Can an NT person explain how you actually move on?

[NDandtryingtobeNT]

As the title suggests, how do you actually move on? I’ve been struggling to move on from something that happened 9 months ago. Nothing traumatic, like a death or something, just a friend turning nasty. I feel I’ve done all the right things but nothing has changed. I still can’t stop thinking about it.
In the last 9 months I have:

• Been put on antidepressants and anxiety medication
• talked it through with others
• been patient with my grieving process
• journaled
• meditated
• listened to podcasts/talks about letting go/acceptance etc
• read about grief processes
• listened to hypnotherapy tracks
• made new friends
• kept busy
• also a period of not being busy (I read the best way to move on is to let yourself feel the emotions rather than try and dismiss them)
• started a course
• taken more interest in work
• started a new hobby
• had a relaxing holiday
• signed up for therapy (there’s a very long waiting list and I can’t afford to pay for it)
• I even did silly rituals like writing them a letter and then burning it/a meditation where I faced them and said goodbye etc

Nothing has worked. I still haven’t moved on. Part of this is from having no closure from them, I’ve tried to go through it all and give closure to myself but it’s not worked. Part of it is shock I guess, I still can’t fathom how I got this person so very wrong. And missing who I thought they were.

So what now? I feel the fact that I have ASD may have something to do with it. Normal people seem to move on quicker than me.

Can anyone suggest how you actually move on from something? How do you reach a level of acceptance? You see it all the time on here that people are given the advice that they need to just accept it or move on, but no one actually explains how you change how you feel about a situation. How do you stop caring? Are there any useful resources I can use? I don’t want to keep crying about this. I want to forget it all.

Not NT in the slightest, but wanted to try and help from a personal background of some bloody horrible stuff.

It happened.

It wasn't nice.

You couldn't control it to stop it happening, as it was something done by somebody else to you.

You can't control them to give you the answers or responses you want, whether it's because they can't or they won't.

It's taking up far too much of your time when you could be thinking about far nicer and more interesting things happening now or in the future.

You've done all the 'things' that keep you focusing on the bad thing. What you haven't done is place it in the 'I don't need to think about this anymore as it's not going to change anything that happened' category.

I know. I guess it’s accepting that they won’t go back to who I thought they were. I just didn’t realise this person had that side to them. I’m trying not to think about it, but I really don’t have that kind of control over my mind and thoughts. I don’t know how to make myself accept that someone could behave like that.

I have ASD. The stereotype of how we can become obsessed about things like trains likely applies here. We tend to fixate on things. For women with ASD, those fixations are often interpersonal interactions. Small things can easily become large trauma for us because we cycle them in our brain over and over and over.

the way you get past it is to realize that it’s not the event itself that was necessarily so difficult. At this point, if you have done this much work, you have created a new thing for yourself to focus on. You have to decide that you aren’t going to let it be your focus anymore.

I know that is easier said than done, but it can be done. You can channel your innate tendency to fixate on a subject into something healthier.

Not sure whether this will be helpful OP but I'm neurotypical and I've never found that 'moving on' from things has been a concious process

I generally make myself busy with other non related things e.g work/study/ household projects so that I can fixate on something else. Over time I find I think about the original issue less and less, and with it the hurt and pain lessen and start to fade. I am not convinced this is a healthy approach though as it's distraction over actively dealing with it (which I've never known how to do)

Anyway, I'm sorry that you have been through a horrible experience and I hope someone else is able to provide more effective advice

Hmmmm, I actually don't think 9 months is a long time to get over a big loss.
If your friend was someone you thought was a really good friend.
And you thought they valued you.
And you discovered in a really shocking way none of the above was true.

You've basically experienced a twisted form of grief.
You've lost a really good friend, they might not be dead, but an important relationship has been chopped out of your life.
You were betrayed by someone you really cared about.

I was in a similar situation in my early twenties and it took me a year to get to a point where I could say I could see a point in the future where I could put it behind me.
The person in my case was a friend of over twenty years and also my cousin, so the blue was a big one, but a deep friendship is a deep friendship.

After a year of feeling like the rug has been pulled from under me, I started to detach and feel like her actions didn't have the same power over me.

Then gradually over time the thoughts of 'why?' and 'i miss her' came less often, but even now occasionally I still think of her (she comes up in conversation sometimes as she's family). And I'm not sad anymore but it's still a significant event in my past.

So, I think you are doing all the right things to support yourself developing your new identity as someone to whom this has happened and no longer has that friend (but your worth is no less for it) and be able to accept that whatever they did, they chose to do that and that's actually who they are.

But, it's not a switch, it's a grief process, gradual slow, with two steps forward one back... And you almost count your progress by the lengthening number of days since you last ruminated on it / felt sad about it... But it will continue to pop up for a long time to come I expect.

That was my experience anyway.

I also think your silly rituals are not silly.
But they are only meaningful when you are ready to do them.
So, if you write a letter and burn it, but are just going through the motions because you hope it will trigger an improvement in your feelings on the matter, then maybe it's silly.
But if you are at the point where you are ready to air those thoughts once last time and then can see them go up in smoke and feel like that you can let go and the smoke is just symbolising that, then I imagine it would be quite profound.

This podcast is brilliant on the subject of grief :
https://open.spotify.com/show/4YXBHlLzuoESo0FKF5ufLy?si=tfleq6xqQGG-fz05mxdRmA

I know your friends hasn't died, but you've still experienced a loss.

Also every variety of grief is covered in these interviews, and some of the people talking about their grief had complicated emotions around the person they were grieving and so their grief path might resonate more with you - as it isn't the same kind of grief you have when someone goes but all was well between you both.

Might give you some insight into the question you're asking anyway.

I think you just keep getting up and being busy with what’s in front of you today and eventually you think about it less. It might not ever fully go away or stop hurting but it’s more of an occasional “yeah that was really shit” than an all day every day grief.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I am NT and will share this in case it helps you. Many years ago my best friend who I was living with at university turned quite spectacularly into a different person which included abandoning me. She wrote me a letter detailing all the ways I was a terrible friend and basically ending the relationship. In hindsight she was more depressed than I realised but even once treated she still seemed to hate me.

Things I did:
-talked endlessly about what she said, I said, she did etc to my mum who was willing and keen to listen
-wrote down similar
-wrote down my options. Eg I could do a b or c, as many as I could think of, and if I did 'a' working through mentally what the likely outcome would be, and then next step, and then after that and continue. Like a flowchart I'd write out.
-spoke to mutual friends also ditched although nobody was to quite the same extent as me
-reminded myself of the people I had left who I loved
-eventually after about 3 months I had an epiphany that all this anguish was only hurting me and not her. I was never really going to get an answer as to why this happened and she was never going to be my friend again. I realised I could only change myself, I couldn't change her. So I decided to stop thinking about it. Of course I did think about it again but I'd remind myself why I decided to stop each time. I'd allow a few mins if feeling the feelings again then say no, enough is enough, I am not allowing you to keep bothering me, you are not important, I don't have to let you make me feel rubbish. I liked the quote 'No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent' by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Over the years the times I thought about her gradually got less and less and each time it got easier to stop myself thinking about it and distract myself.
Hope that helps in some way.

This is a very painful process to go through OP. I'm NT and it took me over a year of feeling pain every single day. Now 18 months on I still think of it every single day but the pain is much less than it was. I have regular counselling and have talked about it several times in counselling. It's loss that you are dealing with and it often takes a lot of time, even if you are doing every thing you can to help yourself. I was ghosted by a close friend I had had for decades. Eventually it will become less painful, maybe eventually you won't think of it every day. Be patient with yourself.

I pulled the plug on a 25+ year friendship in 2019. My choice, and the right choice for me, but it hurt like losing a sister would, and I'd say it's probably only over the last 6 months that it's no longer regularly in my thoughts.

I didn't do anything special or specific. Time is the healer. Perhaps, OP, you just need to give yourself that space and time to grieve. 9 months isn't really very long for the end of an important relationship. It sounds as though you've been trying really hard to move on, but maybe all those attempts are actually keeping it fresh in your mind rather than letting it ebb with time?

I’m not sure if I’m NT either but….

they wasn’t who you thought they was. They was fake. Keep reminding yourself of that.

that person was never real.

when they pop into your head picture yourself flicking them away with your fingers like a bug.

im still thinking of someone who ghosted me about 8 years ago. But they was faking our friendship. As soon as their son started private school I was no longer flashy enough. It’s fine. Lots of people are faking feelings until they get a better offer or whatever they are seeking

People still talk about things that happened 20, 10, 5, 2,1 year(s) ago that still hurt. You can be either party in the fall-out and it can still hurt as much. There is no set time to get over things, you just do your best to carry on and in time you will heal - when you look back one day it won't hurt so much, you'll remember the event but not so much how it felt. Try not to blame yourself - the differences were there anyway. I try to see things as 'well I did my best and it didn't work out but I wasn't prepared to give any more and do myself down'.

Op you have done everything right but maybe you are doing too much and the situation with your friend is staying at the front of your mind precisely for that reason.

I know you say you don’t have as much control
over your mind as you would like, but do you think you could come to a compromise in your own head that you give yourself permission to think about it and really wallow for an hour a day and then try and “shelve it” until the next day? Or something similar whereby you decrease the amount of time you allow yourself to think about it over time?

The word “acceptance” seems relevant in this situation . Did you come to any conclusion during the previous exercises you carried out, why you are finding the loss of this particular friendship so difficult to come to terms with? Do you miss the person or what they represented in your life? Or is it their rejection of you that is more difficult? Once you can find answers to that then it might be easier to move forward.

Or could you just say to yourself “I am going to feel shit for at least another 12 months” and try and accept that?

As you have ASD, you may be seeking a logical reason for the friend turning nasty when it simply might not exist. It may be nothing much to do with you and all about this person and their life circumstances.

I think you need to have it out with the person that harmed you. Let them know directly how much they hurt you. Have you done this?

Just a thought about 'closure'

This just about the dumbest idea possible

Why do that? So you could be hurt again?

No. Just, no

@NDandtryingtobeNT

I would also make space in your life to get pro actively on regular basis doing something creativeness whatever that could be for you ,
Could be art wise etc 🤔 as it's like active mediation partipicipting in something like this,
as it gives your mind a welcome beneficial rest

Also getting involved creativeness hobbies whether outside in a workshops envoriment or and at home is wonderful therapeutic,

Looking at hobbies interests you are curious quite intrigued about can also give you the opportunities to come along like minded people therefore potentially making new friendships possibilities etc..

Also spending in time in nature whether just for a walk or actively doing volunteering work in nature or spending time appreacting the sea when our uk weather gets better..
is often has beneficial affect on our wellbeing ..

Also i think 🤔 what also can make losing a friend in this kind of way particularly difficult to come to terms with is our society quite often doesn't recognise losing a friend is a loss and as such it's like in your case like a previous poster said its like a "twisted big loss,
one can be closer or as close to a particular friend as you are to certain family members..

I think this is transitional phrase in your life.

I'm NT so I may be way off here, but to me this sounds like an example of ND black and white thinking. You want to be "over it" and at the moment you are "not over it" so that seems like a failure. Would it help to give up on the goal of being "over it", and instead just aim to feel a bit better and less hurt today than you felt a month ago? My point is that grief and recovery is a gradual process, not a step change between two states.

You've done everything you should. What about now just putting a lid in it, closing the box, and letting it go. This ex-friend is not worth this much of your thinking space. Every time thoughts come back, just say no, I'm not going to entertain you, and think about something else, something nice.

As for confronting the person and/or having it out with them, I've tried that - it all depends how that approach is received and you can't pre-empt how the other person will react. None of this is easy at any age and lots of us struggle with it so don't feel alone.

I've tried various strategies with different people throughout my life and have ended up in a mess numerous times trying to fix the unfixable - the after effects are awful, you end up blaming yourself when you should have walked away the first time and learnt from it. Sometimes it's better to learn to walk away, give it space and don't try too hard to keep something that isn't right for you.

I'm not NT so can only speak from experience that I think it can take us a lot (a LOT) longer to move on from things like relationships or bereavements. Which does feel really painful, but it's something I've come to accept as just part of my emotional makeup. It sounds like you're doing the right things, and maybe you could add in some more stuff that just feels positive for you (rather than in any way trying to fix yourself and your feelings). It takes time, but it will happen. I don't think you can 'will' the process forward, just keep trying to take the healthy and healing actions you currently are, and you will eventually realise it feels like you've let it go.

Err because she has tried absolutely everything else?!??? This is something she hasn’t tried 🤨 and seems the most obvious way to get closure. It doesn’t have to be confrontational and aggressive, it can be a calm and respectful. She doesn’t even have to wait for a response, just let them know how much she has been hurt.

I always view ‘closure’ and ‘getting over someone’ as two separate things.

Closure relies heavily on the other ie you get thinking ‘if I could have just one last convo with them as to why then I’d be able to move on’. But this relies on the absolute honesty of the other which is something you’re unlikely to get. People get stuck on ‘seeking closure’. There’s always a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle… one question gets answered and another takes it’s place. Closure is often mistaken for something called ‘emotional bargaining’ which is one of the Stages of Grief; one closer to the beginning of the process than the end.

As a separate issue - I think there is a very distinct difference between overthinking/nit picking/ruminating and analysing a situation. You can only really analyse something with a bit of distance; some impartiality and full facts from both sides. So I write off all of this as fruitless exercises to keep me stuck!

Getting over someone. Is proactive and something that you can do yourself - and you’ve been taking a lot of steps to do that. It involves the passing of time. So keep doing these things and it will start to lift.

Well, they did and they did. You can't change facts. You can't change history.

Doesn't make what they did any less unpleasant, but they did have that previously hidden side and they did do it. Refusing to accept that fact is utterly pointless because it has happened, just as pointless as wishing that the stars aren't in the skies, an apple is a pear or that a glass somebody drops on a stone floor hasn't smashed into a thousand pieces.

And no amount of ruminating, fixating or obsessing about it is going to change the facts. It's just going to dictate your life and functioning until the point at which you can say 'Enough. It happened.' and direct your attention outwards where you can find something more interesting and more rewarding than that to think about and experience.

As an aside, I note your username:

You don't have to try and be neurotypical. Like that person being one thing you'd been led to believe when fundamentally, they weren't, you're not neurotypical. You're Autistic. It's a fact. You can't change it and it's pointless to try and tear yourself apart to try and be literally somebody else. There is nothing wrong with you as you are - because it is you. It is your fact, which isn't wrong, it's different to some people, but similar to millions of others, yet still utterly unique.

Neurotypical people struggle with betrayal, loss and identity, too. Some find it harder to adjust to major changes or losses than others, in some situations and not others. They are also unique in both their similarities and their differences, every last one. Emotions, feelings of confusion, hurt and pain are felt as keenly because it's a fundamental part of what it is to be human.

You feeling pain at what this person has done is absolutely normal and typical of humanity. Some of the things you have tried help some people, others would find them pointless, uncomfortable, faintly ridiculous or just not right for their particular situation and for them. Some could just as easily try to find other responses that are completely detrimental - obsession, stalking, violence, risktaking behaviour, intoxicating substances - and some can move to accepting something quicker. It doesn't mean it won't hurt, there's no law or human brain make-up that says you have to like what's happened. But it's happened and what matters is whether you mentally stay at that moment or whether you look ahead to a time when it isn't the most important thing in your mind all the time.