• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

A desperate plea to no one

Cutesie

Struggling to exist, trying to believe in change.
V.I.P Member
I don't know how to write this post. I'll try anyway. It will probably be long; be warned. As I become more upset, talking becomes more difficult, then also typing. Once I start typing, though, moderating what comes out doesn't necessarily happen enough. There's nothing that is wanted from anyone. Is it then just a rant? I don't know. I want something, just not knowing what. If I write inappropriately, know that it's not intentional.

There's another support site, on which I am much more active than here. I am very addicted; it is the focus of my life for four months. Much positivity has come to me through it. I can express my thoughts, feelings and talk about what's happening. I've gotten support and given it; that two-way street doesn't exist in real life - usually neither side of it to this extent.

There are negative aspects, too, due to my easily-triggered emotions and to how easy it is to make mistakes in such a forum. We get through them, and people can actually become closer afterwards.

Everything until now was only a very brief introduction to the specific issue bothering me now. Soon after joining the site, I became part of a circle of members who chat a lot - both about serious topics and fun, often inane banter. One of those people we'll call B. She is very active, "reacting" (with likes and the like) to almost everything and commenting.

At some point, I realized that B had stopped interacting with me. There had been no argument between us, and she hadn't registered any complaints that she had with me. It hurt me, but people have the right to pick their friends. I do think that ghosting someone (ignoring without explanation) is terrible social behavior. I've been the victim of it in real life - and it feels so bad. I've also been the perpetrator - and feel guilty years later. The uncertainty involved is the worst. If you have to end a relationship, tell the other person that you're doing it. How much you say is a personal choice, but tell them something.

It's not just the emotional hurt that's a problem. B and I continued to circulate in the same threads. She would comment on people who commented on my comments, but wouldn't address me directly. This went on for some weeks. Eventually, I reached out to her, but there was no response. Then, I realized what must have happened: She put me on "Ignore". If it were true, it blocked her from seeing anything that I wrote. Now I was left to wonder something else: Did she do it accidentally, hitting the button without noticing? I had to know, and it bothered me considerably.

I tried reaching out through third parties, via private messages to them. I then asked publicly (without mentioning B by name) if someone would help. All I was told is to forget about B, that I'm an adult - which is evidently not true.

I don't know what changed, but she soon started interacting with me again. Not only that, but she followed me, something that she hadn't done in the first place. It matters in her case, because her settings only allow those who she follows to view her profile page. B went back to constantly talking with me, without any conversation between us about her previous actions. I was fine to just try moving ahead.

Last night, which was three days after the resumption of our relationship, she started ignoring me again. It destroyed me. As I said, that site is my lifeline, since I've had little interest in other activities for months now. Even if I reciprocate and put B on "Ignore", her name is everywhere. I hate her for what she's doing to me, but I hate myself a lot more. I'm thinking about suicide today more than I have in a few months. (It never goes away - not in over 25 years now - but there are gradients to how intrusive the thoughts are.)

I could go on and on, but there's no reason to do so. I challenge anyone to tell me something that I don't yet know. Yes, I know that I need professional help, and that I'm not doing enough to access it. (I did have a conversation this morning with a social worker, who has been trying to connect me with care.) It's hard enough these days to get out of bed. I'll stop now.
 
Last edited:
I don't know how to write this post. I'll try anyway. It will probably be long; be warned. As I become more upset, talking becomes more difficult, then also typing. Once I start typing, though, moderating what comes out doesn't necessarily happen enough. There's nothing that is wanted from anyone. Is it then just a rant? I don't know. I want something, just not knowing what. If I write inappropriately, know that it's not intentional.

There's another support site, on which I am much more active than here. I am very addicted; it is the focus of my life for four months. Much positivity has come to me through it. I can express my thoughts, feelings and talk about what's happening. I've gotten support and given it; that two-way street doesn't exist in real life - usually neither side of it to this extent.

There are negative aspects, too, due to my easily-triggered emotions and to how easy it is to make mistakes in such a forum. We get through them, and people can actually become closer afterwards.

Everything until now was only a very brief introduction to the specific issue bothering me now. Soon after joining the site, I became part of a circle of members who chat a lot - both about serious topics and fun, often inane banter. One of those people we'll call B. She is very active, "reacting" (with likes and the like) to almost everything and commenting.

At some point, I realized that B had stopped interacting with me. There had been no argument between us, and she hadn't registered any complaints that she had with me. It hurt me, but people have the right to pick their friends. I do think that ghosting someone (ignoring without explanation) is terrible social behavior. I've been the victim of it in real life - and it feels so bad. I've also been the perpetrator - and feel guilty years later. The uncertainty involved is the worst. If you have to end a relationship, tell the other person that you're doing it. How much you say is a personal choice, but tell them something.

It's not just the emotional hurt that's a problem. B and I continued to circulate in the same threads. She would comment on people who commented on my comments, but wouldn't address me directly. This went on for some weeks. Eventually, I reached out to her, but there was no response. Then, I realized what must have happened: She put me on "Ignore". If it were true, it blocked her from seeing anything that I wrote. Now I was left to wonder something else: Did she do it accidentally, hitting the button without noticing? I had to know, and it bothered me considerably.

I tried reaching out through third parties, via private messages to them. I then asked publicly (without mentioning B by name) if someone would help. All I was told is to forget about B, that I'm an adult - which is evidently not true.

I don't know what changed, but she soon started interacting with me again. Not only that, but she followed me, something that she hadn't done in the first place. It matters in her case, because her settings only allow those who she follows to view her profile page. B went back to constantly talking with me, without any conversation between us about her previous actions. I was fine to just try moving ahead.

Last night, which was three days after the resumption of our relationship, she started ignoring me again. It destroyed me. As I said, that site is my lifeline, since I've had little interest in other activities for months now. Even if I reciprocate and put B on "Ignore", her name is everywhere. I hate her for what she's doing to me, but I hate myself a lot more. I'm thinking about suicide today more than I have in a few months. (It never goes away - not in over 25 years now - but there are gradients to how intrusive the thoughts are.)

I could go on and on, but there's no reason to do so. I challenge anyone to tell me something that I don't yet know. Yes, I know that I need professional help, and that I'm not doing enough to access it. (I did have a conversation this morning with a social worker, who has been trying to connect me with care.) It's hard enough these days to get out of bed. I'll stop now.
I have encountered people like this. I refer to them as "emotional yo-yos." Have you begun to maybe consider thinking about the possibility of directly asking her what is going on or why she is doing this? I have found many times in the past that taking action and asking answers these questions.

Suicide is never the answer. Believe me, I know from experience.
 
Have you begun to maybe consider thinking about the possibility of directly asking her what is going on or why she is doing this?
I did so twice - first a month ago, again last week. If I am correct that she had me blocked (there's no way to know), she wouldn't have seen my messages.

It will be okay. I go through intense periods of heightened emotion and always get past them. It doesn't feel this way while my mind is in turmoil, but one thing that I've thankfully never been is truly delusional.
Suicide is never the answer. Believe me, I know from experience.
Being an incompetent wimp puts me in little danger. I don't know how to effectively hurt myself and probably don't have the courage to do so.

By the way, the individual discussed used to be a member of this site, and has a very negative view of it. I wonder now what trouble she may have caused to members here.
 
Without any detailed explanation from "B", you wouldn't have any understanding of the reasons why she is behaving this way. I am going to point out the obvious here, and that is, you are not B, you don't know B (not really), you don't know what B's life is like, you don't know what is going on in her head. You do not have her perspective. As such, I would not presume anything. It may have nothing, at all, to do with you.

Interpersonal bonding is a biochemical/neurophysiological process. There are those of us that can interact well with other people, but it never triggers the oxytocin and vasopressin hormones, nor the serotonin and dopamine. There's no missing people. There's no thinking of people. The best we can have are good acquaintances. Friendship is out of reach. We can't make that connection. The people we interact with online are not "tangible" in the sense we cannot see, hear, or touch them. We can go onto a forum, interact for days, then not at all for several days, and then be active again. There's not a thought about the people on the other side of the computer. It's not anything personal.

Having said that, I'm not sure going down that "I've been rejected" spiral is warranted.
 
Just a couple of thoughts on the issue:

Spending so much time devoted to a forum is really not good for your health, I know this from first hand experience and now limit the time I spend online.

Autistic people are reknowned for having all sorts of social problems so you shouldn't be surprised when some of them don't behave as you might expect.

If it's who I think it is then you should take her behaviour with a pinch of salt, she likes to play silly little popularity games with people. She berated me for laughing at someone's joke because she didn't like that person and then told me that if I wanted to be her friend that I wasn't allowed to be nice to people that weren't her friends. I told her to grow up and never spoke to her again.
 
I am going to point out the obvious here, and that is, you are not B, you don't know B (not really), you don't know what B's life is like, you don't know what is going on in her head.
You are absolutely correct. I don't know exactly what, but she's gone through a lot recently. This month, she officially got her name changed as part of a gender transition. She also has autism, which can manifest in all sorts of ways - including miscommunications.
Interpersonal bonding is a biochemical/neurophysiological process. There are those of us that can interact well with other people, but it never triggers the oxytocin and vasopressin hormones, nor the serotonin and dopamine. There's no missing people. There's no thinking of people. The best we can have are good acquaintances. Friendship is out of reach. We can't make that connection. The people we interact with online are not "tangible" in the sense we cannot see, hear, or touch them. We can go onto a forum, interact for days, then not at all for several days, and then be active again. There's not a thought about the people on the other side of the computer. It's not anything personal.
Can you clarify something about this paragraph: Are you describing what some people are like, or the experience of everyone engaged in Internet-based relationships?
Having said that, I'm not sure going down that "I've been rejected" spiral is warranted.
Traveling such a spiral is not helpful, of course. I know that, and certainly don't want to do it, which is part of why it disturbs me so when I can't control my thoughts. Believe me, the frustrations that I have towards myself is worse than anything other people do to me.

For now, I can only try to calm down; the process has begun. Blocking B might be a good idea, but there are a couple of reasons why it might not be the best path: 1) I love her writing. 2) I'll still know that she's there, and will just be curious and confused.

Thanks to you all for the caring and suggestions. I'm not sure why one of you deleted your comment but, as you'd expect, I'm not ready to get off that site completely. Hopefully, I'll find other things to do, which can help moderate my time there.
 
@Outdated, it doesn't really matter; it was dumb of me to mention the part about her being on here. She may have actually been gone before you joined. (I don't know what her username was.) In the dozens of posts that I've seen by her on the other site, none that I can remember were mean.
 
Can you clarify something about this paragraph: Are you describing what some people are like, or the experience of everyone engaged in Internet-based relationships?
Some. More specifically, this is a common autistic trait and explanation for it.
 
On this site there are people who I enjoy reading and like when they notice what I've written. While I think having a friendship with them would be positive, with online communities I do not expect much and am not bothered by changes to interactions. I just manage my expectations and take interacting with somebody who enjoys what I have written as an unexpected gift.
 
Text-only based communications are quite different from verbal comms, which are both different from in-person comms which is what we're evolved to tune into (autism notwithstanding, etc).

When relationships are stripped down to text only I suspect the mind tends to fill-in the missing data it would normally expect when face to face with someone, and what it uses is based on existing biases and experiences, but that's rarely accurate and it's easy to build a picture of someone that isn't representing their true nature.

My guess is this is one of the reasons online relationships (of all sorts) can become confusing and incomprehensible in such a volatile fashion. They may well be behaving totally rationally, but we're treating them as a different person and expecting them to behave according to that instead (and of course, they will tend to do the same exacerbating the miscommunication).
 
Everything that you say, @Boogs, is logical. I'll just point out that some people (me!) do so much better at communicating via the written word. Being on that platform has been very helpful for me, even if it also has some downsides.
 
In a 45-minute phone conversation with a social worker yesterday, I said very few complete sentences. It seemed impossible to express vocally my thoughts in an accurate way.
 
Everything that you say, @Boogs, is logical. I'll just point out that some people (me!) do so much better at communicating via the written word. Being on that platform has been very helpful for me, even if it also has some downsides.
While I have a different modality of communicating, I too am very much reliant on writing. I can't speak in the same way I write. The very act of speaking takes so much concentration I easily lose what I'm saying, the logical model I have in my head that I'm trying to express with words. Likewise, I can understand writing far better than listening to speech in real time.

I'm a very slow awkward reader, often I have to reread the same thing a few times before I can make sense of it in my native mode. But mostly it's the only way I can have some control over my (admittedly poor) communications.
What I say is logical (well, hopefully! 😉) because I've no other way to make sense of anything.
It's hugely limiting in so many ways, and is often misinterpreted which is very frustrating, but it's the dice I was rolled at conception onwards, so it's had to fill in for all the dysfunctional things it's able to.

Real time speech is a big challenge (in expressing anything more than trivia in a consistent fashion), so although I detest AI feed style social media (X, facebook, etc), I find the more 'manual' forums like this a godsend that allows me to converse in a way I otherwise could rarely find, so I appreciate how important these things can be in some situations. And I think it's very healthy that you recognise the good aspects come with not-so-good aspects! 😊
 
Last edited:
I had a friend 30 years ago (before internet) who treated me like B has treated you. We were both “car” guys and hung out every day at his house with his parents for several years. Whenever I got a girlfriend, he complained that I was not reliable anymore. When I got engaged, he told me to stay away from him and his parents and acted like I had wronged him in some way but refused to say what it was. (He had done the same to another friend of ours also)

In retrospect….. I believe he was homosexual and had a very serious place in his heart for me. His father was never going to accept a gay son, so he had never allowed himself to explore those feelings and had become hyper-masculine as a teenager. My girlfriends were painfull to him and getting married was the end of hope, although I’m sure he latched onto another man after me.

I was incredibly hurt. His father and I were friends, but dad was forced to choose and of course chose his son. And yes, the ever present thoughts if suicide became very strong…. but they always eventually subside.

I never got an explanation. I figured all of this out many years later but it’s still just a guess. The one thing I can be sure of though is this: I’ll never get an answer, and walking away was the smartest thing I could have done. Time heals all wounds and scratching at the scab means blood, not closure.

——————

As for the suicidal thoughts. Be careful how much you talk to ‘professionals’. The might put you in a hospital and convince your family that you need a lifetime of very serious medication. Just focus on how those feelings can come and go, and know that you’re too tough to let the world beat you. Pulling the trigger only lets them win without having to play. The way to win is to not play with B and just move on.

Harder than it sounds, but you’re too strong to give up.
 
You shouldn't put your existence in the hands of other people or relationships.
Less some person on the internet that is not close family.
For me God/Jesus, helped me have hope and gave me strength in very dark times.
 
Thank you, @AspieChris, for sharing your own painful story, one much more lasting and consequential than the silliness over which I threw my tantrum.

It's largely over - for now.

I know from experience the possibility of forced hospitalization. (It was officially voluntary, but I had little choice.) It won't happen again. Any clinician that I speak with will be told how damaging it was and would be.

No one is telling me where to go or what to take - unless I want them to. (That last part is added because I have a desire for a relationship that involves giving up some control to the other person. It's unlikely, though, that I'll ever have that opportunity.)
 
It's unlikely, though, that I'll ever have that opportunity.)
I kissed a lit of frogs, and got hurt plenty of times. Eventually I met my wife of 24 years now and it was all worth the pain.

Keep hope alive. Love has a way if you don’t give up
 

New Threads

Top Bottom