Not long after sharing my post, Bruises and Battle Scars: Surviving Myself, I decided to take a brave step and was shocked at the response. After years of concealing my struggles behind a mask, I chose to let a close friend into the reality of what I was facing. It was an act of immense vulnerability, born from the hope of finding empathy, connection, and support. Sadly, what transpired served not as a source of solace but as a harrowing lesson in how dismissive words and actions can inflict lasting harm.
Opening up about a recent mental health crisis wasn’t easy. Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, and depression means navigating an intricate and often overwhelming web of challenges. Sharing the depths of this reality—especially the fragile, painful aspects—requires more than bravery. It requires trust. I entrusted this person with my truths: the destructive tendencies I was grappling with, the weight of emotional pain, and the immense effort it takes to simply exist in a world that feels so harsh to people like me.
Yet instead of being met with compassion, I was confronted with a cascade of responses that invalidated my experience entirely. Comments like, “I think we have a lot more control over ourselves than we like to admit because then we can’t rely on our conditions to define us anymore,” stripped away the complexity of my reality, reducing it to a matter of choice—as though I was relying on my conditions to excuse behaviors rather than battling against them every single day. At this point I sent him this message.
Your refusal to take accountability for the harm caused by your words shows a serious lack of moral responsibility and empathy. The damage your comments inflict is not minor—it deeply affects the emotional well-being of those you target. To dismiss the impact of your words as insignificant ignores the reality of human connection and responsibility.
“Words matter” isn’t just a saying—it’s a truth. The language we use has the power to shape emotions, cause pain, and alter how people see themselves. While I take ownership of my reactions, the harm your words cause cannot be overlooked. Ignoring this truth is a failure to understand the basic principles of kindness and decency.
Trusting you with my vulnerability was an act of courage—a hope for understanding and support. But your refusal to offer empathy has broken that trust. I don’t need empty reassurances or meaningless fixes. What I need is a confidant who respects boundaries, listens without judgment, and meets my needs with compassion.
Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, and depression is complex. My challenges can’t be solved by simple ideas like discipline or willpower—they require deeper understanding and respect. Science and medicine have proven this, yet you choose to ignore that evidence. By doing so, you reject truth in favor of ignorance, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and dismissing the realities of these conditions.
I strive for growth and self-acceptance, informed by facts and science—not by false notions or dismissive attitudes. If you want to improve this relationship, you need to accept that your words and actions don’t exist in a vacuum. They have real consequences, and pretending otherwise will only lead to more pain and distance.
Your words don’t just hurt—they create doubt, making me question the confidence and understanding I’ve worked so hard to build. Because these words come from you—someone I once trusted—the impact is even more damaging. This is the weight of your actions, and it’s a responsibility only you can take on.
If you truly want to support me, you must confront the harm you’ve caused and choose empathy, accountability, and effort over ignorance. Support isn’t about avoiding responsibility—it’s about engaging with another’s pain and offering genuine solidarity. Until you embrace these values, you can’t provide the support you claim to offer.
The choice is yours. Understand that growth requires change, and continuing as you are will only result in isolation and harm. It’s time to decide what kind of person you want to be.
When I tried to convey the nuance of my struggles, I was met with dismissiveness: “See? That right there. You believe the jargon more than your own control.” The suggestion that I was merely clinging to external definitions rather than grappling with genuine, lived challenges was a knife to the heart. It painted a picture of someone unwilling to take responsibility, when in reality, every moment of my life requires immense effort to maintain even the smallest semblance of balance. These words didn’t acknowledge my fight—they trivialized it.
Statements such as “You’re hardwired to feel certain things, you can change your hardwiring over time,” only deepened the wound. The implication that I could simply reprogram myself through sheer willpower disregarded the scientific realities of neurodivergence, trauma, and mental health. It invalidated the progress I’ve worked so hard to achieve—progress built not on “fixing” myself but on learning to understand and work with my unique challenges. Dismissing those efforts and suggesting I could simply overwrite my struggles with discipline is not only ignorant; it’s harmful.
Even as I tried to explain the harm caused by these words, the responses I received became increasingly damaging. “I will keep you in check, you just have to listen to someone other than yourself,” painted a picture of control rather than support—a dynamic that undermined my autonomy and disregarded my agency entirely. Trust is built on mutual respect, not on coercion or dismissal, and statements like this eroded any foundation of trust we might have had.
Perhaps one of the most cutting comments was: “I see how you’re hurting. But I never hurt you. Your inability to cope other than with the destructive is not my problem, burden or issue. It will always be your struggle that only you can choose to overcome by accepting that that doesn’t have to be your reality.” To say that my pain “isn’t their problem” dismissed the role their words and actions played in exacerbating it. It shirked all accountability, placing the blame for my reactions squarely on me while failing to recognize that words and actions have ripple effects. This was not support—it was a failure to empathize, a failure to see beyond their own perspective.
The painful conversation I shared, the responses I received didn’t stop at dismissal—they ventured into outright harmful and abusive territory. When confronted with my struggles, this individual said, “Not overnight of course, but you have to be strict with your discipline. You have to want to change, so that you don’t immediately go to what’s comfortable,” and “If you condition yourself daily to expecting these reactions and these triggers, they will not be so overwhelming. You would have anticipated and rationalized it before the moments occur.”
These statements reduced my pain to a matter of effort—as though strict discipline and anticipation alone could rewrite the very fabric of my emotional and neurological reality. They ignored the scientific complexities of mental health and neurodivergence, suggesting that my challenges were merely the result of poor habits or inadequate preparation. This mindset doesn’t just dismiss the depth of struggles like mine; it perpetuates stigma, invalidating the effort and resilience that individuals like me pour into simply existing.
At one point, I was told: “The physical pain, yes, that’s very difficult without meds. But emotional pain can be reprogrammed.” While physical pain was acknowledged to some extent, emotional pain was dismissed entirely. This idea—that emotional pain can simply be “reprogrammed”—reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of living with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Emotional pain is not an inconvenience to be coded away; it is deeply rooted in trauma and neurological responses that defy oversimplified solutions. Dismissing it undermines the progress I have made in managing and understanding my pain, reducing it to something to be “corrected” rather than respected.
What was perhaps most devastating were the comments that shirked responsibility entirely: “I will never make you feel anything. Only you can feel something,” and “I see how you’re hurting. But I never hurt you. Your inability to cope other than with the destructive is not my problem, burden, or issue.” These words attempt to absolve the speaker of any accountability for the impact their words had, placing the entirety of the emotional burden on me while ignoring the undeniable fact that language and actions carry weight. They dismissed the concept that interpersonal dynamics play a role in someone’s mental and emotional well-being, and that harm caused—intentionally or not—requires acknowledgment and responsibility.
And then came the final, most cutting comment of all: “Right. So you’re just settled nice and cozy with that premise and that will always be how you see yourself. You don’t want to play with me. You never did. You just led me on.” Let me be unequivocally clear—at no point in our connection did I ever indicate anything beyond friendship. If he believed otherwise, it was entirely his own assumption, something he constructed without my consent or knowledge. The accusation that I “led him on” was not only baseless but deeply harmful. It ignored the truth of our relationship and deflected accountability for his actions by casting blame back onto me.
As a proud member of the Plains Cree, I hold deeply to the principles of respect, clarity, and connection in relationships. Assumptions without communication go against the very essence of these values. If he harbored feelings beyond friendship, he never made them known, and I never gave any indication that such feelings were reciprocated. The suggestion that I intentionally misled him couldn’t be further from the truth—it was an unfair and unjust attempt to shift the focus away from his actions and words, which had caused so much harm.
This experience revealed something even more troubling: this individual exposed himself as a predator, a danger to anyone who might trust him. His refusal to take responsibility, his dismissal of boundaries, and his insistence on control over others’ emotions and realities are not just harmful—they are abusive. His words and actions demonstrated a profound lack of empathy and an alarming willingness to manipulate and invalidate those around him. This is not someone who can be trusted to provide support or safety. This is someone whose behavior poses a risk to the emotional and mental well-being of anyone who allows them close.
At the heart of this experience lies a fundamental truth: when someone chooses to open up, they are extending an olive branch of trust. They are asking to be seen, heard, and understood—not fixed, judged, or dismissed. When that trust is met with invalidation, condescension, or refusal to take responsibility, it causes damage that reverberates far beyond the moment. It creates walls where bridges could have been built, leaving the person who reached out feeling more isolated than ever.
Which brings me to the Plains Cree teaching about “goodbye.” In our culture, the word “goodbye” carries a sense of finality, reserved for the ultimate departure that signifies the end of a connection. Instead, parting words are often infused with hope: kîhtwâm ka-wâpamitin—“I will see you again.” The language reflects our belief in continuity and interconnectedness, rather than severance. And yet, in this moment, I must invoke the weight of goodbye.
Goodbye to the connection that was tarnished by disregard and dismissal. Goodbye to the expectation of empathy where none exists. Goodbye to the hope for understanding that was met with harm instead. Goodbye to the predator who sought control instead of connection. Goodbye to the manipulator who dismissed boundaries and inflicted harm. Goodbye to the danger he poses to anyone who might trust him. Goodbye to the false friend who twisted my vulnerability into an opportunity for judgment and blame. Goodbye to the abuser who revealed his true nature through his words and actions and has shown himself to be a danger to anyone who might trust him. This decision is not made lightly, but as an act of self-preservation and respect for the boundaries that were ignored.
It is so weird to use that word, but sending this individual this message with that teaching was respecting myself and who I am.
It is abundantly clear that your obstinate refusal to engage meaningfully with the concerns I have voiced is symptomatic of a deeper dissonance—a persistent unwillingness to acknowledge the emotional gravity of your actions or the harm they have inflicted. Your continuous dismissal of the boundaries I have meticulously established, coupled with your inability to comprehend the intrinsic significance of these limitations, reveals an alarming disregard for the essence of mutual respect and relational equity.
Boundaries are not arbitrary constructs, nor are they indulgences designed to placate superficial sensitivities. They are sacrosanct demarcations, essential for the preservation of emotional fortitude, psychological stability, and the cultivation of relational trust. By trivializing these parameters and deeming them irrelevant or “stupid,” you have demonstrated not only an egregious lack of empathy but a troubling incapacity to grasp the foundations of interpersonal respect and accountability.
It is not sufficient to merely absolve yourself of responsibility under the guise of intent. Words hold immense power; they resonate far beyond their immediate utterance and imprint upon the emotional psyche of those subjected to them. The rhetoric you employ and the boundaries you trample are not benign—they reverberate with consequences that you have elected to ignore, and that decision has not gone unnoticed.
I have tried to impart to you the necessity of understanding me—not as someone to be “fixed” or “rewired,” but as a person who experiences the world through a lens fundamentally different from your own. This divergence is not a flaw, nor is it a deficiency; it is an immutable reality that must be met with acceptance and respect. All I have ever asked of you is this singular need—a need so fundamental that its fulfillment serves as the cornerstone of trust. I require acknowledgment of my authenticity, respect for the boundaries I uphold, and the willingness to meet me where I am. Anything less undermines the very possibility of meaningful connection.
There is a teaching from the Plains Cree culture that encapsulates the gravity of this moment. In their worldview, the concept of “goodbye” carries a sense of finality, a severance that does not align with their belief in continuity and interconnectedness. Instead of bidding farewell, the words chosen often convey hope, an affirmation that paths will cross again. Phrases such as kîhtwâm ka-wâpamitin—”I will see you again”—reflect this outlook. “Goodbye” is reserved for the ultimate departure, for the irrevocable conclusion that marks the end of connection.
And so, I must evoke this finality. With this message, I say goodbye
To anyone reading this: let this experience serve as a cautionary tale of what not to do when someone confides in you. Words matter. Boundaries matter. Listening matters. Dismissing someone’s pain, reducing their struggles to discipline, or refusing to take accountability for the harm caused will not build trust—it will destroy it. If someone reaches out to you, meet them with compassion. Respect their boundaries as the lifelines they are. Understand that your words hold the power to harm or heal, to alienate or connect. Choose them wisely. I choose to look at this as one less person in my life who is not true to themselves or those around me. I prefer quality over quantity.
Who am I? 
I would love to hear from you!