Had an anxiety attack yesterday and went driving around to try and clear my head. I feel like going this long not having people consistently outside of my immediate family has been detrimental. My brain says "they're not reaching out, they surely have stopped caring" about my college friends and the fact that I don't have people standing in front of me, saying "I care about you" tells me that that's right.

I'm pretty sure that I'm caught in some cognitive distortions around socializing. Making friends feels like this weird insurmountable task, like I don't know how to just do that without the context of us being in school, or having a mutual friend. In school, before I knew I was neurodivergent, before I questioned my identity, I gave it my all and strung myself out. Now I am terrified to give the bare minimum because I never felt that reciprocity from others, and I don't really know why. I don't want to put my energy in places where it isn't appreciated.

With all of this, I'm worried that I'm deeply overthinking something that is for most people intuitive. Relationships make no fucking sense to me at this point.

I haven't had consistent friends since the pandemic. I thought my parents would care more? They just let me live here and lose all sense of direction I guess

Do people ever have a responsibility to step in and help? Or are we really all just kites in the wind

I'm confused because I changed ALL my behaviors because of the severity of my mental health and nobody so much as asked about what I was going through. And like, how do I now go back to those people that were willing to watch me fall?

Or do I say, that boy you remember is someone else who is GONE, but I'm here now, whatever I happen to be today

I'm running on fumes. I'm realizing that I have zero (0) people and that the blank stares those cis people gave me for six years in college might be the closest I get to a community of people who exist in the same room as one another. It blows chunks.