Take a Giant Step...

"Remember the feeling as a child

    When you woke up and morning smiled

        It's time you felt like you did then." 

Take a Giant Step lyrics written by Carole King & Gerry Goffin.

     - - - - - 

Autism, social anxiety, depression, a mix of all three or something else? And how do we deal with it? 

I'm not even sure where to begin. So, about me: I'm a positive person of retirement age. I want to help the person who has inspired this post but, so far, I've failed to make much headway.

About him: he's on the spectrum, intelligent, an over-thinker, lacking in self-esteem. As positive as my attitude is, his is negative. He graduated a degree-level course with Merit around 8 or 9 years ago, has had a few job interviews but has never been offered a job. 

He has two long-term friends with whom he maintains regular contact by messaging - they are from different eras of his life and have never met each other. In the last 4 or 5 years, he has met up  with one of them once as, following a few years of stress-eating, he began a lifestyle change just over two years ago and is the slimmest and fittest he has ever been. This boosted his confidence sufficiently to attend a social gathering recently but, since then, it's been downhill. A possible reason for this is that a person he met socially seemed to be a potential friend but then 'ghosted' him, which dredged up all the times he has reached out in the past with similar results. 

History of childhood friendships:

• From age 1 till 11-ish, a neighbour's daughter was like a sister/cousin. They were opposites in every way but shared a happy childhood and drifted apart as time went by;
• At age 2, he made a friend at nursery school but the friend's older brother broke the relationship by teasing and bullying;
• At age 5, he made a friend at primary school and they were inseparable until age ten. At this point, the friend's parents split up and there were difficulties. They went to different schools at age 11 and have never been in contact since.

History of teenage friendships:

• With hindsight, choosing a boys school was a terrible idea. Whist he made no enemies, neither did he make any friends;
• At age 15, he joined a small youth theatre group and found some friends to share his Saturdays with;
• At age 18, everybody's lives went in different directions. Uni was a similar experience to senior school - no enemies but no friends, either.

From age 21, as a lonely adult suffering from anxiety and mild depression (and unaware, at the time, of being on the spectrum), the isolation of covid lockdown at the same time as other stressful family health issues resulted in 'an episode' requiring medical advice. There was no help available - just a suggestion to join a long waiting list. 

It has been a long road from there to here. On the positive side, he is in great shape, physically, and he has researched many aspects of improving his mental wellbeing. However, he would like some friends, a job, a soul-mate, to move into his own home, etc..

Rejection and negativity: reaching out to people he used to know (via social media messenger) has elicited no responses, and establishing contact with new acquaintences hasn't worked, either. He has decided that people just don't want to know him so what's the point of trying.

And with no work experience, there are no career prospects. He lacks confidence so doesn't drive, finds verbal communication traumatic and is non-tactile... which rules out 99.5% of jobs available. 

Is there a way to leap off this downward spiral?