#i dont want people’s pity. i want a real friend who can make my rsd and cptsd not trigger constantly

[autisticlee]

almost every time I have met online friends irl, they stop talking to me either immediately after or very soon after, usually after increasingly acting weird or distant towards me. it makes me feel awful. and then i'm afraid to meet anyone irl again.

I feel so silly and stupid that I have a lowkey fear creeping below the surface about going to visit my friend and their gf this summer. what if they end up hating me 🙃 i've thought about mentioning it to my friend, but I don't want to make them feel bad about it!!!!!! it's not their fault I feel this gross fear. they didn't do anything to make it happen. they're super excited and always tell me about it!! i'm the one that is struggling to feel excited because i'm haunted by past experiences that will not stop repeating like i'm stuck in an endless loop of hell!!!!! 😭

I try to remind myself that thos friend also

I seem to give off this bad vibe irl that everyone except me notices and it makes people want to avoid me. I don't know what it is or how to fix it but I wish I could!!!! perhaps i'm just simply not likable 🥲 i've had people want to be roommates and act like best friends meet me irl and suddenly start avoiding me until they straight-up ghost me. I don't understand 😔

i'm very willing to work on myself....if I knew wtf was wrong with me!!!!! but I do not!!

I also fear it's something I can't change and it's something that's part of me, so I literally can't do anything unless I mask and become a fake person. but that's so uncomfortable and lonely in itself and feels pointless. what if it's just normal autism traits and people are assholes???? then I have no choice in the matter.

everyone tells me i'll ~find the right ones~ or whatever. befriend other autistic or ND people. but it never matters. they all end up the same in the end!!!!! fellow autistic and adhd people have hurt me MORE than NTs!!! do you know how many times I thought I did find "the right people," made them promise to not do what the last ones did, promise to respect my needs and boundaries, and promise to be honest and talk everything out, but then a little while down the way they do exactly the same shit they promised not to that everyone else did?!

when the same shit keeps happening over and over, at what point does it stop being "other people are the assholes" and become "im obviously the problem" ??????? i'll have people tell me it's not me that's the problem. it's other people. those same people will become "the other people" themselves. so is it REALLY them that's the problem, or am I too goddamn stupid to know what's wrong with me and what i'm doing wrong ?!

sometimes people will put a blame on me but not tell me why it's me. just a broad statement with no details that point fingers at me. "you're gaslighting me" (after opening up to a close friend group about a difficult thing I had just experienced and that was the response one gave and then completely ghosted with no explanation, leading to the whole group abandoning me)

sometimes people will complain about certain things I can't help. "you ruined my whole day!" (some girl telling me this, a few months later after kicking me out of a group. I needed help navigating nyc subway to the bus station because my phone GPS didn't work there and she said it was ok, she'd gladly help me. then yelled at me about it a while later when she got mad about something else, about how I ruined her day that time by making her help me and being a burden 🙃✌️)

sometimes someone will drop out basically mid conversion, get extremely distant, go from replying with novels to one word replies until not responding at all, then suddenly block me a year later after ignoring me. only to come at me with "you stopped caring about me and haven't messaged me in a year" despite our last messages being me saying I miss them, them saying they've been busy (despite having the time to talk to multiple other people and ppat their message screenshots online every day and be online all the time) and me responding telling them to message me when they aren't busy so we can chat again, but never getting a response!!) only for them to admit they muted me and didn't want to talk to me "for no reason" they literally said that to me lmao wtf. how is there "no reason"

sometimes it IS them that's the problem though. like one girl who accused me of liking her and sabotaged our whole friendship based on these baseless delusions she had. sje decided she was going to "choose" to be straight (she's bi) and decided i'm a "man" (I was trans masc and starting my transition at the time, but am actually nonbinary. it was just required to be trans masc where I live to get treatment. nb people aren't allowed) and she decided guys and girls can't ever be "just friends" she even got very upset at me when I told her she's wrong and not even my type and i'm asexual/probably aromantic. she claims I ~knew saying that would hurt her~ because she apparently told me that kind of thing hurts her before. I did not know this, she never told me this. that's also a weird thing to think/say??? saying it upsets you that someone ISNT attracted to you but also being upset and ruining the friendship if they are??? what the fuck lmao. goofy behavior. I thought she'd be delighted to hear she was wrong about that but nope. she wanted to feel good that someone liked her even if it cost the friendship. haha weird 🙃 she also talked shit about me being autistic at one point lol. fellow ND being a ND hater. sue was all kinds of messed up, but at least I knew it was for sure her that was the problem and not me this one time. but she wasted so much of my time and energy that I can't get back.

it's not always clear why people do what they do, and it drives me insane until I can figure it out. most of the time I cannot. so I go on knowing i'll unknowingly fuck everything up yet again. it feels guaranteed.

I just want a stable and comfortable friendship that's close and secure. one I know will last. one where I can relax and enjoy the time with the other person and not have to be hyperaware of every little detail and look out for potential patterns I recognize that every friendship seems to fall into just like the last, that will lead to the same shit. then force me to have to try harder to save the friendship before it gets worse!!!! but trying seems to make it worse somehow. I don't fuckijg know.

I AM TIRED AND EXHAUSTED AND DONE. i've reached the point where I don't have the energy or willpower to try getting closer with anyone and have to sit here feeling lonely and disconnected from everyone. I don't feel like I have even one single person I can trust or rely on. not one. if I go to anyone, i'll just burden and annoy them. they can say I won't all the want, but that's always a lie. always. last time I trusted a group wo told me that, I got told I was gaslighting them. not told why or how. but apparently losing a thing important to me and confiding in my closest friends about it is "gaslighting" now and is justification to cancel me from our group trip and then not invite me back into the group chat when I switch accounts LOL.

after that shit, I just cannot. I genuinely thought that were "THE ONES" you know, those mythical "the right people" i'm alwaus being told about thar apparently exist. but every time I find them, I am wrong. so I have no fucking clue what to even look for. they seemed so good at first!!!! how do I find better???? and how do I not fuck it up wven thought I can't figure out what the FUCK I did wrong by sharing a very deep, personal, important thing with my closet trusted friends?!

if "the right people" can't even accept me then wtf am I supposed to do??? I feel like I either deserve this, not having friends or anyone to rely on, or I just have to accept that i'll always be alone. maybe I can have little casual surface friendships....but I'll never have anything deeper and closer. i'll never have the type of thing I feel I need that's hard to explain. maybe it's just the trust of knowing something will last and is stable. i've never had that. i've been walking on egg shells my whole life around everyone. and its so uncomfortable and sucks. it makes me feel so goddamn lonely. especially when I see everyone else has their person or people.

and don't get me wrong, i'm fine with being alone by myself. if I lock myself up and don't see or pay attention to others, i'm perfectly fine and don't feel lonely. it's as soon as I see other people being together, and ESPECIALLY when i'm woth other people that I feel this deep and painful sad/loneliness that doesn't go away until i'm away from people for a while again. but even of i'm enjoying my alone time, there's often things I want to do that require others, so I can't do them and it makes me feel bad. my old therapist telling me last time I was avoiding people due to (unknown at the time) autistic burnout, that we are a social species and require interaction with other people, so I NEED to make friends and interact with others always echos in my mind. I wish I DIDNT need others and can lock myself up alone forever. that feel less painful than trying to be with others. seeing and being with others makes me feel awful and alone. being literally alone feels comfortable and not lonely, most of the time. as long as I have a single-person hyperfocus to occupy my entire existence with.

but despite feeling like this, the burnout I hit from losing several important things to me at once about a couple years ago and my friend group ditching me when I needed them most is debilitating and still going strong. I feel like this is my new permanent state of being. I don't have the energy to put any effort into friendhips. if they don't maintain themsleves or the other person doesn't put in most of the effort, I WILL let it die and act like I don't give a fuck (I do, I just don't have the power to stop it). it's all on the other person's shoulders to carry the friendship the way I carried all the ones in my past. it's my turn to be the unresponsive friend who doesn't put in effort and responds with one word. not because I secretly hate the person/friendhipz but because i'm perpetually burnt out and literally can't do much anymore. I just can't.

that doesnt mean I can't keep complaining about how lonely and disconnected I feel!!! just because i'm not trying to fix it doesn't mean my feelings are invalid! "just keep trying" only works for people who have the ability to try. my ability was destroyed and am now unable. I would need a miracle of a person who puts in enough effort and genuinely cares enough about me to nurse me out of burnout hell to the point where I can put full trust and faith into them and call them my best friend.

but I doubt that will happen. I won't believe it until I see it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! being "positive" and hoping for the best keeps biting me in the ass and makes the fall hurt even more. I do not have the spoons and willpower and energy for that again i'm sorry 😭

wow this was a long ramble. it's taken me 2 hours to write this. I just wrote exactly what my brain was saying and rambled off topic. this was originally supposed to be about how, while I want to be excited to visit my friend and their gf, it's really hard to because all my past experiences make FEAR lurk around every corner.

I expressed an anxiety to my friend about the trip but only said it was about going to the airport and flying for the first time ever. and alone at that. if I tell them about this little hell demon on my shoulder, it may upset them. they're always telling me how they're so excited and I can't ruin that!!!! the more excited they are, the more comfortable/less worried I feel i'm allowed to be about it??? I NEED that energy personally. and I want them to keep that for themsleves as well. especially when it's not that I don't trust THEM. I don't trust myself. I could do any number of things wrong and make a good, fun, exciting trip go bad, or create a bad after-effect that makes it all slowly break down after. my friend expressed even wanting me to move in with them and their gf. be roommates. where have I heard that one before lmao. multiple other times before a seemingly good friendship gets destroyed for unknown reasons 😭

I hate that my brain has to live this way thanks to past traumas. cptsd mixed with autism/adhd is literally hell. but when you basically never know if you're the one fucking everything up accidentally, are afraid to hurt someone important again, don't know what a real/healthy friendhip is meant to look like due to never experiencing one, and don't have the energy to deal with this shit anymore, it's impossible to make your brain chill the fuck out.

there is a chance everything will go well and nothing will change. there is a smaller chance things will even improve. I can only hope, even if I know hoping for things ends up hurting more.

"what's the worst that can happen" i'm always asked, as if the person asking thinks nothing bad can happen. imagine being very far away from home and your trusted best friend you're there with betrays and hurts you for who knows what stupid reason, and you're stranded there, alone and upset, with no one around you who cares or wants to help or comfort you. you're treated like a burden and have no one to turn to. you're trapped and alone, surrounded by strangers in a big scary city. your whole world and everything you knew is falling apart in your hands as you try desperately to patch it badk together, but your once trusted person is purposely pulling out the seams. your supposed-to-be-happy experience is forever tainted and ruined. you get blamed for it all when you're confused and lost as to what even happened! it takes years to put the pieces together and come to a conclusion about what and why it happened. but that experience left deep scars that affect everything that comes after.

I don't want want that to happen again lmao. I cant make my brain not have intrusive flashbacks when faced with a similar scenario. it's literally how trauma works.

i've heard you can heal from trauma. but is that possible when the trauma wound constantly gets reopen every time it even starts to heal? if the same shit that caused you trauma keeps happening over and over and over and over....things replying in your head end up repeating themelves despire your best efforts to go a different direction....how do you heal? how do you convince your brain to not feel like this and think these things when it feels like reality rather than a worry since these things have happened literally 100% of the time!

that's the problem. you can't heal a flesh wound by rubbing dirt and shit and sharp objects on it all the time. I feel like the only way to heal is to be able to have someone I can actually trust and reply on. someone who proves to me that they won't become another source of trauma. the wond needs a clean and stable environment to heal in.

but i'm broken. i'm annoying. i'm incredibly boring and have no personality. my interests are few and very weird. i'm not likable to most people or for very long and do and say the wrong things all the time. etc etc. *throws pity party or whatever that's actually based on facts probably because no one proved them wrong yet and idk the real reason so i'm simply guessing* so how am I supposed to make a person do this lmao since you can't force people to like you and be a good friend. I also can't force myself to like people so the person needs to be someone *I* like and feel comfortable and connected with as well. hitting two birds with one stone is.....not easy. especially when you're as clumsy and uncoordinated as me.

hopefully my trip goes well. hopefully a miracle happens and we get closer. but I can't rely on it. I can't even think about it. I keep making myself focus on other things and nkt think. but sometimes something reminds me and then this now THREE HOUR long rant happens. 😭✌️