It's Way Too Easy for Online Friends to Shut You Out
I joined an online DND community during COVID to have some connection outside of the isolation of online school. The main ones in the group were (changed names) Jess, Taylor, Skye, and Rae. Things were good and they welcomed me quickly even with my autism. Eventually they made a discord and invited me along with a few others. We wrote together and shared things about our lives to get to know each other. They were patient with me when I was diagnosed with a medical condition and placed on a medication known to be a bit quirky (doctor's actual words), and I was patient with them when things happened on their end.
Considering I've never had a ton of friends before, I was happy to have some friends. I was bullied a lot as a kid because of my interests and autism, so meeting others online who were similar to me was neat. Maybe that was naive of me.
As time went on Jess and other members of the community, Brooke and Michaela, were getting frustrated with Taylor, Skye, and Rae always taking the spotlight and interrupting other plots to make it about their work. And I understand they're the founding members and they started the whole thing, but I could also see Jess and the other’s points. In 2023 Jess made a new discord server away from the others and invited myself, Brooke, and Michaela and kept it secret. I went along because I just wanted to write and also because I was too intimidated to talk to Taylor, Skye, and Rae about the issues I faced. Looking back I see how stupid that was of me. So I stayed silent and went along and kept writing in both, a bit more in the new server since Brooke, Michaela, and myself were co-writing a lot. I later learned that Michaela was on the verge of getting kicked out of the original group before they left, but I don't know why.
Then Jess got weird with my writing. She was always writing romance with me or forcing it into romance even when I didn’t intend for that. She mentioned that she was struggling with her mental health a lot, so I stayed quiet because I figured she was using writing as a way to cope, even though it was daily and pushing the others out of scenes just so she could be one-on-one with me. Eventually she started bringing bits of writing from her server into interactions with mine in the original server, even though the setting and dynamics were different, and I asked to clarify the dynamics and timeline. She got upset at this so I tried to navigate it the best I could, which made it worse.
This kept going for a while but eventually eased up when I just went with what she gave me, trying to blend but also keep things separate. I also started writing with two new people, Erin who introduced me to Emily, and they genuinely wanted to write with me and immediately things took off. Meanwhile Jess tried to push boundaries and blackmail in her server and Brooke called her out on it. She threw a fit and left the server she created, leaving Brooke in charge.
Around this time, a couple of events triggered my condition again, which resulted in my medication increasing to the maximum dose. I can’t remember anything from June 2024 - July 2025 because of this, but I’ve been told by my family that my entire personality changed: I was depressed, anxious, lacking motivation, and having mood swings thanks to my quirky meds. After another episode my doctor changed me to a new medication. I got better.
When I got my memory back Jess was giving me the cold shoulder. I tried asking what was wrong but got nothing. When I asked if I made her mad somehow she just shut it down and said I hadn’t, but I could tell something happened. When she blocked me on discord but not Instagram I asked to talk and she blew up how I wouldn’t listen to her and how I kept making my plots the opposite of what she wanted. Eventually the original server went quiet, and I had a feeling why; but Erin and Emily kept wanting to write so we did. Brooke eventually invited them to her server and they joined happily as they stated before that they disliked Jess and wanted to write with different people.
Recently though, both suddenly left at the same time. Which I found weird as the day before we were talking and coming up with ideas completely normal. When I tried talking to Erin even about just books like we used to, nothing related to DND, I got passive aggressive responses so I dropped it.
Finally I reached out to Rae to casually talk and they mentioned that Jess made a different server. When I spoke to her again things were civil. I know Emily and Erin were invited in there and accepted, but they still wrote in Brooke’s server for the longest time. Months later Skye and Rae told me they didn’t have any problems with me and said they wanted me in there. But when I asked Taylor if I could join, TDLR I'm not welcome and they won’t say why.
So here I am trying to find ways to move past this. This hurts. It constantly bothers me that I don't know what happened. I feel like I'm going crazy and worry I said something to Jess during that year without a memory that changed things, but she wouldn't tell me anything specific. Now I'm wary of friends again, especially online, and wonder if Jess spread rumors or something and no one will let me speak my side of things. I know "my medication messed with me" isn't a good excuse, but I just wish someone would be honest.