Has anyone found anything that helps the after effects of childhood bullying?

[Housecat234]

I’m early 40s and was bullied through secondary school for being weird. I’ve more recently had an autism diagnosis after one of my children was diagnosed.

I’ve had counselling and CBT a few times over the years as mental health has on and off been shit. It’s reasonable now and has been for about 10yrs.

What I still have is an underlying knowledge that I’m worthless as a friend or colleague and nobody actually likes spending time with me.

there is some evidence back this up, like leaving a job in a small team (on good terms) after two years with no leaving card/flowers/goodbye from boss or colleagues.
leaving a local sports team seemingly also on good terms and realising that they weren’t friends, they were people who played the same sport as me.

I know I do isolate myself, because I assume no one wants to visit or spend time with me because I’m not worth it.
i don’t want to do this, but it just seems safer.

i know other people feel like this from finding old threads. So has anyone found something that helps to get over this feeling?

i’d like to have friends where I live now (moved during covid lockdown which don’t help) and not feel so shit about myself as a person.

Or, also suggestions for an online dating style friends service. I’m embarrassed to have to ask, but at least if other people are looking for friends too I won’t feel like such a loser needing to look for friends.

I have no advice but I didn’t want to read and run. I’m also autistic and was bullied a lot in school. I definitely have after effects from it too. I’m really sorry to hear you went through that as well :( I wasn’t diagnosed til I was 32 but I think children definitely picked up that I wasn’t ‘normal’.

I’ve found making friends harder in my 40s generally, we did the same as you and moved area during covid so local friends are hard to come by.
I was also badly bullied and I think I’ve found peace with it because I live a life I really like! I like my ancient, slightly falling down house in a very looked down on part of the country, I like my very geeky job, I like my niche, slightly weird hobby. I have a brilliant child, a decent DH and a crazy dog and I don’t mind spending time by myself either.
I’ve learned to make small talk at events and come to the realisation that there are very few people who I will actually connect with and that’s ok. I’m not for everyone and most people aren’t for me.
A very long way of saying my advice would be to build a life you love outside of friendships etc and I believe you’ll find connections. They may not be deep, BFFs but I’m not really sure many people have those.

It's easy to concentrate on the things people haven't done for you like the leaving card. But I bet if you think hard there are instances where they have dobe things for you or shiwn tgwt they like you.
I was badly bullied as a child, mainly because of home circumstances. No way did I let either of those interfere with my adult life when I had control.

I'm autistic and have been bullied my whole life. Either that or people are taking advantage of me. I have one friend and only made that friendship later in life. It's a lonely life for sure. As autistics, we have to be self reliant and get used to being by ourselves to a large extent. Local clubs to join for activities might relieve the loneliness a bit, but it's risky making friends with non autistic people as others generally just think we're weird. See if there's any post diagnosis support in your area too.

I know I do isolate myself, because I assume no one wants to visit or spend time with me because I’m not worth it

It's not because you're 'not worth it', it's because you assume no one has any interest in you, which means the vibe you're giving off around your colleagues and teammates is 'Nothing to see here, I'm a boring, magnolia bystander who's not worth your attention, so move along, please'. You're actively pushing people away.

If you think you're not worthy of anyone's interest, why would a total stranger think otherwise? Why would your teammates think 'That Lisa who seems completely uninterested in anyone around her, and who is visibly uncomfortable any time anyone pays her attention -- I bet she's really a brilliant, interesting individual under that surface, so I'm going to put in a huge amount of effort to get past her guard.'

I get that it's difficult if your early experiences of other people were all negative, but are you actually interested in other people? What do you bring to potential friendships? It needs to be more than being a vaguely pleasant bystander.