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At what age did things start going wrong for you socially?

ksheehan88 said:
From the age of 8. I think there must be an age where children start seeing differences in their peers, and for me that was it.
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Well stated. Very much so in my case as well, although closer to ten years of age. In hindsight social dynamics seemed to take roots that were absent in my early childhood. Things like cliques, and ritual persecution of new people. Worse for those of us who weren't ordinary enough.

And in the case of boys that age, a weird compulsion to fight and promote fighting even when it involved utterly no provocation. Something I couldn't relate to which made me an even greater "target" than before. A very real version of "Lord of the Flies". Of course a growth spurt put an end to that a few years later. Kids didn't want to pick fights with me for good reason. But the damage to me had already been done.
 
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Pre-school I had problems but I really wasn't aware of them at the time. For first grade the very tolerate kid next door and the two shy girls whom I called friends (though we interacted very, very little) were not around so I spent the first two months of school trying to play with the other students. Every attempt was a disaster so I started to read excessively. Though that did lead to me gaining a friend in the sixth grade who after reconnecting on FB a few years ago is my friend now. School and church as a child were both filled with misery and being bullied. Adulthood was mostly isolation until about six years ago but I'm still rather out of sync with most other adults, particularly women.
 
kay said:
School and church as a child were both filled with misery and being bullied. Adulthood was mostly isolation until about six years ago but I'm still rather out of sync with most other adults, particularly women.
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Sad to think of church as "sanctuary" for Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) while not so much for us. Art not imitating life so many years later.
 
Judge said:
Well stated. Very much so in my case as well, although closer to ten years of age. In hindsight social dynamics seemed to take roots that were absent in my early childhood. Things like cliques, and ritual persecution of new people. Worse for those of us who weren't ordinary enough.

And in the case of boys that age, a weird compulsion to fight and promote fighting even when it involved utterly no provocation. Something I couldn't relate to which made me an even greater "target" than before. A very real version of "Lord of the Flies". Of course a growth spurt put an end to that a few years later. Kids didn't want to pick fights with me for good reason. But the damage to me had already been done.
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Lord of the Flies was a very uncomfortable book for me. I think I already saw my peers that way, and I was in a class full of village idiots. I doubt most of them have changed much.

I was probably very lucky in that I was always amongst the tallest in my year, so bullies being cowards that they are meant I had little trouble, apart from kids years above me who saws me as an easy challenge.

I never understood the jostling for position either. It seemed, and still seems beneath thinking beings.

I was in plenty of fights, but mostly from people goading me and me losing my temper and retaliating. I remember being confused about when it was ok to hit some one and when it wasn't.
 
Full Steam said:
Lord of the Flies was a very uncomfortable book for me. I think I already saw my peers that way, and I was in a class full of village idiots. I doubt most of them have changed much.

I was probably very lucky in that I was always amongst the tallest in my year, so bullies being cowards that they are meant I had little trouble, apart from kids years above me who saws me as an easy challenge.

I never understood the jostling for position either. It seemed, and still seems beneath thinking beings.

I was in plenty of fights, but mostly from people goading me and me losing my temper and retaliating. I remember being confused about when it was ok to hit some one and when it wasn't.
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Yeah. I'm dreadfully familiar with all of that. I'm sorry, man. Especially if it took its toll on you as it did me.
 
For me it was very early, I can remember getting all sorts of "Tests" at school from our school counselor and various others, that nobody else had to take. In the 4th grade I was reading, writing, and doing math at the same level or above seniors in high school. They then decided that there was nothing cognitively wrong with me and all the testing stopped. I still continued with psychotherapy and such outside of school until I graduated. After that I was cut off.
Anyways, ever since I was a child, I always knew that I was different. It wasn't until very recently that I learned what my issues are :ASD/ADD and depression.
 
I remember I was odd socially the whole time, I was either too attached or had no specific friends. I was having fun in kindergarten and 1st grade, but after that I started worrying about making friends. Middle school, worst. High school, I thought I could so it because I didn't know what the problem was, but boy did things not go as planned. The weirdest thing though, a senior kid had a crush on me, what the heck man. Howwww. I seriously thought, "He has a good eye potential." yeah that's hilarious, whatever makes you feel better, past self. :p
 
I was a pretty quiet kid. I played with a few kids in my neighborhood but after a little while needed to retreat to my bedroom. In highschool I got to know a lot of people through drinking and partying but when I hit the working world I became quite again. Working with others was very stressful. Thankfully I have been self employed since 1997. I have gotten pretty good at talking with customers as I've gotten older.
 
I was never good socially even at a young age, but I wasn't really aware I was that different. I knew a lot of kids (especially girls) stayed away from, but never knew why or really even thought too deeply about it. It wasn't until high school that I really started caring. In elementary school, I was still able to make that one friend who found my personality fun, but I became more aware of how different I felt as a teen that my interactions felt more stilted and they still are to some degree. I miss the innocence of elementary school days.
 
About 11, after I left the big crowd of friends I had at Junior school and went to a Secondary school outside my area, didn't know anybody and struggled to make new friends.
 
Honestly things were never really "right" for me socially. Before I went to school my family and I spent most our time camping and hiking, so I didn't have much to do with other people(my family is even more anti-social than I am). So when I did go to school I had no clue how to interact with people. It wasn't really until a few years later when I learnt to look and act intimidating so that everyone left me alone and I started making friends with the other "weird" kids that things started looking up for me.
 
Most noticeably, it started in kindergarten and first grade. I always got along with adults more than my own peers (still true) and it certainly doesn't help when you were debating (trying to) the purpose of gold stars meaning that it was for wedding out troublemakers with potential breeding stock (eugenics in a way) with kids who were just learning the alphabet.

I blame my father for letting me read his odd collection of books. Especially the one on abnormal mental illnesses...
The following is how I truly saw school and the people for most of my life: School was a type of zoo for adults to watch and observe the patterns of children. They were observed in a somewhat artificial, but desperately attempting to be natural, environment where their keepers would mark their progress in various tasks upon charts with gold stars and track their interactions with other members of the herd.

Simply put, I was never sure if the other children my age were aware of the true nature of school and society since whenever I talked to someone my age or even adults they just sort of looked at me and then walked away. Fast.

Because of this line of thinking, my school had no idea how to deal with me so they sent me to a side school for elementary to high school students...A dumping ground of children with serious anger problems, mental problems etc.

It was bully or be bullied and I was often the enforcer of the main group of bullies due to my size and strength. I couldn't control my strength at all and often blacked out (disassociation) just prior to breaking impossible to break things like doors, windows, cars etc.

When one of the boys I bullied to survive snapped and attacked the bus driver, I switched sides permanently. That has always filled me with regret and sorrow.

As for the rest of the school years, I kept to myself but was polite and kind for the most part. I was also ignored or unseen so I heard a lot of things I could (and did) use to protect others.

Some things never change...
 
I feel it didn't start really presenting an issue until I started school. Before then everyone in my family just thought that's me as a person and didn't really think anything was wrong at first.
 
If i had to pinpoint an approximate time things start going south for me socially, it would proably be at the point when I started socializing.
 
When I started middle school, I quickly got the impression that something was wrong with me, and built a cover. I learned how to bite my tongue and not express how I really felt, to avoid getting bullied or ignored. It worked, until I started high school and everything I kept inside started to kill me.
 
At the age of about 4years old when I started Kindergarten. I remember it being like one big sensory nightmare after being brought up on a high country sheep station. The Kindergarten spoke to my Mum because I wouldn't go to the mat when asked. Mum said she asked me why not and I replied that that's what everyone else did ...not me.
 
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