To the Ones Who Got the Fragments, Not the Full Us. The ones that question ADHD or narcissism, not to break us down but to learn and understand better what ADHD unmasking looks like.
You were not wrong for wondering.
For flinching.
For feeling like something didn’t add up.
We came on strong.
We said the thing no one else dared say.
We gave you language for your cravings, called you beautiful mid-fuck, read your patterns like tarot cards—and then vanished, or spiraled, or seemed…
off.
Not unsafe, but inaccessible.
Not lying, but compartmentalized.
Not fake, but fractured.
And if you’ve ever sat on your floor, months later, Googling “covert narcissism in relationships,”
we don’t blame you.
But we need you to know
That wasn’t a mask to manipulate.
That was a mask to survive.
? Emotional Overload Isn’t a Weapon, It’s Our Default
We compartmentalize because everything feels simultaneous.
Grief and desire.
Shame and adoration.
We can love you and still shut down.
We can crave you and still disappear.
Not because we’re toying with you.
Because we’re drowning in the emotional tab overload and had to close the browser.
We don’t process feelings in sequence.
We process them in spirals.
Hence, why narcissism or ADHD is blurry.
? Pattern Recognition ≠ Control
We gave you our patterns.
That wasn’t control. It was trust.
We showed you how we tracked your breath, mirrored your arousal, noticed the change in your goodnight text tone.
You may have called it eerie.
Or too much.
Or… calculating.
But that was us trying to anchor to something.
Trying to love you in a language we could feel through.
Pattern as permission.
Pattern as proof we were safe.
?️ Silence Isn’t a Power Play. It’s Our Only Way Out
When we went quiet, it wasn’t punishment.
It was regulation.
Our nervous systems don’t recover on demand.
If you needed a conversation and we bailed?
If you needed closure and we froze?
If you said “Can you just be honest with me?”
and we looked hollow?
It wasn’t strategy.
It was shutdown.
And we hated ourselves for it.
? You Wanted Presence. We Gave You Self-Protection.
Sometimes we went quiet
because we thought you were overwhelmed by us.
Because we thought loving you out loud would be too much.
Because we thought trying again would just push you further away.
And instead of checking in,
we checked out.
You thought we were cold.
We thought we were being kind.
?♂️ We Were Already in Our Head. Telling Ourselves to Sit Down and Shut Up
Sometimes we shut up mid-sentence
because our brain whispered,
“Don’t say that. It’ll scare them.”
Sometimes we held our breath in bed
because your stillness triggered a memory
of someone who flinched when we got needy.
Sometimes we said “I’m fine”
not to lie
but to stop the shame from spilling over.
? We Don’t Read the Room Well When We’re Drowning In It
We don’t suck at reading the room.
We suck at reading the room once we’re spiraling.
We suck at knowing the difference between
“they need space” and “I ruined everything.”
We suck at choosing between
showing up too loud
or disappearing entirely.
Because we’ve learned
that even when someone wants our love
they don’t always know how to hold the shape it takes.
? So We Pull the Plug On Ourselves Before You Do
We unplug the craving.
We soften the touch.
We shut down the praise.
We try to make ourselves
lighter.
What we wish we could say in those moments?
“I’m scared I’m loving you in a way you can’t receive.
And I’d rather disappear than burden you with it.”
But instead we go quiet.
And from the outside,
we look like we’re checked out.
Or playing games.
Or withholding.
When really?
We’re in a headlock with our own nervous system,
begging it to chill long enough
to just say something fucking normal.
✨ One Look From You Could Unlock Us. But Sometimes It’s Too Late
Sometimes you say something simple
a “hey, you good?”
a brush of your fingers across our hand
and suddenly we can breathe again.
Suddenly we remember:
Oh.
They’re still here.
They don’t hate me.
They’re not drowning in me.
Maybe I don’t have to fold in half
just to make space for them.
? But By Then, We’ve Already Lost the Moment
The script’s already blank.
The spiral’s already coiled tight.
And we don’t always know how to come back.
Not because we don’t want to.
But because we’re not sure
we’re allowed to.
? We Know What It Looked Like. ADHD or Narcissism.
We know our ADHD can look like narcissism.
We’ve seen it too
after the fact.
The over-the-top affection.
The pattern-obsessed texting.
The sudden shutdowns.
The emotional theater, followed by emotional ghosting.
We know what it feels like to be on the other side of that.
And we get why you might’ve asked yourself:
“Was any of it real?”
“Were they manipulating me?”
“How did I miss the signs?”
? It Wasn’t Strategy. It Was Survival.
It wasn’t control.
It was craving.
It wasn’t manipulation.
It was masked meltdown.
We don’t want your pity.
We don’t need your validation.
But we hope
god, we hope
you can hold this:
That label you reached for?
It made sense.
And we don’t blame you.
But before you claim it as truth
please, just look again.
? This Is What It’s Like Inside Us
Look inside the context.
Look inside the pauses.
Look at the way we tried to love you with everything we didn’t yet know how to regulate.
Because the last thing we ever wanted to do
was break your heart
trying to figure out
how to hold our own.
This isn’t a defense of bad behavior.
Narcisism or ADHD?
It’s a confession of what it looked like inside the ADHD spiral.
We know our love can feel intense, our silence confusing, our retreat painful.
But it’s not manipulation. It’s regulation. It’s fear.
It’s trying to love you without breaking ourselves.
And if you’ve ever wondered whether we were narcissists
we get it.
But maybe… we were just undiagnosed. Unregulated. And trying not to drown in the love we didn’t know how to give safely.