Autism

I Help You to Connect With Yourself So You Can Connect With Others (If You Want To)

When you think about social interactions, the biggest thoughts are, “There is something wrong with the way that I am doing this” or “Relationships just aren’t for me.”

Everyone told you that it would get easier to make friends when you got out of high school, and then you would make friends in college. Then when you didn’t make friends in college, you hoped it would happen at work. But it hasn’t. 

It seems like everything you have been doing your whole life to make friends has been wrong. The thought that something is wrong with you runs through your mind whenever a friendship or a social interaction goes wrong. 

Every rejection hurts. And this has been happening over and over again since you were a child. 

So at this point, a part of you takes every rejection personally. 

You fear this rejection so much that you stay with “relationships” that you know aren’t healthy for you because it feels like there isn’t anything better and what you have was so hard to find. The rejection hurts so much that sometimes it’s easier to be angry, push people away, and not even try.

But you know that while, yes, that does protect you from being hurt, it also prevents you from getting what you really want, which is a relationship with another person. Not just a surface relationship with small talk (bleh) at work but a real relationship.  

A relationship where you do things together and you know the other person. You are pretty sure in order to have that relationship you have to be less you. So you will know them but like every other relationship. It’s a place where you’ll have to hide parts of yourself.  This is called masking and ends up putting so much stress on you that really it isn’t worth doing(and part of you know this)

But at this point you would do anything to just have that type of relationship. What you really want is a relationship with someone who is like you, who really understands you on a level that no one else really seems to.  But it’s hard to believe that is possible.

When you really think about it, what you want is someone to know you. You want to have someone to do things with and someone who knows the activities you like and maybe will do them with you. You want someone that really gets you on a level that no one else seems to.  You want a relationship with someone that you can do life with.  

And it doesn’t even have to be a romantic relationship. At this point, you would just want any kind of lasting relationship. A relationship where someone actually wants to spend time with you. But there is a part of you that might want a romantic relationship too.

I know this is possible. I’m Dr. Angie, and as a therapist who has worked with people struggling to create relationships her whole career, I know I can help you with this.