When Darkness Descends: Dealing with Hypersensitivity, Emotional Dysregulation & Shame

 

Despite having ADHD, most days l am happy to be me and I live with a sense of peaceful contentment.

Yep! After years and years of hard work, I finally feel like I understand and accept myself, both my strengths and my weakness. I have my own back and am my own best friend. I’ve been able to structure my life according to my interests and capabilities and put in place the things I need to navigate life fairly successfully. And I have found a way to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.

It wasn’t an easy ride getting here as I had to battle the demons in my head and learn to hold myself compassionately whenever shame raised its ugly head – like today.

Today is not most days.

Today I woke up in intense and debilitating emotional pain – vulnerable, uncertain and alone. The pain raged through my body and consumed me. My usual mental coping strategies that stop me from going from here to catastrophe when something happens, had no effect. I could not get out of bed or stop the tears from flowing. At times I felt like I could not breathe, that I was gasping for air.

Whilst I won’t go into the events that led to my descent into emotional hell, I will share what eventually broke me. What made me come undone.

It was that ‘knowing’ deep inside of me that some of the executive function reasons why I felt so bad will not go away, and that I cannot with any certainty stop myself from making the same mistake again. I inevitably will, there is no avoiding it.

For I have enough self-awareness now to know that although ADHD medication, tools and strategies are a godsend as they help me to manage my symptoms and keep me safe most of the time, they do not make me neurotypical or take all of my challenges away. They are also not infallible. Therefore, despite my best intentions and regardless of how hard I try, even with everything I need in place, my underlying challenges remain and I will at some stage fail myself.

This ‘knowing’ hurts like hell more than anything else when you have ADHD, and it taps straight into the shame you have been carrying around since you were a child.

Life could be going really well for a day, a week, a month, even a year, then a few things happen and that ‘knowing’ rises up and slaps you in the face. It triggers your deep-seated shame which then rear its ugly head to overwhelm and consume you.

To avoid this dysphoric pain again, I often wish I could die. Thankfully, due to my love for my son these feelings now only last temporarily. I do, however, still find myself terrified of making another mistake and of being rejected. And instinctually I want to put barriers up and run away.

In the past, in response to these feelings I have distanced myself from those I care about most to keep myself safe and have at times ended up isolated and alone – but with a desperate desire to connect and feel like I belong. I did this with my best friend, who I miss every day. I can see now with a hindsight that was not possible before I was diagnosed and started to take medication, that I had been frustrating her for years and that she was at her wits end with me. It also makes perfect sense why, when I told her I had been diagnosed with ADHD, she responded by saying something like, ‘Good, now you know you have no excuse for making the same mistakes again.’ I knew I couldn’t live up to this expectation and I walked away because I didn’t know what else to do.

So how did I get through today?

I acknowledged my feelings and I let myself cry.

I held myself in my suffering and compassionately told myself, ‘It will be okay, I will be okay. I am not a bad person and everyone makes mistakes. I’ll snap out of it tomorrow but today it is what it is and that’s okay.’

I reached out and took a risk. I group messaged a couple of dear friends in Sydney and truthfully shared what I was feeling with them. I let them in.

The response I received from them amazed me. One friend told me she wished she could teleport me to her lounge room. And even though I responded by honestly sharing my thoughts, ‘I wish you could too but then my ADHD tells me that I’d probably do something to fuck up our friendship,’ she continued to reassured me and held me in my pain, saying ‘That is what friends are for. The only thing that would fuck up our friendship is betrayal. I know you will never betray me.’ And then she tried to make me laugh. And she succeeded.

Together they encouraged me to get out of bed, which I did.

I took my ADHD medication which helped to stabilise my emotions and went and splashed some paint around on a canvas in the shed. I played with my son and thought of all the good things in my life. I had an afternoon nap. I ate healthy food as well as a couple of little treats.

I didn’t force myself to do anything. I didn’t have a shower or clean the house.

I acknowledged how far I had come, my strengths and my contribution to the world, as well as the areas of my life I would like to slowly grow.

I decided I would be honest with the person I feel I disappointed and say that whilst I would try my hardest to not make the same mistake again, I may. There are no guarantees. Not because I don’t care, but because sometimes, despite having a heart of gold, the best intentions and all the strategies in the world, my brain lets me down. It is up to her to decide whether she will take a chance on me again, or not. I can only be true to me. I cannot be something I am not however I think I am worth the risk.

I promised myself I would check in with myself tomorrow and if I still wasn’t coping, I would call my psychologist and make an appointment to see her.

And I started to write my experience down as a way of helping me process my feelings, and with the desire of helping others with ADHD. You are reading the result right now.

Tonight, my pain has eased but it has not gone away. However, I have made it through the day, holding steadfast to some different ‘knowings’ in my mind – that ‘this too will pass’, ‘tomorrow is another day’ and ‘I am worth it’.

 

(I wrote this blog post a week ago when I was having a really bad day as a way of helping others who may experience the same challenges. Please know I am back to being my usual positive self and that there is no need to be concerned about me. Lou x)