[Voss]

I wondered why I felt so alone today when I had so many interactions with people.

I went grocery shopping today because I need food to live, and had some chit-chat with other customers there. Beans are so good for you to eat, it's so muggy standing near the exit, sorry my kid nearly tripped you, etc. I was in my head a lot and had to reassure people I wasn't pissed off at them, because I would hate for them to think this distance is their fault and flaw.

Baristas tend to remember me. I tend to remember them. Sometimes I'm "accidentally" given a free medium instead of a small.

I have friends, if not many, and mostly positive interactions with people around town, but I feel miles away from them emotionally. I don't feel like I'm really part of the world around me, if that makes sense.

At the end of the day, many of them go home to people who understand and are similar to them. Many of them live lifestyles and have interests that others approve of and can relate to, and have little to no trouble finding people they mesh well with. Few of them are confused about something so fundamental as their gender.

We live completely different lives.

[IchbinkeinTeufel]

I don't feel like I'm really part of the world around me, if that makes sense.

I think I relate to that. I'm probably wrong here, but I think that might be somewhere in the dissociative disorder category... around that area, perhaps. Back when I was off my trolly, few cards short of a deck, few bubbles in my think tank, elevator wasn't going to the top floor, ... lol and so on. xD ...so yeh, back then, I definitely felt like I was struggling to connect, ... in-fact, I still feel a bit like that, sometimes, but back then it almost sometimes felt like a trance.

It sounds like you lack the feeling of being understood, ... I'd wager your inability to connect is because what you really want is to connect to someone who can connect to you and understand you, even just a bit! Does it help being on PC? Might just be that it would mean so much more to connect to someone like that in person, I know it would for me, but that's a challenge when you rarely go out. xD

Stay safe, Voss.

[Voss]

Originally Posted by Zwangsstörung

I think I relate to that. I'm probably wrong here, but I think that might be somewhere in the dissociative disorder category... around that area, perhaps. Back when I was off my trolly, few cards short of a deck, few bubbles in my think tank, elevator wasn't going to the top floor, ... lol and so on. xD ...so yeh, back then, I definitely felt like I was struggling to connect, ... in-fact, I still feel a bit like that, sometimes, but back then it almost sometimes felt like a trance.

It sounds like you lack the feeling of being understood, ... I'd wager your inability to connect is because what you really want is to connect to someone who can connect to you and understand you, even just a bit! Does it help being on PC? Might just be that it would mean so much more to connect to someone like that in person, I know it would for me, but that's a challenge when you rarely go out. xD

Stay safe, Voss.

I've joined a lot of forums over the years, and none of them really alleviated this feeling unless I had a large group of friends there. Inevitably I share the umbrella identity or interest, but our approach and experience is different. Everyone else winds up excited to be reading their own thoughts and life experiences in other people's words, but that's yet to happen to me. I spent several years connected to one community and only felt understood by one person like me who became a close friend, and he gave up and left after a year or two of the same difficulties.

I've socialized quite a bit at work this year. I like them and feel connected in a friendly way, but they still lead completely different lives and I sometimes feel like I'm talking to them across a chasm. You like to make new friends, I prefer acquaintances. Your life is going well, mine's a mess. You have a fairly conventional sense of humor, mine's dark and wry. You read fantasy/romance novels, I read about Greek philosophers and listen to audiobooks. You're cisgender, I'm transgender. You want to write a novel, I want to write novellas and short stories.

The only people I felt resonated with me on a meaningful level have been instructors more than twice my age. I could really get behind a psych instructor (50-60?) who'd worked as a counselor and her thoughts about the world, for example.

I've never met anyone other than my boss (50's) who has read or reads books on writing.

[Travelinglady]

Hey, Voss! I think I get what you are saying. I have always gravitated toward people older than I am. Right now my two best friends are five years older and ten years older than I am. I like to think in some ways I am more mature than folks my age. (Who knows?)

I like to read books on writing. In fact, I even taught English, and I do write. We have a writers' social group, although I am not sure how active it is. But I belong, and it could get going again!

We also have a transgender forum, where you are sure to meet some folks who understand that aspect of you. Here is that link:Transgender & Other Gender Support - Forums at Psych Central.

I hope these suggestions will be a start, anyway. Believe me, we have members with all sorts of interests and "bents."

[Voss]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

Hey, Voss! I think I get what you are saying. I have always gravitated toward people older than I am. Right now my two best friends are five years older and ten years older than I am. I like to think in some ways I am more mature than folks my age. (Who knows?)

I like to read books on writing. In fact, I even taught English, and I do write. We have a writers' social group, although I am not sure how active it is. But I belong, and it could get going again!

We also have a transgender forum, where you are sure to meet some folks who understand that aspect of you. Here is that link:Transgender & Other Gender Support - Forums at Psych Central.

I hope these suggestions will be a start, anyway. Believe me, we have members with all sorts of interests and "bents."

I tried one transgender forum and it was mostly older women with a different, more delicate approach to life, so I'm still searching on that front. I haven't had much time to familiarize myself with the subforum here.

I've been in writing communities, too. All my approaches are uncommon to rare, so I still wound up feeling left out looking at others agreeing with each other and swapping experiences in their niche. The one person I really related to and who did some illustrations for me I met somewhere else.

It's alienating to share a brief analysis of something like short stories and how they can force you to think more efficiently about writing and get no responses while everything from forum drama to chit-chat does. I couldn't slow down imagining how amazing aspects of life in ancient Greece would be in fantasy today or how to allude to the important real world events in a novella mostly taking place in the reflecting dream world to participate in religious and semantic arguments if I tried. My brain does not have an off switch.