I need advice!

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Hey, sorry in advance if this is long and disjointed, I'm not great with this kind of thing!

For all my life, other people have never really understood me but that has never really bothered me in itself because I don't really like socialising. Recently however I have become a bit depressed and the fact that I can't communicate my feelings has just compounded the problem.

Just to make this clear: I don't know if I am autistic, I only became aware of autism last year when I met a woman with an autistic son. I was bullied from age 3 until age 13 and that has seriously affected my social abilities and self-confidence which has left me with some of the 'traits' like being uncomfortable in social situations and doing repetitive actions like rubbing the bridge of my nose to calm myself down. I don't know if this is just a side-effect of the bullying or if it was there before. (I'm 17 now by the way)

I'm really nerdy and that has never helped people understand me, especially my parents who are really outdoorsy people. Every time I try to explain about something I'm interested in, like Doctor Who or Tolkien, they say that I "shouldn't pigeon-hole myself" and that I "need to develop proper interests" which makes me frustrated because I have real interests (bordering on obsessions) and am not trying to be nerdy, its just how I am and I can't change that and don't want to.

While I was being bullied I didn't feel I could turn to anyone except for one friend but I'll come back to her later. I had no friends outside of school because, not only do I live in a very secluded area with no other people my age, I also have trouble with making friends because I can come across as defensive and 'spiky' even when I'm trying to be friendly. I also couldn't turn to my parents because by the time I realised that it was not normal to be 'teased' that much, I was scared of making them think they had failed me. Since I am an only child, I had no brothers or sisters to talk to either and this also means that my parents are very overprotective of me and are quite pushy which is frustrating due to our conflicting interests and opinions.

Now I have moved to secondary school and am doing my A levels and I have a small group of friends who are very accepting and tolerate my quirks but I really miss my friend from my old school who has moved back to her own country. I am getting very stressed with the pressure of school and my depression is affecting my grades. I am angry and frustrated most of the time and I keep accidentally hurting my friends' feelings with things I say.

So does anyone have similar experiences and how do you get de-stressed? I would really appreciate if you could help me!

And if you managed to get through all of that, thank you and sorry it was such an essay!

If you're nerdy the best thing for you is to be among other nerds. There are many nerds here on WP but you should try to meet some in meatspace. Join a club for one of your nerd interests. If you can't meet any nerds straight away, just wait until you go to college. Then you'll be surrounded by nerds.

Omg I'm a bit late for this. And wow that was like a whole biography but I really liked it. You talked a lot about how you were bullied and stuff in the past. Unfortunately we can't change that. But there is a lot of people who think they're alone just like you. So try to find those people and make friends with them. Btw you're not autistic because other wise you would know. As for you're interests I would say that's more of a geeky thing because it's all about passion. And it is truly great you have those. You surely have spear time so you can watch doctor who or whatever then because if you feel like you need that moment in your life you need to make it. You don't have to talk to your parents about it because obviously they don't want to know. And then you can just try to find fun activities to do with them. Don't talk to them about all this. Just try to spend quality time with them and they might be more ready to understand you. Maybe. But try it. If you want to.

Thanks for replying
Things kinda got a bit out of control recently until my school stepped in and sent me to see a specialist and turns out I have aspergers with dyspraxia and ADHD I was a little bit shocked but thats worn off now.
As to what you said:

I guess I have known for a while but i never really thought about it because it never got in the way of what i wanted to do until now.

I have issues like this but I don't deal with them very well tbh.