I need an outside viewpoint, my current peer group is lacking, but I don’t feel high functioning enough to “get out there”?

I wonder if you could be a little more specific. You seem to be engaged in an important struggle, and looking seriously for help, but if you said in plain words what you are feeling I might know better how to respond.

@12_func_multi_tool Feel free to be more specific in a private message if you wish, I get the sense that there is some important information about your history that would enable us to be more helpful.

I hope so. You sound like I feel.

I can’t get into it, I’m used to narrating and regurgitating information to doctors so much I go too far. Some of it damn important too. Ok, I feel better than these people, there is a small percentage that walk and talk, but that’s just on the surface. I’ve turned over much control of my emotions and perceptions to professionals and peers out of safeties sake, and the sake of getting a hold on myself. I don’t know if I’m showing a manic face or a deadpan face sometimes. I need to get structure, hopefully with smart people that can encourage my growth. On the other hand I’ve not gotten this far by following a lot of rules. I take information, then turn it to my own uses, sometimes succeeding, or failing. Right now I’m doubting my sincerity, that I’m looking for evidence of something that isn’t there. I want to speak from the heart. That above anything, to speak from the Heart.

@Dr_Lawrence I didn’t mean to brush you off, that’s a very kind offer, but I need this to be out in the open, to sink or swim in daylight.

Doctor’s can’t help you get involved in activities that will help. Contact the people here

I have similar problems with Aspergers Syndrome. Outside of formal, structured settings I have extreme difficulty communicating face-to-face. I feel your frustration. My coping mechanism is not ideal; I tended to avoid all purely social situations for the first 38 years of my life. Only when I found a mentor (whom I later married) who could “interpret” nonverbal social cues for me and “signal” me when I should interact, was I able to make any social progress I’ve often wished that the process of social interaction could be fully explained in some tech manual; skills that others learned in childhood have either eluded me entirely or had to be learned by rote memorization. I can now understand the basics of body language and facial expression, but communication by eye contact is still a total mystery to me.

My advice is to seek out a mentor, someone who can “translate” the social world for you. This is not an easy task, but it’s the only thing that worked for me.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land
I have mentors, my long time mentor is Zen Buddhist monk, my friends are the monks at my monastery. I just lost a trusted friend to this disease, it could have been simple incompatability, but we are never far away from the disease.
@YARNLADY I think I know what you are thinking, some things are not possible. When I do certain things, like push myself in any way, I have severe physical and emotional and psychotic reactions. It is torture, not a little anxiety, or a cramped neck. It’s the real deal. It’s the thought that counts.

@12_func_multi_tool So what’s the worst that can happen? It won’t work – but just think – maybe it will

One of my doctors will know of another outpatient program that will hopefully let me expand on my lessons at the last. I will not discuss it further.

@12_func_multi_tool I admire your determination and courage to build better and more satisfying relationships with people who are higher functioning and thus more interesting and stimulating correspondents. There are many such people here. Is bipolar disorder the disease to which you are referring?

I’m schizo-affective with bi-polar developing last year. I’m so sorry, I had an idea in my grasp earlier today. I almost feel stuck-up now, even knowing you have to leave some people behind. I’m stuck, the happiness of my progress is gone. I’m trying to take the good with the bad. Lately I’ve been thinking about the future, allowing myself the luxury. I don’t like it, and so I’m stuck again between becoming cynical, or accepting. I know I should come from a place of peace, I don’t know how to do that and kick myself to motivate, even as Yarnlady did. Motivation, fear, anger, calculations, it’s all too much. Two last details, I’ve left my physical heath slide, either out of concentrating on my head, or simple neglect. The limitations that I sometimes have are for example: If I go out on a walk then decide to go an extra block, or up a challenging hill, later that night I will get intense muscle spasms especially in the face, my air passages will close up especially in the sinuses, hallucinating harassing voices, I can’t distract with TV or radio because they are on there especially, all with anxiety. I’m also suffering from fibromyalgia.