I have rejection sensitive dysphoria with my ADHD, and a crippling fear of abandonment from also having bpd.
My partner says I’m not enough and he wants to sleep with other people. He never expressed anything other than complete joy with only me the last year (he admits hiding what he wanted was wrong).
I know that works for some people and I’m totally fine with it for them. It doesn’t work for me. I don’t think it’ll work for him. I’ll lose him saying yes or if I deny it to him. Nothing is the same anymore and the deposit I’ve been struggling to save so we can live together no longer matters. If our sex is dull, I guess living with me would bore the shit out of him.
I’m not really okay at all. Everything feels like a lie and I’m disgusting.
Continuing from the last Comic, here is something showing how the huge amount of criticism and rejection we face for our ADHD symptoms can not only prevent us from getting better, but also teach us bad coping mechanisms - and how it might affect us even now in our daily life. Next up: How it affects me daily and what I do against it.
I wish I could kill my brain and just be in your arms forever. I’m so sorry I can’t turn off the bad parts of my mind and just exist with you. Im so tired of overthinking everything.
shoutout to the adhd people who did well in school for years but suddenly crashed and burned when the responsibilities outweighed their coping skills
shoutout to the adhd people who couldn’t finish college
shoutout to the adhd people who do great work but lose their jobs because of poor time managment
shoutout to the adhd people who don’t lose their jobs but can never advance because of their inconsistent performance
shoutout to the adhd people who want more work responsibilities but are afraid of what will happen when they inevitably make a careless mistake or their inattention leads something important to be forgotten
shoutout to the adhd people who have damaged their credit rating by forgetting to pay bills or return library books
shoutout to the adhd people who work their ass off every day but never know if the results will be stellar, average, or terrible
shoutout to the adhd people who have done just well enough to go most of their lives knowing something was wrong, but figuring they just needed to work harder to fix it.
the saddest tags:
#mmm #ive been wondering for a while but #was dismissed so i guess not
so was I. Growing up it never occurred to anyone, including me, that I could have ADHD because it was thought of as an overdiagnosed ‘disorder’ for hyperactive boys who couldn’t stay still in class, who probably needed extra recess more than Ritalin. I was a good student - until I wasn’t (in high school, where the workload was too much). And I’m great at my job - until I’m not (inconsistency is the most consistent thing about ADHD people).
The first thing that tipped me off that maybe I have it was a post about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which described my anxiety spirals better than anxiety did. complete depression triggered by a negative perception and clearing up the second the negative perception is gone? that was me! And it’s primarily - if not only - found in ADHD people. But when I told my therapist (who I was seeing for anxiety) about it, she was discouraging and doubtful.
I’m looking for a way to get a full evaluation. I’ve gone through an interview and testing, and the prognosis was ‘likely has ADHD-PI’, and the meds are immensely helpful. But I had to skip directly to going to a psychiatry office that specializes in ADHD treatment to even get this far.
ADHD is frequently misdiagnosed as anxiety, depression, and other disorders - which can themselves accompany ADHD. when the hyperactivity is absent, it masks effectively. And you can fit ALL the symptoms of it and still not be diagnosed with ADHD because your symptoms aren’t considered to be causing you enough distress, or frequent enough to rise to the level of a disorder. But if you think you have it, do research, and if you still think you have it, it’s worth pushing for a full evaluation.
You will be dismissed by even mental health professionals. People outside your head will doubt you a lot, because you probably have coping mechanisms that prevent you from being the mess that outsiders imaging ADHD people to be. But if you think that being treated for struggling to focus your attention where you want to focus it will help you, keep pushing. get that full evaluation. Find out for sure. and then you can be certain you’re getting treated for the right thing!
I don’t even remember putting that thing down but now it’s not in my hand and I don’t know where it went
‘what do you mean you can just think about nothing? what’s that like? I don’t understand’
*tuning out of a conversation halfway through somebody else’s sentence because I just thought of something interesting*
carrying my psychiatrist’s business card with me at all times because I see her once a month and every time I go I forget what floor her office is on. I’ve been there 8 times
‘Between A & B, A would be the right thing to do’ *a cascading thought process that takes a few seconds tops, justifying option B* ‘actually B would be the right thing to do’
somebody else, later: why did you think B was the right thing to do??
me: …. it’s not important, I’ll know better next time
(spoiler: I won’t know better next time)
I know you already told me this thing like 12 times but can you tell me again just one more time because I forgot
it’s not that I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to do this thing. it’s just that in that particular moment i thought it was okay to do it anyway for reasons that would take 48 minutes to explain even though it only took me 3 seconds to justify it in my thoughts, so it’s easier for me to just say ‘I forgot’
‘I already told you that’ ‘really? I must have forgotten, i’m sorry’ ‘it was FIVE MINUTES AGO. in this SAME CONVERSATION’
this internal conversation:
me: I feel motivated to do this responsible thing
me: if I don’t do this responsible thing right now I will get distracted and forget to do it for another 5 hours
me: so I should do this thing right this second, there is nothing stopping me
me: after I finish this one cell phone game
me, 5 hours later: I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN
almost flunking a class because I straight up didn’t know any homework had been assigned despite loving the class and always attending
trusting the memory of literally anyone else over my own memory
intending to do something for days. sometimes months. never doing it
*cuddling somebody* mm this is nice … *2 seconds later* bored now
somebody is mad at me. I might as well fucking d i e
the options in company are: overshare about the one thing I care about or not talk at all
insensitive or inattentive? YOU decide (and when you tell me that i hurt your feelings and I didn’t notice I’ll rejection sensitive dysphoria into fantasies of disappearing forever)
being excellent at my job for months on end, doing everything right and everything well, and then suddenly & without explanation being t h e w o r s t at it for several weeks, making dumb mistakes everywhere for no discernible reason
when asked to explain something: well it all started when I was a baby
‘they don’t need that much explanation’ well YOU tell ME where to start b/c I have no fucking clue tbh
i can’t throw away anything b/c when I look at it I remember all the sentimental reasons I keep it around and they seem just as important as actually needing it and when I close the storage box back up I forget I had it in the first place until the next time I try to get rid of my clutter and repeat this process
i wasnt’ idle for a second all day and yet I didn’t accomplish a n y t h i n g
am i a speed-reader or was I so impatient for what came next that I read only half a page and then skipped to the next one?
getting excited about a project, starting it, then racing to finish it as fast as I can because when I get bored I’ll abandon it and never go back. must beat the boredom
edit my fics? working twice on the same idea? /uproarious laughter
well I fucked that up. too bad I can never rework it because I no longer have passionate energy for it
me, opening a bottle of adhd meds: I don’t have adhd. I’m just a lazy bum who doesn’t try hard enough
less than an hour after posting this I forgot my keys in the mailbox because I was distracted by looking at the mail I had just gotten and trying to figure out how to haul those and my groceries upstairs and if that doesn’t sum it up i don’t know what does
I don’t even remember putting that thing down but now it’s not in my hand and I don’t know where it went
‘what do you mean you can just think about nothing? what’s that like? I don’t understand’
*tuning out of a conversation halfway through somebody else’s sentence because I just thought of something interesting*
carrying my psychiatrist’s business card with me at all times because I see her once a month and every time I go I forget what floor her office is on. I’ve been there 8 times
‘Between A & B, A would be the right thing to do’ *a cascading thought process that takes a few seconds tops, justifying option B* ‘actually B would be the right thing to do’
somebody else, later: why did you think B was the right thing to do??
me: …. it’s not important, I’ll know better next time
(spoiler: I won’t know better next time)
I know you already told me this thing like 12 times but can you tell me again just one more time because I forgot
it’s not that I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to do this thing. it’s just that in that particular moment i thought it was okay to do it anyway for reasons that would take 48 minutes to explain even though it only took me 3 seconds to justify it in my thoughts, so it’s easier for me to just say ‘I forgot’
‘I already told you that’ ‘really? I must have forgotten, i’m sorry’ ‘it was FIVE MINUTES AGO. in this SAME CONVERSATION’
this internal conversation:
me: I feel motivated to do this responsible thing
me: if I don’t do this responsible thing right now I will get distracted and forget to do it for another 5 hours
me: so I should do this thing right this second, there is nothing stopping me
me: after I finish this one cell phone game
me, 5 hours later: I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN
almost flunking a class because I straight up didn’t know any homework had been assigned despite loving the class and always attending
trusting the memory of literally anyone else over my own memory
intending to do something for days. sometimes months. never doing it
*cuddling somebody* mm this is nice … *2 seconds later* bored now
somebody is mad at me. I might as well fucking d i e
the options in company are: overshare about the one thing I care about or not talk at all
insensitive or inattentive? YOU decide (and when you tell me that i hurt your feelings and I didn’t notice I’ll rejection sensitive dysphoria into fantasies of disappearing forever)
being excellent at my job for months on end, doing everything right and everything well, and then suddenly & without explanation being t h e w o r s t at it for several weeks, making dumb mistakes everywhere for no discernible reason
when asked to explain something: well it all started when I was a baby
‘they don’t need that much explanation’ well YOU tell ME where to start b/c I have no fucking clue tbh
i can’t throw away anything b/c when I look at it I remember all the sentimental reasons I keep it around and they seem just as important as actually needing it and when I close the storage box back up I forget I had it in the first place until the next time I try to get rid of my clutter and repeat this process
i wasnt’ idle for a second all day and yet I didn’t accomplish a n y t h i n g
am i a speed-reader or was I so impatient for what came next that I read only half a page and then skipped to the next one?
getting excited about a project, starting it, then racing to finish it as fast as I can because when I get bored I’ll abandon it and never go back. must beat the boredom
edit my fics? working twice on the same idea? /uproarious laughter
well I fucked that up. too bad I can never rework it because I no longer have passionate energy for it
me, opening a bottle of adhd meds: I don’t have adhd. I’m just a lazy bum who doesn’t try hard enough
I wish more people knew how affected our emotions and emotional responses are by ADHD. Everyone will experience their ADHD differently, so feel free to cross out what applies to you!
I’ve only recently started externalizing emotions again and..it’s crazy how much energy I put into holding it all back - without great success. Here’s my patreon! (is this a smooth topic change?)
Part 3 of the Rejection sensitivity series! There is a lot to consider when exploring why I react the way I do to criticism (or, why I always see criticism everywhere). But here are a few behaviours I’ve noticed in myself and how it affects me daily. Part 1 Part 2
Continuing from the last Comic, here is something showing how the huge amount of criticism and rejection we face for our ADHD symptoms can not only prevent us from getting better, but also teach us bad coping mechanisms - and how it might affect us even now in our daily life. Next up: How it affects me daily and what I do against it.
I’ve been working on a series aiming to explain why we can get so deeply hurt and afraid of disapproval that it will interfere with our life decisions.
Coming soon: 2/4 "Where does it come from?” ¾ "How can I spot it?” 4/4 “What can I do?”
I wish more people knew how affected our emotions and emotional responses are by ADHD. Everyone will experience their ADHD differently, so feel free to cross out what applies to you!
I’ve only recently started externalizing emotions again and..it’s crazy how much energy I put into holding it all back - without great success. Here’s my patreon! (is this a smooth topic change?)
No cause I saw this again and why is this my brain and thought process word for word.
Curse you adhd.
Boosting for anyone who needs it, because I know someone who desperately needs it but might not even be on Tumblr. You’re not as alone as you feel, and you’re certainly not alone in feeling like it.
