Afraid of Losing Everyone

[テト]

My whole life, I have moved around a lot.

Every time I made a close friend, I would move away or sometimes they would move away.

My parents divorced when I was four.

Neither of my stepparents like me.

My biological mother has disowned me, and my biological father calls me a disappointment.

In the Spring of 2014, my band director Mr. C died in a car accident.

He was the only adult figure in my life.

I never had a good sense of family until the Fall of 2014.

In 2014, I joined my school's Academic Decathlon aka AD team (it's linked if you don't know what AD is).

My school's AD team was #1 at Regionals, State, and #3 overall at Nationals.

We've made it to Nationals 12 years in a row (either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place).

How?

We study constantly.

We spend all our time together studying.

We study during school, after school, and when we go home.

We would study for about 4-6 hours a day. Sometimes more.

With all this time together, you tend to develop close bonds, and that's what happened.

We were no longer teammates.

We were family.

Our team would even call each other affectionate names, ie mom, dad, son, daughter, sister, brother, etc.

Half the team consisted of juniors.

The other half, seniors.

The AD team was the first time in my life I felt like I belonged to a family.

They were always there for me.

We were there for each other.

We would all watch anime and play video games together.

It was perfect..

But things have changed now that we former seniors have graduated and gone to University.

The bond is barely there.

Some of us are hanging on for dear life to keep the family together.

But some just stopped...

My friend Korey doesn't even talk to us, anymore.

He's moved on.

It's really heart breaking.

I don't want to lose another family.

This is the reason why I'm afraid of forming new bonds with people here at Uni.

I'm tired of getting close to people and losing them.

I know people should move on from high school experiences, but AD wasn't a normal high school experience.

Very few people have experienced what I have.

I just....I don't know...

I miss them terribly.

We were a unit,...a family.

[nerdperson777]

It's normal to feel that way. I didn't move, but my two childhood friends did. I've never seen my parents love each other (although I was told yesterday that there used to be something). My parents used to emotionally and physically abuse me (physical can't happen anymore), though it was for academic reasons, which they didn't see the aftereffects coming. My family now is a martial arts performance team near my home even though I'm not there most of the time for college. I call the coach my mother, and her fiancee will be too. She will say she is mother, but has not called me son yet. I won't push that. She understands what I've gone through and listens to and trusts me, unlike my biological parents.

If your group did not try to keep together, it's possible that college took too much of their time. The people I called friends in high school, I barely chat with them now, especially with my gender identity. I talk more to my two college friends. Many older people say that you make your lifelong friends in college. The two friends I made are okay but I'm not overly sure that I'll keep in contact with them. One of them is not from my relative hometown area and the one who is, I've found doesn't seem to be the most reliable. She would ditch me for her brother (who is her best friend) and they doesn't pay back right away when they owe me money. Although I tell her my problems, I'm far from being that close of friend to her so we are all just roommates who get along. I could say that I met my new mother during my college years. Distance can keep people apart, but if they really care to keep everyone together, they would have made a bigger effort. I'm big on friendships since that seems to be the only thing I can have.

In college there are fraternities and sororities. Those are supposed to be family-like, I believe. But I know I can't be that chummy with just anyone. Plus since my gender isn't really binary, it's hard to fit myself in one. But you have to give college a chance. You may find a friend in the most unsuspecting places. I found my two friends as suitemates my first year. We were the three introverts in our entire suite of social, boy-crazy girls. The school only really looked to put people of similar qualities in rooms and not suites. I'm different from the two since I'm a math/science buff while one is mainly good at writing and the other is pretty good at both, but liking writing better. So we became friends by the pure coincidence of the housing system. And without what influence they had on me, I wouldn't have met my new mother either. I found this whole thing to be a coincidental fortune for me, but I'm thankful that I got influenced by these people to become who I am now.

[テト]

It's normal to feel that way. I didn't move, but my two childhood friends did. I've never seen my parents love each other (although I was told yesterday that there used to be something). My parents used to emotionally and physically abuse me (physical can't happen anymore), though it was for academic reasons, which they didn't see the aftereffects coming. My family now is a martial arts performance team near my home even though I'm not there most of the time for college. I call the coach my mother, and her fiancee will be too. She will say she is mother, but has not called me son yet. I won't push that. She understands what I've gone through and listens to and trusts me, unlike my biological parents.

If your group did not try to keep together, it's possible that college took too much of their time. The people I called friends in high school, I barely chat with them now, especially with my gender identity. I talk more to my two college friends. Many older people say that you make your lifelong friends in college. The two friends I made are okay but I'm not overly sure that I'll keep in contact with them. One of them is not from my relative hometown area and the one who is, I've found doesn't seem to be the most reliable. She would ditch me for her brother (who is her best friend) and they doesn't pay back right away when they owe me money. Although I tell her my problems, I'm far from being that close of friend to her so we are all just roommates who get along. I could say that I met my new mother during my college years. Distance can keep people apart, but if they really care to keep everyone together, they would have made a bigger effort. I'm big on friendships since that seems to be the only thing I can have.

In college there are fraternities and sororities. Those are supposed to be family-like, I believe. But I know I can't be that chummy with just anyone. Plus since my gender isn't really binary, it's hard to fit myself in one. But you have to give college a chance. You may find a friend in the most unsuspecting places. I found my two friends as suitemates my first year. We were the three introverts in our entire suite of social, boy-crazy girls. The school only really looked to put people of similar qualities in rooms and not suites. I'm different from the two since I'm a math/science buff while one is mainly good at writing and the other is pretty good at both, but liking writing better. So we became friends by the pure coincidence of the housing system. And without what influence they had on me, I wouldn't have met my new mother either. I found this whole thing to be a coincidental fortune for me, but I'm thankful that I got influenced by these people to become who I am now.

Seriously, like thank you for what you've said, because this has actually calmed my nerves a bit.

I know I need to give college a chance, but I feel bad if I don't help to keep my "family" together.

And I've met some new friends here due to high school friends (who are here with me) introducing them to me.

It's just hard to find motivation, though, you know?

[sunmarsh]

I heard this phrase once from someone who was giving advice... it goes "you will have different friends for different times in your life". When I first heard this I thought it was stupid and I thought that my group of high school friends would always stay together. But I was wrong. And as the years have gone by the phrase rings more true.

You can only control your own actions. There is no way for you to know the future life journeys of your high school family and where they will be going, physically (moving across the country or beyond), mentally (Is their personality going to change? Will you still want to be friends with them?), emotionally (Will they meet someone else who they start spending more time with?), intellectually (Will they pursue degrees even further away?)... etc. I know how heartbreaking and scary it must be to lose something/someone that has been so special to you, but it's important to learn from that experience, and take that knowledge with you.

That said, I am still friends with my best friend from high school and I hope that whatever happens we will continue to be friends. It's much easier to keep in close contact with a few people, rather than a large group, even if it's long distance. So my recommendation would be to choose your family wisely, and do your best to keep in contact with those who are most special to you. And don't be afraid to let people into and out of your life when the time is right.