A Lifetime Thinking I Had Real Connections Until One Showed Me Otherwise
I never realized it growing up, but making friends has always been difficult for me. While rediscovering myself and my giftedness I realized that I have never really had a real, deep friendship. I always had a lot of what I would have called friends. I was always well-liked and talked to a bunch of different people. I am realizing now that none of them were friends. My “childhood best friend” would be the closest thing, but even with him I was never able to just be myself completely. Eventually I had to step away from the friendship when we were around 19 because the pain of my best friend not feeling like he was there for me when I needed outweighed the benefits of having the friendship. Looking back now, I don’t think he ever would have really viewed me as his best friend. I just didn’t understand what a friend really was to be able to see the bigger picture. While I don’t have any sort of diagnosis, I show strong characteristics of ASD and ADHD. I score well past the threshold on the tests you can take online. I don’t think the diagnosis matters much in this case. It could very well just be the giftedness paired with C-PTSD. I believe these characteristics to be the base of me having difficulty finding connections.
Going my entire life without making any real, deep connections has been difficult. Learning about people and exploring our minds together is something I crave down to my core. I was beginning to feel like everything going on in my head was wired so differently from everyone else that no one would ever truly get me. While at a low point and rediscovering myself, I found a Discord server for gifted people, and I began to feel like I sorta fit in for once. My depression was getting to be as bad as it was in the past when I was suicidal, so I was sort of on a mission to learn and better myself, hoping it would help me mentally.
There was one particular person who I just clicked with. When my neurodivergence was too much for a group of gifted people, it wasn’t for her. She just understood everything. It was like I met someone for once who views the world the same way I do. Someone with the same fucked up head. There was never any flirting or romance. It wasn’t even something that I was confused about in that regard. I just felt so safe and heard with this natural understanding between us. The connection happened fast, but it was far from shallow. In just a few months I had been deeper with her than I had with anyone else in my life. I was pulled out of that dark, cold place not by romance but something more unexpected. A pure, platonic connection of which grounded me with raw honesty and safety. A combination that for me has been pretty impossible to find. The closest thing to this connection I had before was someone who was more of a part time father figure than a friend, and he passed away in 2021.
This wasn’t about finding someone who simply listened to my problems or empathized with me. Our problems were never really the focus. They came up, but only as background to deeper conversations about mental health and personal growth. I was careful to respect her space and what I thought were her boundaries. We had brief talks about friendship, but she said she didn’t really want one while also making it a point to say she did like me. It was all incredibly confusing at the time.
When I left the Discord server where we met, I couldn’t message her anymore. Eventually, I came to terms with the idea that we’d never speak again. I slid back into the same depression I had before we connected. After a month passed without a response to my friend request, I closed the book and truly moved on.
Not long after, I got a notification that relit my world, which had once again gone dark. It was a message from her. To me, it meant she must’ve changed her mind about being open to friendship. This was it. It was my chance.
We fell back into talking all the time about all sorts of things. I would cautiously and carefully ask questions, looking for some kind of clarity about what was going on between us, but she would say the topics were difficult and that they might trigger her trauma. That made me hyper-aware, even paranoid, about crossing any boundaries. Times when I should’ve asked more, I didn’t. Times when I shouldn’t have pushed, I did.
It led me to create this filtered version of myself. She’d say she was having a bad day, and I’d go out of my way to try to make her feel better. Then I’d overthink it. Was that something a friend would do? Had I just crossed a line? I’d pull back, afraid I was doing too much. It was driving me crazy, and I felt like I couldn’t ask for clarity.
Things were going okay until I had a scare with my cat. She’s the one thing that’s prevented a suicidal thought from even thinking about forming throughout this depression. I genuinely feared I was going to lose the only thing keeping me grounded while I was already wrestling with so many emotions tied to this situation with this person. It consumed me, and I pressed too hard.
I warned her in advance about the situation with my cat, but that doesn’t absolve me of responsibility. It doesn’t matter that I was in a dark place and desperate for some kind of answer to why I couldn’t hold on to something that truly changed my life. My actions put an emotional burden on her. Someone I knew was already carrying her own. She asked for space.
It was the first time anyone had ever asked for space from me. I was always the one people came to when they needed to recharge their social battery despite everyone else only draining them.
Some time passed, and I sent her a message with a simple yes or no question. I asked if the reason she felt we couldn’t be friends had to do with something she’d once said. That she felt I wasn’t fully being myself with her. It was one of the few things she brought up but couldn’t explain further. I was hoping her answer might give me a bit of closure. If a friendship wasn’t possible, maybe I could still work on myself for the sake of any future connection like this. She replied with the same line. She couldn’t handle talking about it right now.
A month passed without any further response. I decided to send a sort of goodbye. Not to be dramatic or guilt her, but just to finally let go. I explained that I couldn’t keep "just chatting" when I was struggling so much with the desire to explore a real friendship. For about a week, I felt relief. It felt like closure. Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last. I still had no answers. I just had this special connection, gone without explanation. It never made sense. There was no falling out, no argument, no bickering. Only deep, engaging conversation.
After two months, I sent one final message. I wished her well and said I hoped things were starting to turn around for her. When that too went unanswered, I finally accepted that we wouldn’t speak again.
That’s when I spiraled into the worst depression of my life. I spent nearly every free moment hidden under a blanket, and when the emotions became too intense, I’d get up and pace the room until I could calm down enough to retreat back into hiding. To be clear, I don’t think the depression was solely about her. Even after everything I’ve come to understand, I don’t feel a deep emotional attachment to her. Especially not after the wall she put up when it came to friendship.
What wrecked me was the emotional whiplash. It was the extreme highs and lows. I went from darkness to discovering the most fulfilling connection I’d ever had. Only to fall back into darkness. Then, just as I started climbing out again, I was pushed right back down. That back and forth consumed me.
I went looking for answers again. Carefully rereading message after message until I just couldn’t take it anymore. And then I found it. The answer to every question I had. Clear as day. I don’t know how I missed it. I must have read it before, but somehow, I misunderstood every part of it.
“I think what I'm feeling is that right now I'm happy to connect over specific topics, that concretely being the high+ giftedness thing. Anything else feels too complicated right now to know and I fear of disappointing you or myself if I say sth else (not saying we can't chat about other things at all though). It's not that I don't like you, as I said, I do feel affection towards you, it's just that I feel like I need to be really protective right now about anything slightly commited that might not feel fully authentic, as I'm craving this authenticity so much and it's so fragile/not really there right now.
So I think the main thing is the commitment part”
That’s it. Every answer is right there. If I had truly heard that message and felt it instead of just glossing over it, I would have responded differently. I would have told her to take her time. That I’m here if she needs anything. That when she’s ready to explore the connection further, I’d be open.
Putting it on pause would have been hard, but she even said herself that if we took a break, she’s the kind of person who could pick up again like no time had passed.
I take full accountability for how things ended. Yes, she shares some responsibility. There were moments when she could’ve clarified things or answered the questions she knew I didn’t fully understand. With that said, blaming her at any level feels a bit silly when you look at the bigger picture. The truth is, if I had just slowed down, I would’ve seen that I already had everything I needed.
What made this connection feel so different. So rare. Was that she was like me. Gifted. Neurodivergent. Not even fitting in when finding groups of other gifted people. Someone with a mind that didn’t just understand mine, but mirrored it in a way I had never experienced before. For the first time, I wasn’t masking. I wasn’t scared about saying the wrong thing. I was just seen. It was overwhelming.
Instead of grounding myself in the skills I usually rely on, the deep listening, patience, and observation. I got swept up in the high of finally finding someone on the same frequency. I rushed. I overanalyzed. I clung too tightly to something I hadn’t fully processed yet. I became a lesser version of myself. Not out of carelessness, but out of sheer emotional overload.
A five-minute phone call could’ve changed everything. But so would have slowing down and taking a breath.
Two fucked up people who each held exactly what the other needed. Two fucked up people that couldn’t communicate well enough to see what was there the whole time. Two fucked up people who’s connection was destroyed by the very same thing that created it.
While I don’t have enough information from her perspective to be concrete on it, I fully believe slowing down would have, at the very least, allowed enough time for her to be willing to sit and have a conversation about it all.
Because of my listening skills, I just didn’t even see a possibility that I could have been misreading or misunderstanding her. We are constantly changing. Just because we have solved a “problem” in our past, doesn’t mean that it is solved forever. With time, we change, and we have to keep working on ourselves constantly. I not only failed myself, but I failed and hurt someone else because I got lazy and didn’t keeping honing my skills. Sure, the connection being so unique to me played a role in my actions, but if I continued to focus on my listening skills, I may have been able to prevent the fallout and losing something so special.
What does needing space mean? I don’t believe I really knew before this experience. As already stated, people come to me when they need space from everyone else. Whenever these people would come to me saying they needed space from everyone else, it was because they were upset and being mistreated. Is that why this person needed space? It is possible, but I feel like it was more to process everything as they were also going through a difficult time. In the moment I had absolutely no idea someone needing space could have been anything other than negative. It is all I knew it to be up until that point. Just because someone needs space, it doesn’t mean they are rejecting you.
Honestly, I had no idea what masking was before this experience.
When everything was fresh I believed the pain to be from the loss of the connection. In reality, it was absolutely the highs and lows from the connection more than a grieving of a loss.
Proof That Deep Connection Is Possible for Me