summer break, friendship, and isolation

when i was in sixth grade, i came out for the first time. living in a small, conservative town in the countryside, i genuinely don't know what i was thinking. people started treating me worse at school, and after things had gotten bad enough, my parents ended up pulling me out. from late march of 6th grade to my graduation, i did all of my school online. 

the first two years weren't too bad. i still had some kind of social life through a sport i played. but then, things started getting worse there too. i ended up quitting my team in the middle of a season, and a year later, got a ptsd diagnosis for some of the stuff that happened to me while i was there. even in those two extra years that i stayed, so many of my friends started to hate me. i hadn't gotten a chance to be around any of them during those two years either -- at least, not outside of our practices together. 

for a little bit over six years, i was entirely alone. the only people i spoke to were my parents and people i had met online. my dad would work night shifts, so it would usually be me and my mom once she got home from work. but then once she got sick and couldn't work anymore, we ended up spending a lot more time with each other. we didn't get along very well, but i was able to fix my relationship with her eventually. i would spend so much time on the internet. at some point, i felt like i wasn't wanted there either. i stopped posting, and eventually deleted most of my accounts and distanced myself from a lot of the people i had met. 

the internet became a weird place for me. i would consume as much content as i could, and interact with as few people as possible. i craved connection so deeply, but was terrified to actually reach out for it. for a few years, my only "friends" were older men that i met on omegle. i knew they were using me, but i really wanted validation from someone. i needed to be desired by somebody. i wanted someone to care about me. later, i ended up building the courage to message a few people, and in 2020, i had a total of four friends. one of them ghosted me this year. one, i grew apart from two years ago. another, i dated until a few weeks ago. the final, i'm happy to still be friends with. 

going to university was terrifying for me. i had never left the country before -- i had barely left my home state too -- and i was suddenly going to be there alone, with a bunch of new people around me. i just felt deep down that even though i was being given this new chance to restart my life, i'd find a way to fuck it up and make everyone hate me again. before i had even gotten there, i was already so critical of myself. the way i spoke, the way i acted, basically everything about me, totally gave away the fact that i was essentially completely socially isolated for 6 years. 

i was living with two other trans boys. one of them wasn't very great, and maybe someday that entire saga will deserve its own post. the other though, axel, was so different from anyone i had met before. maybe it's because he's also autistic, or because we had similar experiences (even though he had a very healthy social life), but i felt so connected to him. i would spend a lot of time with him, and we would go to all of these events at my school together. if there's one thing my school is particularly known for, it's our engineering community. there are so many events every month, and they're ridiculously welcoming towards non-eng students as well. even though axel isn't a stem student (he's in gender studies), he was welcomed into the community with the same energy that i was. i found so much comfort in going to these events together. i ended up with two other closer friends as well, who i value a lot, and a bunch of acquaintances -- most of which probably don't remember my name. 

me and axel ended up closer than anyone else though. we spent a lot of time together, and then we started sleeping in the same bed. dorm beds are tiny, but we made it work. we went pretty much everywhere together. his parents invited me to their house for the holidays -- both american and canadian thanksgiving, easter, and valentines day -- because i wasn't able to spend them with my own family. it was the happiest i had been in a very, very long time. 

i couldn't afford to stay in canada over the summer while i wasn't in classes. apartments are expensive, and my student visa doesn't allow me to work enough hours to afford it. unfortunately, i had to come home for a few months while i wait for the next semester to start. i thought i would be fine, since i survived 6 years with minimal human contact and felt basically nothing about it, but holy shit has this been hard. 

i didn't want to be touched or held for most of my life because i didn't know what it would be like. all of my relationships were long distance, and that was always enough to keep me satisfied. i didn't know how good it was to physically be around people. realizing how truly different i was to everyone i knew because i had absolutely no social life was so devastating. of course, as an autistic person i already felt pretty different from most people, but this added a completely new layer that i was terrified to confront. i feel like axel is truly the only person i've met who fully understands that part of me and is willing to give me the patience that i need sometimes. 

being so far away from my friends during the summer has been so hard. it's like all of the loneliness i should have been feeling for six years hit me all at the same time. i wasn't expecting for my bed to feel so empty, or to feel so lost without having people i felt like i could genuinely talk to without filtering my thoughts and rewriting a text 2000 times. emotional support combined with physical touch is so, so different from emotional support only.

even though it sucks to feel so isolated again, i can't help but also see it as a sign that i've started getting better. i want to be around people. i want to get out of the house and do things with my friends. i want to be touched. a year ago, i would've never imagined this kind of feeling. it's almost a little bit scary to me, because half of me feels weak and pathetic for needing that kind of physical, tangible connection. the other half feels weak and pathetic for not having it before. it wasn't until i was held for the first time that i really, truly realized how lonely my life had been. if i never noticed, would i have any of these relationships i have now?

i still compare myself to my acquaintances a lot. many of them are in these large, dynamic, constantly evolving friend groups. as for me, i have axel and two other friends, one of which i'm much closer with than the other. they all know each other through me, but it's not quite a group... and this is another topic that leaves me feeling very conflicted. does it matter if i'm in a formal friend group if the friends that i do have -- regardless of how disconnected they are from each other -- make me feel supported and happy ? then i start to wonder, if they all like each other equally, maybe one day they'll start to prefer each other over me... so then i should be happy that they don't know each other very well, because then they'll be less likely to choose each other over me, right ? i think about it for an extra two seconds, and i know how delusional and self conscious it sounds. now that i have these connections, i am so, so desperate to hold onto them and not let them go. i know how unlikely that is to really happen, but it's like a constant threat in the back of my mind. 

some part of me seems to understand that i really should be happy with what i have. i know i'm the kind of person to be constantly comparing myself to others. if i did have that big, complex friend group that i saw other people forming, i'd probably crave a deeper, more intimate and meaningful connection anyways. the more that i actually rationalize my thoughts, the more content i am with my situation. i think that large group dynamic would be pretty bad for me at this point anyways. i'm almost certain i would obsess too much over whether or not people were planning things without me. it's hard to remind myself that my relationships do not have to look identical to the ones i see other people forming. 

i've also had a hard time understanding that some people really do like me. it's not the "me" that they see online that rereads every thought 1,000,000 times, but one that is more impulsive, irrational, emotional, and real. and not everyone hates those aspects of me. axel for example: i've cried on him, had panic attacks in front of him, have relied on him when things got really hard. he's quite literally seen me at my worst. even so, he still genuinely wants to hang out with me. he genuinely wants to be around me. he texts me every day, even while he's at work. if he didn't like me, this would be the best time to take a break from me. i'm 1,000 miles away and we aren't living together anymore. he doesn't have to deal with me, but he does. even before i started having sex with him, i felt so cherished and supported. i've never felt so free with another person. he's aroace, so i can feel confident that he isn't using me. it's refreshing to have a mutual understanding that no romantic feelings will be involved. 

in my head, i know that when it comes to relationships, quality can be infinitely more important that quantity. i still see all of these people that have so many friends, and i wonder what i've been doing wrong. logically, i know that i didn't do anything bad at all, and i just have fewer friends because i'm much more introverted than they are and talk to fewer people. the bad part of my brain likes to tell me it's because people can immediately tell how isolated i was, and they don't want anything to do with me. 

i don't like craving relationships with so many people. for the most part, i still dislike interacting with others -- mostly those i don't know. i have these feelings that are always fighting with each other, telling me that i need everyone's attention while at the same time, i don't want to be perceived at all. i actually consider making this post a huge step for me... even though the likelihood that someone reads it is basically 0. i'm still "opening myself up" to exposure, critique, and shame. but to be so for real, i'm almost 2,000 words in and talking about something that no one wants to hear about. i'm screaming into a void that will never give me anything in return -- and i think that can be a perfectly valid first step. this feels risky, terrifying, and new, but i think it might be necessary for me as well. i see it as a form of rejection therapy. 

i've always been hyperaware of how i seem to other people. that's a large part of why i originally stopped posting on social media. to me, making this post feels like such a big risk. i know that i come off as a lonely, cringy megaloser. i know how miserable i seem. i know how boring this entire post is and how the likelihood anyone ever sees it is practically negative. i feel like i'm interrupting people who have been here longer than i have. it's so embarrassing typing all of this out, like i must be the biggest narcissist for thinking that stuff like this "deserves" to be read. but i can't keep complaining that i don't have more friends, while not doing anything to get more friends. i need to be perceived by strangers to get what i want. if i'm always this scared of what others think, i will never fully recover. this is how i'll start. 

my goal for the next school year is to find a medium between what i have and what i (probably selfishly) crave. i think i can be possible to find comfort in my current friendship and relationships, while also allowing myself to expand my circle and meet new people. trying to force an idealistic group into existence would only hurt myself and the people i'd involve. maybe i'm not inherently selfish for wishing for more. maybe i'm truly, genuinely, just in the early stages of recovery still. 

and maybe that's okay.

s