I've been wondering about this because I feel like spending so much time online since I was very young has given me a warped perception of reality. But at the same time, I think I'd feel like such a freak because I'd only ever have interacted with neurotypicals. I wouldn't know that there's people like me out there.
I could not have gotten a science degree and a literature degree were it not for the internet as not only could I not afford the colleges in person classes, I am socially inept and cannot handle classrooms, especially after being accepted into a prestigious program, sitting during the first class totally crushing on the professor, thinking she was gorgeous and falling in 'luv' with her, only to be called to stay after class.
She then asked me had I changed my name, which threw me off, I had, twenty years earlier and at that time then lived far from where I had grown up and never told anyone I knew about my name change.
Turns out, she had been my neighbor growing up. Her father had been the ringleader of the pedophile and human trafficking group that had abducted me when I was 4 1/2, threw me back into my yard permanently curving my spine in the process, then reabused me again when I was 6, to which I finally told the cops and that started off an investigation that took almost forty years to shut down the human trafficking ring where I grew up.
She, my professor had walked me home after my leg and arm had been pulled out during the last attack on me at six. I woke the next day, in my own bed, but not knowing who I was or how I got there, unable to walk.
I had not recognized her, but had crushed on her as a kid as well so it made sense I had cruashed on her again. She asked me if I would be okay knowing who she was. I said sure, I was fine if she was, walked out of her class and never went back, for ANY classes. Mind you, I had a 4.2GPA which is a perfect score. Now, I have all this student loan I cannot pay back, ever, due to me being abducted and trafficked as a child and my professor being my old neighbor whose dad just happened to be the ring leader. Fucked up.
If not for the internet I would not have had two years of studies getting my science degree to keep my mind off suicide and another year last year getting my literature degree.
Finally, if it were not for the internet, I would not have found this site. This site is important to me right now. I joined this site during the holiday season which is always hard for me as my father beat me into unconsciousness on christmas eve when I was 14 because I asked a question and every christmas since then has some kind of trauma, this years it was 20 degrees below zero for a week after thanksgiving and then the week again before christmas and I live in a shed with no running water and of grid electric that needs to be charged by a car every day, twenty below, alone while my husband is gone on the road driving and my support animal is sick and dying, yeah, too much, ready to leave, found this place wanting to just find the answer to my way out and just fucking leave and instead, found some posts and reasons to stay a bit.