AITA for broadcasting my issues with a former friend

I (49M) have ADHD, mild autism, and RSD, which makes be a bit introverted and socially awkward/ self-conscious. With that in mind, let’s get on with the show.

TL;DR: after breaking off contact with a former friend who attacked my character in regards to feedback for a book he’s writing, he sends a second email 2 years later with a draft of a new novel. I call him out, while copying everyone in our former shared circle in the message as a final statement to leave me alone.

I joined a rpg gaming group in my early 20’s while in college, and over the years, they developed into my only real social circle outside of family/ work. We’d do things outside of table games, such as movies, PlayStation “tournaments”, a couple of frat parties, etc. In 2008, I started developing my own system, inspired by the homebrew system our primary GM had created (to be clear, I liked his approach to how he built the game/ solved issues, but there were things I wasn’t a fan of. Mine is not just a bad clone of his).

I knew with my ADHD that I would need help, so I would occasionally send info packets out for feedback. I would constantly have to ask if the info had been read or what they thought. I never got any feedback unprompted. This lack of enthusiasm triggering my RSD, coupled with my ADHD rejection of performing rewrites every time I made a significant change to the system, let to periods of months where I just couldn’t deal with working on it.

During all this time, my GM friend was also writing a novel and would send drafts out to the group. After the first couple, I decided I wouldn’t give feedback if I wasn’t getting it for mine, setting the stage for what happens next.

Things started coming to a head in December 2020. I sent out a big update, asking for feedback, not just for the rules, but for the legibility. Nothing. The first of March, I sent a follow-up email announcing I was tired of chasing their thoughts and I was just going to do it quietly on my own from now on. In August of that year, my GM friend had some major issues happen, which I only found out about from another friend in the group (we were living in separate states and gaming remotely at this point). I reached out once to see if he was okay and never heard a reply.

In 2023, my dad went into the hospital in April and never left until his death in September. During this time, I politely bowed out of the game since I I needed to devote all my time to family. Everyone was understanding and wished us well.

In August, I’m on the phone with GM discussing general things, and he asked me if I had read his most recent draft of his novel. I actually had read it (out of boredom at the time), and since he asked me directly, I wasn’t going to lie and say no. I gave him an honest assessment about how he was handling the MCs situation, telling him that, imo, she wouldn’t have stayed sane for long in that environment and probably would have ended herself.

He didn’t like what I had to say and started arguing with me about it. Later in the conversation, I brought up that I was feeling a bit resentful due to him asking my opinion on his stuff after leaving me on read for mine for years. He twisted this and accused me of being hateful and spiteful and saying what I did only to get back at him for not replying to me. That the issues he had to deal with left him unable to do anything except his book and game projects. I did not appreciate that accusation. This is someone who had k own me for 20 years but this point, and for him to attack my character like that was more than I could handle. So I broke off ties. I told him we were done as friends and I wouldn’t be going back to the game. I tried a month after my dad died to at least make peace with him, but he refused to admit he did anything wrong.

This week (note it’s been two years since the fallout), he BBC’ed me in an email with a draft of his second book, announcing he was about to look for a publisher. Here’s where I may be the asshole, and I’ll accept it willingly. I sent a reply, not just to him, but I CCed the two players who had been in the group since college and BCC’ed all the current members of the group, where I asked why he sent me this after he so pointedly lashed out at my previous feedback, and I told him flat out I wanted nothing more to do with him. After him trying to defend himself, and my replying to his justifications and deflecting tons, I blocked him in both email and phone contacts, so if there’s a game this weekend, I will never know if there’s any fallout from it.

My wife thinks I may have gone too far by sending the email to the group, but I told her that every time he sends something out (this wasn’t the first), all the pain and anger from 2023 comes back, and it takes me days to settle down from it. Just typing this, my BP and heart rate are up to the point my Fitbit thinks I’m out for a jog. I said I wanted to put a nail in this coffin large enough to crucify Christ in order to make my point. I also told her that I could have cast a wider net. I’ve got emails non-gaming friends and his parents as well.

So, sorry for the long post. But AITA?