Star's Labyrinth 🌟

Why Star (I) doesn't always respond quickly- the real reason.

[I was originally going to post this on Notices, but it was apparently too long for it.]

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{Please read if you've ever messaged me and haven't got a reply. And please, please, PLEASE know that none of this meant to be rude at ALL, and that's it's not aimed at one single person in particular. This is a general thing.}

There's something I kinda want to address: I really... really... hate DMs/inbox messages (even on this app).

A lot of super bad sh*t happened in them before a few years back, and I hate using them. Even if it's just friendly messages, with people I trust very, very, VERY much, and have chatted to before, I still get the same really bad feeling.

Maybe it's past trauma, or maybe it's just me being stupid and petty like I am. I should've said this before but I thought it was too silly or that people wouldn't understand. Oh well. I've said it now and I can't go back.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I'm more likely to reply to things on my Conversations wall than in my inbox.

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And another thing: I'm super bad with thinking of replies. I just don't know what to reply with, or even how to word my reply. It's 99.9999% of the time not the other person's fault in ANY way- I swear this. I'm just really bad at social interaction/cues and don't know how to keep conversations going anymore, even with causal chats.

This is another reason why I don't like DMs.

If you've messaged me before, you'll probably know how long it takes me to respond, if I respond at all. And yes, for all those times: I'm aware that I haven't messaged back. It pains me so much /because/ I am aware of it- yet I can't do anything to message back because I don't understand /how/ to or what with.

I hate it because it means I'm always apologising (which can get on people's nerves or make them doubt that I'm even sorry, when I really am) for something that I literally cannot change or do anything about (it's a big part of my Asperger's/Autism) but I really don't want people to feel hurt or upset or feel like I've ignored them on purpose.

I pressure myself to think of a reply and spend so many hours (yes, HOURS) thinking of how to reply to something as simple as (e.g.) "I went out today" or "I watched this show" and then I shutdown because I just can't figure out how to respond and then panic because everyone else is going to think I'm not responding on purpose.

This can last for weeks and weeks and weeks on end, until eventually it gets to the point where I haven't replied to someone for like a month and I'm f*cking /terrified/ that the other person is going to think I hate them.

If you want to understand it a bit better, these might help:

https://themighty.com/2017/02/autism-communication-texting/

https://www.quora.com/Do-Aspies-realize-that-ignoring-texts-from-their-friends-or-family-is-hurting-those-people-but-do-it-anyway-or-they-know-but-cant-help-it-or-are-they-really-unaware
(The first answer, 7th bullet point)

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/dear-neurotypicals-797ba22abfb7

I've been clueless for years about why I've always been so slow with responding, and now I've finally figured out it's to do with ASD. I'm probably still going to apologise every 3 seconds for it, but it's just because I'm so used to saying it.

Please know that if I haven't replied to you before, I still have read your message, but I'm not sure how to write "I read your message" or "I've seen this but don't know what to say/reply back" in a way that doesn't sound weird or disrespectful. And I worry that if I was just to write back "Ok", or "K", people would think I'm being rude. If you'd be okay with me just writing that, however, /please/ let me know. I want to see what other people think.

Sorry if this ended up sounding overdramatic, it's just something that has been bothering me for many years, and I've just learned to take people hating/not understanding me for it- but now it's getting too much for me to handle.

I hope this helps people understand a bit better now.

-Star ⭐