Hey there. I am incredibly sad, downright depressed and mentally exhausted.
I wanted to celebrate my birthday yesterday for the first time (maybe ever?) with lots of nice people. I invited about 30-50 people. Some, I invited personally, some just casually through groups. Lots of those people I thought of as somehow close and friendly.
I exhausted myself in the effort of preparing the party, I rented a room, I prepared photos, activities, food, music, and just put a lot of mental energy into the planning. I have been planning it for about 2 months, invited those who were most important to me back then even.
5 people showed up.
I am devastated. I was always so anxious about my birthday and never celebrated it. I think I removed myself from groups a lot in my life. And only the last two years, I’ve started to understand my diagnosis and how to communicate with people. This throws all my anxiety and pain back into my body and brain.
I don’t know how to deal with it. Especially I don’t know how to interact with the people that were important to me and who didn’t show (or those who didn’t even cancel). My past behaviour was burning down all the bridges. I don’t think I should do that. But I also don’t know how to pretend like it doesn’t hurt…
Any advice about rejection anxiety and … well, real rejection?
Thank you.
Happy belated birthday! That sucks - I know. I’ve been struggling this weekend with that perpetual loneliness. I have friends in this city, live with several in fact, but all too often when the weekend comes around everyone has made plans without me and I’m sitting at home on a Saturday night watching shows. It’s easy to interpret it as a judgement on myself, that I’m somehow not sufficient ( which I did for years before my diagnosis). It’s still not easy, and if I had an answer for you on how to deal with it I’d be a much happier person.
I try to let it just wash past me, accept that we have different patterns which often leaves these large gaps. With a couple of major exceptions, I’ve learned the only people I can rely on socially are other ND folk - and we’re infamously flaky to start with!
I can’t really offer advice, but know that you’re not alone, it’s not just you.
I think I can try throwing advice back to you: why not try and be part of the plans of the other people? I only too late realised that I didn’t spend time with people because I thought they didn’t want me to. And now I’m sitting here with nobody.
Because after the xteenth time inviting myself to their plans its hard to convince myself im wanted around those people
I appreciate that - exactly this is something I’ve been working on, and a lot of the time it’s fairly successful. But this is the ADHD curse - it’s all too easy to feel rejected and lonely because on this occasion I have no plans with anyone. The negative thoughts manage to persist much longer than the positive.
The Now always takes precedence, always dominates.