@BlackcloudYou're welcome. It's such a difficult thing to struggle with, especially how, in my experience, no one seems to come close to understanding it unless they experience it themselves.  I only found out a couple of years ago in my very early 50s that it wasn't just me and that it was more common than i could ever have imagined.

I think that invalidation can hold us back for so long and can do a lot of long term damage in not trying to find support and reinforcing the self-doubts.  While I said that I find things are getting easier, it's true, but it's all relative.  Considering how impossible it always was for me, 'easier' just means i'm just really, really bad at it now. 😃 

After 50 years of struggling with with so much, I don't think I will ever get to any sort of 'normal' or even competent level of social skills.  It's a lot easier online than it is in person, because i have to time to thing about what i write, change it, tweak it, think about what i want to say. You can't do that face to face, it's real time and i'm like a deer in the headlights.  I just freeze and my mind is so busy thinking about what i should do or say, that I just end up saying nothing.

It makes it very hard to form strong connections with people.  I've never really managed it, and I know I never will.  Even my partner (no small miracle there 😃) is the only person i've even gotten part way to a connection like that in my life.  And i know i still really struggle with keeping a certain safe emotional distance.  I think to do that, it goes far beyond social skills.  There's now trust and attachment issues to get past.  And I still don't have an answer as to how to even begin to get past those. So i've always found the same thing, I could make friends at times, but it never got to any sort of strong connection so they always inevitably drift away.  Not that it was a huge list for me, but it always ends the same.  Not just friends, but even family just seem to get less and less interested in maintaining contact over time.  I'm nothing if not consistent. 😂

I sometimes think that I wish I was the only one having to struggle with it, because i know how hard it is.  But like I said, its been helpful for me to find out that other people understand it and that it's not something wrong with me.