The need for a more ordinary life

HI hello. Gonna also use this blog for reflective writing about my life and will tag these posts mint thougts. It helps me sort through emotions and.. yeah here we go.

So. I really enjoy having a structured life that might seem somewhat boring to others and I also enjoy spending time with my university friends. However my need for structure often clashes with their want for freedom from it.

I don't drink alcohol because hangover sucks and also I don't want to get cancer. I always hestitate to stay up late because I can be nauseaus the next day / am exhausted the rest of the week if its really bad. I get up quiet early so lazy morings can be somewhat boring for me if I've already been awake way longer than everyone else and I get restless. It stresses me when the group makes plan on a vacation together and then an hour after you said you would leave, everyone is still not ready. I get super stressed when I am a little late for a lecture with my friends. And the thing is - I don't want to be a killjoy and my friend group at university aren't hardcore party people (???) or anything, however i do notice a discrapency in my need for clear structure and their need for flexebility.

A nice pretense for my need for structure was school. Look, I definetly also had my problems but I really enjoyed having concrete rules for when to be where or !! when I was allowed to speak and share things. I was actually quiet active in class in a way I did not feel weird about because the context of raising your hand and being supposed to work on the given topic gave me a clear structure of when to speak. I miss the certainty this gave me to be able to share my thoughts in a structured way. In regular group converstations that is not as easy for me.

This brings me back to the dilemma with my friends. I think all of this is also tied to being autistic but like . when my friends are still talking to a tutor when we are about to be a few minutes late for a diffent lecute I get stressed and if I leave without them that is also interpreted rude. Its just. I really try. I try so hard to be flexible and chill like everyone around me but I just don't mange. I don't know how to. What are rules and time agreements etc. there for if you don't stick to them? I need a structure to go about my day. I think partially I can act as a parent to myself and validate my emotions. This means acknowleding them; you are really angry right now. you really wanted to be on time for your lecuture and it furstrates you that you are not because you feel obligated to wait. that sounds very stressful. I am aware that it is not proportinal to have this amount of emotions about five minutes of a math lecure but it is the way I feel. This method unfortunately does not solve the overall problem but it does help to cope with the feeling in that moment.

The other big problem is them wanting to stay up way longer than I want to and its so sad beause I absolutely adore spending time with them its just also that a lack of sleep can really ruin the next day for me. And then I keep talking about wanting to sleep the whole evening and that probably is somewhat annoying to everyone around me and I get that. Its just so sad to miss out on spending time with them. I think sometimes I can accept staying up late with them because the consequences are usually not as bad or that sometimes I leave and am sure in that decision because it makes the next day easier. But I don't know how easy that will be to actually impliment.

So yeah. I don't know where this leaves me. I can soothe myself when I am stressed. I can weigh consequences and set my boundaries with intent. It's just that I often still don't quiet feel like I fit in. I love my friends I just don't know how to adapt to them sometimes. I miss having a structure for how to function in school. Having a social life is confusing.

the problem of i love my university friends but their sleep schedule is way later than mine.. have to leave early and am still tried the next day </3