This is going to be long, but I will try to get to the point quickly. About a month ago, I reconnected with someone I had met briefly in college (10 years ago for me), and we connected over some similar family drama. He’s been under a lot of pressure taking over his dad’s business during a messy divorce due to his dad’s cheating. I was trying really hard to be supportive, but it started bringing up some feelings about my own parents’ very similar situation that triggered my anxiety. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him to feel badly. We live in different cities (5 hour drive) and had talked about being interested in each other and wanting to meet up. I decided to at least talk to him about some of my anxiety triggers because it was getting high. He also has anxiety, so I thought he would understand. In the course of the conversation, he basically completely flip flopped on me and told me he wasn’t really serious about meeting up even though he was interested because taking over the business was too much pressure, but he still wanted to stay in touch. He also asked if we could just take a step back, so that’s what I decided to do. I told him I would need some time to figure that out because I was feeling hurt and confused. The next day, he asked how I was doing, and I again told him I needed some time but thanked him for checking in. In the meantime, I started having pretty intense panic attacks. He again contacted me a week and a half later by just sending me a puppy picture, and it honestly kind of set me off. I felt like he was pushing me to be ok when I had made it clear I was not ok. It put me in that defensive mode, and i ended up sending him a long message after a brief exchange. I just told him I would be ready to listen when he was ready to talk about whatever was going on to cause the mixed messages, and that we could talk about it if he was unhappy with my taking a step back but that I had asked for space and he also seemed unhappy about that. I said I feel like I’m in a no win situation with you, so I’m going to need to remove myself from this situation until you know how you feel. He gave me a very curt response about being fine with taking a step back. That was a week and a half ago. I tried to reach out yesterday and apologize for the way things came out and my defensiveness, and he has blocked me on his phone. I feel awful. I have been having panic attacks thinking that I unintentionally hurt him, and now I can’t even apologize. I don’t regret what I said, but I do regret the way it came out. I thought I was doing the right thing by opening the door for him to talk, and I got shut down instead. It triggers the psychological feeling for me that there is something wrong with me.