Further to the tweets earlier about ghosting & why ND people often do this, can we talk about Nice Bullying?
I’m sure there’s a proper fancy word for it but Nice Bullying is when someone thinks they’re being kind & helping you but you’re so demand-avoidant that you feel bullied

This happens to me a lot especially in the gaming world. I want to make friends there but I fear the demands that will be made by the ppl being nice to me. They want me to do things a certain way, change my playing style to something more efficient, etc etc etc. They’re helping!

But although I do sometimes want help I don’t want to feel pushed into doing things. I’m extraordinarily resistant to this, and I will ghost you completely if you cross a (nonspecific, unfortunately changeable) line with me.

There’s one WoW alt I haven’t played in weeks and weeks because I’m too afraid to get on her and be Nice Bullied again. I will probably end up deleting her completely.

And it’s really hard to discuss the issues here because people want to be kind! They genuinely think they’re helping! And if you say you feel pushed or bullied they will be upset and defensive and that just makes everything worse!!!!

Hence why I ghost instead of confronting them. I have learned that as much as people don’t want to be confronted when they’re being actively nasty, they want to be confronted EVEN FUCKING LESS when they think they’re being kind to you

Add to this the fact that I am admittedly very bad at expressing and maintaining boundaries with people who are ostensibly being nice to me ...

I will basically let you steamroller over me because that’s how I spent years surviving my environment... belatedly realize I Don’t Like This, and just ... nope out of there

And yes, it would be great if I could set boundaries BEFORE I’m feeling steamrollered, but you have to understand I don’t really know how to do that because boundaries weren’t allowed to be a thing in my family, and I still haven’t been able to go to proper longterm therapy

Ghosting is the only way I know how to enforce boundaries without getting into a painful confrontation that will most likely end with me agreeing to let you continue steamrollering me