the only friends I have that I see regularly, but one of them lives a 4 to 6 hour drive away. The other lives closer, so I see her more often, but it is still a good 40 minute drive to her house, and that is when traffic is good and it’s not rush hour. I don’t have any friends I can easily go visit with a 5 to 10 minute drive.

[Blueberrybook]

Birdancer, I have a harder time with males than females. I have a hard time with everybody, pretty much. Before I got married, I suppose men were easier because I could sleep around (but really sex was all those guys wanted). I have never cheated on my husband or ever even considered it.

[Hobbit House]

I’m glad you have someone in your life that understands and supports you. That makes it all worthwhile!

[Wild Coyote]

I have always felt very different from others, even when very popular while younger. My home life was very traumatic, very stressed, very different from others around me in school. etc.

This has carried over into adult life. I spend a lot of time feeling like I don't fit in.


WC

I had a hard time as a kid. Specifically the year I ate lunch by myself every single day in junior high. In my 20s I kept trying to be normal to fit in, but it turns out I'm terrible at it.

In my 30s I stopped trying to be anything besides who I am. I have learned to accept that people like me or they dont and that isnt a reflection of who I am. I have a good amount of friends who accept my eccentricity and faults. Really though all you need is one good friend. My bestie is amazing and everyone else is just a bonus.

The biggest change I made was pushing myself to be more out going. I had a year about 3 years ago where I went out of my way to connect with Facebook friends I hadnt seen in forever. I even went to an impromptu mini junior high reunion. I also started pole dancing and kick boxing classes. So forth and so on.

I believe everyone has a friend tribe. If you dont have one, you just havent found your tribe yet. Dont give up and remember the right people will like you as you are.

[A Hobbit]

Add me to the list.

I am VERY different from what are considered to be “normal” people. Though, I understand that normal is in the eye of the beholder. And I do concede that nobody is normal, or that, at least, many people feel like an outsider just like me.

But, I am very different. I have developed some skills that, if I am in the right frame of mind or mood, I can appear to acquaintances and people I’ve just met as a friendly, down to earth fellow. But that is because I know that when talking with someone you should ask questions of them and get them to talk about themselves. Many people like to talk about themselves, and they leave the conversation believing that they know something about you, and that you are a swell person.

I can only handle one or two “close” friends at a time. But I have always been known to disappear for long stretches. Not only because I am an introvert and need to recharge in my safe space, but because I have a real issue with mood disorders. As my eldest daughter describes me, I’m either way up, or way down; there is no “normal”.

Thankfully I have my wife of 21 years. She’s my best friend ever and an introvert too.

It’s always been hard for me to develop real, deep friendships because I am weird and unpredictable. I wish I wasn’t.

[wiretwister]

no close friends here either ... I have never wanted anyone that close ... I have my wife to bounce ideas off of and to talk to ... my issue is I have no hobbies at all ... and besides work I all most never leave the house ... I have spent my whole life working and just never took time for anything else ...

[Tucson]

I go through phases. I cab be very outgoing and have no problems walking up to a stranger and talk with them. Sojetimes we end up talking like we are old friends. I also can be in a timid phase. This is where I do not do the above. Instead can avoid people, or standing there and watch two people talk. I start feeling uncomfortable, so I walk on. Then I go home.

[pirilin]

I am different. Sui Generis.
No problem making aquaintances. I can talk to the dead. And they will listen and sometimes reply.
Now, friend, is a very sacred word.

You know who your friends are when you are in jail or in the hospital.
My very few friends have been tested in both circustances. Unfortunately.
Never test your believed-to-be friends. You'll be disappointed.

[Unrigged64072835]

I knew I was different when I started kindergarten. Really bad to know you're "weird" from the age of 5. It just got worse from there. In the yearbooks I was "sweet" but I and a few others knew the truth. I'll never go to a high school reunion.

After 2 abusive long-term relationships and having a daughter with nonverbal learning disorder I met my current husband outside of work. We did the same job but in different organizations. We clicked and have been together since. But we never made any friends because those who wanted to be "friends" turned out to be manipulative and tried to take advantage of us. Plus where we live we're lower-income than most people, and more moderate than the rest of them.

I would like to meet more like-minded people, but right now I just can't. I feel really awkward around people now.

[Pookyl]

The older I get, the harder it gets.
The world seems increasingly full of idiots and I’m increasingly intolerant of them.
I met my hubby at a young age. My hubby has been my closest and sometimes only friend now for 27yrs. Having to be my only support/friend has been exhausting for him. I wish I could increase my circle of friends just to give him a break.

[downandlonely]

I have a large circle of acquaintances and Facebook friends, but I have a hard time making close friends. Most people think I am always happy and have no idea I struggle with depression.

[*Laurie*]

cln, I'm curious...which placement in the 3 sisters are you? I am the youngest of three sisters. Our middle sister died a year ago and oh, God, how I miss her.

Friends...I've never had any trouble making friends. In fact, sometimes I feel like I have to peel friends off of me...distance myself from them because I am just not interested in continuing the friendship. Some people just don't get that, or don't want to accept it.

The problem I have is that friends (and other people) usually misunderstand me. So the "fitting in" issue is a big one for me. As in...I feel like I'm along in a crowd, so to speak. There with a friend, but entirely isolated.
I am extremely fortunate in that my family is unusual. All artists and musicians. Plenty of freakiness, haha. And I've always lived in California, thank God. That said, the town in which I live is slightly more conservative than some California towns are.

[Blueberrybook]

Originally Posted by Wild Coyote

I have always felt very different from others, even when very popular while younger. My home life was very traumatic, very stressed, very different from others around me in school. etc.

This has carried over into adult life. I spend a lot of time feeling like I don't fit in.


WC

Same here with me. I know there are other people (unfortunately) out there with bad childhoods, abuse, molestation, yelling & angry fathers (especially one who most likely has Aspergers). I don't know what flipped the switch when I was in college, maybe the fact that I didn't have to answer to anyone. And that turned into anorexia, which was weird in my family because most of my mom's family was overweight (my father's side of the family is much thinner naturally). Then, who could understand that? Even my only good friend, my best friend in college, didn't confront me about it. I finally brought up the conversation to her. She said of course she noticed, especially in pictures, but I always ate normally around her. She didn't question what it was she wasn't seeing - the meals I skipped to make up for an upcoming night out with her, the miles and miles I ran each day, nearly blacking out in the shower so many times, the sleeplessness, the depression. You present a happy veneer, and that's what people want to see, so they don't look beyond it.

All the psych issues, the childhood issues, being an accidental gun violence victim in graduate school, an adulthood sexual assault, parenting a highly sensitive child, the hospitalizations, not being able to hold down a job, all my experiences have just snowballed into so much baggage. Oh, and let's not forget to add nearly dying on Valentine's Day from a perforated ulcer I never even knew I had and the extreme physical pain and depression that followed, right on the heels of my pdoc of 10 years retiring.

Other people just don't understand this stuff. My husband tries, but even he doesn't get it fully. You can't unless you've lived it.

[Blueberrybook]

Originally Posted by downandlonely

I have a large circle of acquaintances and Facebook friends, but I have a hard time making close friends. Most people think I am always happy and have no idea I struggle with depression.

Very few people know of my struggles. People online at forums like this and one I go to for eating disorder recovery. My closest family and my best friend from college, and I don't think they know the full extent of how hard it is. No one else knows. No one on Facebook from high school or graduate school or people I know who were good friends with my sisters, ex-teachers, relatives of my brothers-in-law.

[diamondprincess]

Its hard to have any kind of relationship when you have bp. Im sure everyone will say this as well. My relationships with people in my life have changed over the years, once I had bp. It sucks so much. Before I had it, I didn't have many friends, but I definitely feel lonelier now, because I don't feel as close to the people I DO have because of it. It really sucks. Right now, I am not taking medication, because I don't have insurance, so I am dealing with that. I noticed you mentioned you don't feel as sharp, because of the meds you took. What else did they do to you? This worries me....