New to Group/My Story (trigger warning: lost boyfriend to suicide)

[LittleRainbowMedicine]

My name is Orchid, and I am a 21 year old woman. I don't have many friends at the moment thanks to what happened below in my story and I also have mild Autism. I am looking for support, preferably older people since I crave a big sibling figure. My only friend I guess is a therapist I see who is trying to get closer with me like a mom and it makes me uncomfortable :/. But I hope I am welcomed here with open arms in ways that I have had a hard time finding any support system (my family still thinks everything that happened was my fault). Hugs are needed, advice is okay too but I am not really looking for advice since most of the advice I got I cut out people who weren't giving me what I wanted to hear.

I was best friends with this guy a few years older than I was when I was 5 years old. We lived in the same neighborhood and from what I later now know, he lived in temporary housing and was homeless in between. His dad died from heart disease when he was 7, shortly before he met me. And his mom had bipolar, and could barely hold a job to support herself and her son. The whole family of this guy were all low income and lived simply by the day, whereas my family was upper middle class, at least until my parents divorced when I was 8. But even after that, I never had to worry about survival tactics the way he did. At first, he took a liking to me, and at age 5, I was repulsed by his apathetic casualness and his intimate connection with nature and the flexible intuitive side of looking at the world. I for one, was a scientific thinker and knew it for myself at that age and I was struggling to make friends my own age and hopefully be the academic champion and social capital girl of the school. He on the other hand was a lot older, very sensitive and effeminate (at the time, I felt more tomboyish and rigid and forward) and thus got teased by other people (and yes both children and adults that weren't his family) "for not being masculine enough". Despite my upper middle class status, and my grades, I had mild Autism and bouts of tantrums where I had a hard time forgiving those who made mistakes that hurt my feelings even if they apologize. In fact I even alienated my own parents if they did something out of love that I didn't recognize but I saw it as it wasn't in my best interest for me. He therefore didn't have a lot of friends growing up and I somehow learned to tolerate his Thoreau-like passiveness and his love for arts and humanities. We were both pretty shy but in different ways, I being cautious of how to approach people in as proper of social manner as I could and he, preferring to get away in nature.

Eventually at age 8, I started noticing how my Autism made me different from others and how self conscious I was when people talked behind my back. He became a victim of intense bullying by the rich kids and would come home beaten and worn out on one hand yet holding me and talking me through for hours about why this popular kid didn't talk to me. All while he tried to hide the fact that his mom and he were attacked multiple times for being poor/homeless. We grew on each other and eventually came to love each other, him like a parent, I as a child, both of us as siblings yet doing all the activities such as hiking, yoga, meditation, cooking, baking, journal writing, singing, and skipping in the park that he opened my eyes to many times to help me cope with my anger and now he and I did them together like lovers. He adopted my sense of direction and goal oriented mindset while I adopted his empathetic compassion for the less fortunate and the "worst human beings of society" that my bourgoeis mom would look down on but now is better about.

This bliss lasted until I was 15 or 16. I moved to Nevada for two years in 8th and 9th grade. We wrote regularly but not as much as I got immersed into the popular crowds and started partying a lot. I was "too busy" for someone who was of a lower social standing like him, I thought, and continued focusing on my "friends" that age. Well I returned back to California at age 15 for my mom's job and it turned out he was homeless again part of the time I was away and tried to take his own life twice since he had no one around and his mom was emotionally abusing him day in and day out. I fell into an immediate guilt and apologized for not replying to prior messages he sent me, but told him it was because I was busy in school even though I had all the time to be there for him through phone (which I never answered) and email. Nonetheless he told me it was all okay and asked me out. I thought I could promise to be there but I never owned up to my actions of not being honest with how high school was changing me into a queen bee personality and I sort of let him slide to the periphery while I watched and even joined others in making fun of him behind his back. I cut off contact with him through time and eventually found out through his mom he had muscle cancer. Then on 1/18/2011, he took his own life through swallowing overdose on meds despite the prognosis of the cancer being good for a few more years enough to see me graduate college.

I was a 17 year old freshman at UC Berkeley. Different environment than high school and would probably have more friends had he decided not to take his life and had he just believe that I didn't mean to hurt his feelings by joining the rich high school crowds in jeering him (it was said by his mom, who now resents me, that he took his own life after finding out I was saying hurtful things behind his back for the first time ever). I admit I still do have guilt. But I never owned up to it and never changed my ways. I started meeting more people everywhere I go who reminded me of his personality and mannerisms as described above, which meant for a while I dissed the social science and humanities and environmental studies majors. Although policy in my mind has changed to now only be wary of those who have his forgiving, nature passionate loving, and love of words, I still haven't changed my thoughts of him. I still believe the people I were with were right to hurt him because he was unmotivated, he couldn't get a job, he told me to breathe instead of spoiling me rich, etc. any advice he gave such as being grateful that people help me even if they don't help me the way I want, I have resisted and dumped anyone I dated who isn't into hugging me when I am sad. In fact, last Sunday, I nearly drove someone I tried to date to tears after she gave me unhelpful advice about a situation and I told her she was the worst person for not telling me what I want to hear. Yet for those who are like myself in that they like science or they give me hugs, I idolize them on a pedestal. But no one since 2012 has come that close to the pedestal.

Currently I am in therapy since 2012. Therapist today suggested I may have borderline personality, emotional dysregulation, or histrionic personality. Even when the friend I made last Sunday told me it wasn't my fault, we are all human, and high school kids are mean anyways and high school is hard (none of the statements helped at all), I still felt someone should at least be upfront and say what I did was not okay and help me prevent it from ever happening again. My therapist is a little bit on the "oh you are only human" side but I am currently working on finding what works for me.

I have not since confessed that I once loved a person on a lower social economic standing and "opposite" personality than I have. It is just an irrational fear I have and I fear if I did admit it, I might lose my own status despite not having many friends since a lot of people "are like him in many ways". I know I am not inherently mean but I know that my self consciousness since I became popular and my desire to have more than 5 friends and be rich is somehow preventing me for seeing the enlightened poor guy I loved as a child, a time I wasn't so caught up in the riches.

Thank you for reading my story.

[LittleRainbowMedicine]

Sorry if that got posted twice. I am on my iphone and the Wifi at school isn't very good