#and its willful in ways we arent healthy but must we be in order to live? fuck.

[femmefaggot]

we have people we promised to give money to and patreons and video games and any fucking mild fun or convenience is stripped and im aware its not as big of a problem as it could be but we already feel half dead at times at least dont strip away this because the body cant handle cleaning for hours at a time all of a sudden

[violentviolette]

Do you have any tips on making friends as someone with aspd+npd? I’ve tried without success. If I do befriend someone, it lasts for a few months at best.

i think there's a few kind of tricks to it and a little bit of unlearning societal bullshit and a lot a bit of checking ourselves and the reality of our behavior

for me, it helped to first understand what kind of person i am in friendships, and what im looking for in others. having a real good understanding of what u want out of a friendship and how u function in one helps to be able to better know if u and someone else are going to be compatible right from the start

for example, i struggle to initiate conversations. if left on my own i will message someone maybe once or twice a week at most. not because i don't like them or dont value them, but just because my brain doesnt think a lot of thoughts on its own. but i do like to talk to others a lot, i just need someone else to initiate the conversation and give me a thought to build off of. because of this i tend to look for people who naturally talk a lot. who have a lot of thoughts and like to share them and dont mind if someone doesnt message them first. all 3 of the people who are closest to me have adhd and LOVE to infodump and pop into my messages with facts or thoughts or something they saw and so our friendships are well balanced, they like to begin conversations and i like to continue them. we both accept and value one another for our different natures and arent looking for something the other cant give

figuring out what ur ideal friendship looks like helps u realize and identify where ur priorities should be. what are u looking for in another person? what do u want to do together? ideally what does ur day to day interactions look like? what kind of support and level of investment are u looking for from them? what are u capable of and willing to give in return? for cluster b pds this also has the added benefit of helping us kind of check ourselves. is what we're looking for from someone else unhealthy or unreasonable? is the amount we're willing to give in return unreasonably low? if we want more from others, we must give more of ourselves in return, are we avoiding doing this and putting in that investment because we're allowing our disordered feelings to guide us? a big secret to making good friends is being one. good people who will treat u properly and be there for u and invest in ur friendship long term are not going to stick around if u arent giving that in return. and often because of our disorders we allow our delusional feelings and warped/unhealthy worldview to guide us. we inflate our own worth while downplaying theirs and think we're giving way more than we actually objectively are, while asking for an unreasonable amount in return. if people seem like they invest very little in us and leave us quickly, if it feels like other people are always the problem, there's a good chance its because we arent giving the amount of investment we need to or have too unreasonable of expectations to actually sustain a healthy relationship. the problem oftentimes is very much us, and we need to acknowledge that without shame and judgement in order to fix it. it doesnt make u an irredeemably bad person, but it does mean u have to fix that if u want to give urself a better chance at success

i also think a big thing that no one tells u is that like, ur going to burn through a lot of people looking for the right ones. its a process of elimination. u meet 10 people, become casual friends with 5 of them, and over the course of time, around 3-4 of them will drop off and u'll be left with 1 or 2 people who stick around longer, and that cycle repeats for as long as ur putting urself out there. and the longer time goes on, the more friends u will "lose" or have drop off, and thats a perfectly normal and natural thing. it takes time to build that core group of people who end up staying in our lives. its also very normal to end up with none sometimes and have to start from scratch, big shifts in our lives or big periods of change and growth oftentimes mean shedding old friend groups. it's very normal to completely start over with a whole new group of friends after things like high school, college, moving out, during recovery, after getting sober, ect. ect. and its normal when ur a young adult in ur early 20s to be changing friends a lot as u figure out who u are and what works for u in the 31 years i have been alive, ive made and kept 4 deep lasting friendships. i've lost 10 times that if we're counting everyone ive ever made friends with but eventually stopped talking to. so viewing it that way and understanding that its natural for ur friends to shift throughout ur life and for it to take time to find people who u can have meaningful and lasting relationships with i think helps take some of that pressure off. so dont sweat it too much, but take this time to really ask urself some introspective questions and decide what kind of person u want to be, if ur actions truly align with that person, and what kind of people u want in ur life. it helps a lot in the long run