To feel as though ADHD & Sensitivity Rejection Dysphoria may push me over the edge?

[FeelingPeeledRaw]

So I have ADHD, with a side-ordering of Sensitivity Rejection Dysphoria. In practice what that means is I sometimes get carried away with speaking very frankly about stuff, and then feeling disproportionately hurt and peeled raw emotionally if someone implies I was "too much" in some way. I have spent many years trying to rein in my impulsivity, but it also has very serious side effects. My mother killed herself partly because of the combination of those 2 same conditions, and they actually drove me to a very serious suicide attempt 10 years ago, from which I'm still suffering physical health effects. Anyway I joined a new messaging group based on being the parent of my DC who has a hobby. Don't want to out myself, but think like a hobby-based group of parents. Today I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the demands of the thing around which the group is based (think: challenging hobby requiring lots of time, input etc.) And so I did post a couple of posts on the group mentioning both my ADHD and that I was struggling. A couple of people responded with helpful suggestions and I put it from my mind. Then logged back in later and saw that 4 people had left the group. Now it is a huge group, and many people leave periodically. But I'm also not blind to the fact that maybe me mentioning ADHD/struggling was viewed negatively by those people....which is fair enough. But in addition to that I received a pm from a stranger in the group. She was trying to be kind - that really was her only intention - and said to me that maybe I should not overshare stuff in a group of strangers (she didn't say "like ADHD" but that's what I took from it). I take her point and the kindness with which it was intended. But....but....it still hurt me and made me feel so ashamed of myself. Like I'm this idiotic loser who can't function in normal social situations. I was so shocked that a total stranger had - even for kindness-based reasons, and it definitely was kindness - basically felt confident enough to know definitively what is correct behaviour and message me to tell me....and yet again I obviously didn't know what was correct social behaviour and messed up. I felt so shocked and winded from it. All those feelings of being alien and different that fed into my suicide attempt years ago peered their heads around a door I was desperately trying to slam shut.
I responded back that I was trying to accept my condition and to speak about it normally, in the same way that other people would speak about any everyday stuff. Also responded that I had only posted a couple of things - a total time of maybe 10 minutes....thinking if ppl didn't want to read, then they scroll past? Finally I made the point that if someone saw my posts and thought anything outside the range of reactions from "don't care/scroll past" to "hmmm...brave to be open about a condition that is often shrouded in shame" then maybe I wasn't the one with the problem? So as not to drip-feed, I had a very unstable childhood, passed around relatives, many different schools etc. So shame and self-loathing at myself for being the cause of that with my behaviour (when I actually genuinely wasn't: the adults in my life had their own serious issues) has been such a defining feature in my life. I was shocked at the spiral in which I found myself from these events that somebody else would be able to brush off with "folks don't always see eye-to-eye but just forget it!". Can anyone impart a bit of wisdom or sense of proportion my way? Or tell me ways in which they learned to check their impulsivity especially if they have ADHD? Side-note: even now I feel scared to post this here. Even though this is anonymous; folk say all sorts of stuff on here etc. I still feel even the same creeping shame I had as a reaction to a message that was surely meant to be kind....

I'm wondering if I should have actually put an "aibu" question instead of just a pile of emotional stuff, as no one has responded. That in itself is making me feel as though I've said the wrong thing on here as well. I'm just brought so low by my ADHD these days. Even though my suicide attempt was pre-diagnosis, recently things that happen in my day to day life seem to trigger so much stuff from my upbringing. I don't know how much of the things I struggle with are due to ADHD, or to childhood trauma. All I do know is that I am scared. On the surface I have a good job, lovely kids, a partner who supports me. But I feel so increasingly "wrong" and I find myself wondering if I can go on with life more often than I'm comfortable with.

As someone with ADHD and family with ADHD (including DD) I'd say a lot of this is childhood trauma. ADHD makes things difficult for me, but it makes other things easier and I enjoy being different most of the time.

Do you have someone to talk stuff over with?

It sounds like she’s the problem here - why did she tell you not to overshare (what was her reasoning)? She doesn’t get to decide what’s ok to share or not. I think one of you overstepped, and it wasn’t you.

Not everyone is going to like you, it’s a fact. Some people seem happy to tell other people what to do though and they’ll always be around, you might try trying to cultivate a bit of embarrassment on their behalf - eg - imagine being someone that thinks they can tell other people what to do?! It’s quite possible other parents saw your post and thought ‘thank god it’s not just me that struggles.’

You’re as valid as anyone else in all our myriad human weirdnesses. I know it’s fashionable to go on about how we’re all unique but we’re really not, if you feel this way then loads of other people do too, pretty much guaranteed, don’t feel alone, keep sharing if you want to

Bless you, I'm a chronic oversharer too, it's a thing. Maybe the message was meant to be kind, or maybe not. There are people who are intensely irritated by people trying to make things about themselves, or what they would term as attention seekers. Or maybe they did have a point and it wasn't the right place to seek support, do you maybe have a therapist you could talk to?

Are you medicated for your ADHD? Meds made me appreciate what "normal" felt like and really dent my RSD.

If so, what are your meds? Methylphenidate only prevents reuptake of dopamine. Amphetamine based medication will raise dopamine and prevent reuptake. In US guanfacine is also prescribed for RSD too.

I really sympathise, I related to a lot of this and its awful.

I overshare too (and have been told not to) but who's to say what's correct and what's not. I'm autistic and just because we communicate differently, it doesn't make us wrong.

I have rejection sensitive dysphoria too and it's awful. Don't beat yourself up. Most people are scared of honest communication and raw emotion but would you prefer to be like that? I wouldn't.

Not sure if this will help OP. But I have a tendency to overshare and whilst I don't have ADHD, it is in my family (DS and my sister) so I can identify with some ADHD type traits, particularly the social side.

I also had a tricky childhood so think my oversharing is to do with that.

What I have considered to be a way of getting to know people and have a deeper connection has backfired many times as people back off.

I'm nearly 50 now and age has taught me that people want 'fluffy.' Most people want to hear the good stuff and don't want to get involved with anything deeper. You may if your lucky have 1 or 2 friends who share the bigger stuff. This is normal and nor something I realised for years. I now remind myself of this when I feel the urge to overshare coming on by asking if what I'm about to say is fluffy enough and if not does this person need to know my shit?

I think it's fair to say a parent group about a child's hobby is for fluffy stuff only.

I also try and sleep on things before dealing with something that has upset me. Again, to stop the kneejerk reactions and give me time to think about the consequences of my actions. This has saved me loads of time of making a twat of myself in the heat of the moment.

I am constantly practising think first and speak later because again I have no tact.

If I were you I'd delete the post if you can, then stick to just talking about the hobby on that group. People will soon forget all about it as most are just worried about what they're doing.

I do really wonder if I have asd too, but I'm so avoidant that trying to get a diagnosis would be impossible. Mumsnet is ideal, you can oversharer to your hearts content then name change. It took me a long time to actually view replies if I had posted anything even something innocuous.

Matilda82 is right, it's a rare person who wants anything other than surface level, even family. It's hard because as I get older, the less tolerance I have for banality. What can you do.

I identify so much in what you say. I didn't even know about RSD until now. The reason I'm awake is because I was overthinking a conversation with my manager where she gave me constructive feedback about an element of my job and ive spent the last few hours picking over the conversation. it's stupid really because none of this stuff matters. A few weeks or months from now it would pass.

A huge thank you to all who responded, because there is such helpful stuff in here from everyone.

To respond to some of the questions:

Sources of Support
So I have recently started to pay privately for a fortnightly Zoom counselling session. It is hugely helpful, but I really wish there were people I could speak to on a friendship level. I looked for adult ADHD support groups in my town, but - likely because of Covid - there was nothing for adults with ADHD, although there is for parents of a child with ADHD. I'm thinking now to maybe look for an online support group, because it's starting to nudge crisis point in my head. Just from these responses alone, I feel so helped knowing that other people go through this as well.

Cup half full??
I do enjoy being "different" when I can see my ADHD sometimes makes me more kind, more willing to do things for other people etc. But my horror--filled reaction at something like what happened today, or a similar feeling at work recently when someone said, "Calm down - you're so hyper!!" and I went from functioning to broken and crying for the duration of a lunch hour means I need to get a handle on all this.

I agree with the poster who talked about "fluffy"/finding the right time and place. But equally also with the poster who tried to get me to think about whether it was only me with the problem, or whether other people could be more tolerant. I have calmed down now so I can see that it is a combination of the two: find the right time/place for sharing, but also question others' tolerance rather than just whipping myself.

Medication
Elvanse 80mg
I know it's a high dose, but I was diagnosed with severe Combined-type ADHD. It does help massively wityh focus and organisation. Less so with social skills....but I'm also not young anymore, so there are years of impulsive, "wrong" behaviours to unlearn. Maybe with time this will be easier. I'm only 4 months from a diagnosis and meds.

rejection sensitive dysphoria
To the poster who said they have this too - thank you! I have never spoken about this to anyone apart from my counsellor. It's by far the hardest part of my mental health problems. When those moments happen I feel like all my skin has been ripped off my body and people are seeing and touching my skeleton. It's such a physical sensation of shame, not just a mental one...

Thank you all so much!

I have ADHD also. I have recently started on meds again aged 49. If what I understand about rejection trauma is true, then it is possible that you perceive anything as a personal criticism. (Please correct me if I am wrong - I googled it.) I can tell that you are anxious that you also don’t read boundary cues very well…(Very common with anxious people.) I am wondering if you maybe misunderstood the purpose of the chat. If it is a group set up by parents about their kid’s hobby, normally the purpose is to ask specific questions and have them answered, ie… Times/places, lifts, attendance - “X is sick today, please advise group.”, or more specific or technical questions pertaining to the hobby like “Can someone tell me the best place to buy X?” Or “We are selling/swapping these items, anyone interested?” I think that if you chatting away with the chat group like you would your friends, etc, that would put people off. (You do that in private chat or see them in person.)

I’m not belittling what I understand is a huge challenge and a diagnosed condition, but in a small way, a little mantra of ‘fuck em’ can help with the people who actually say something, like today’s woman.

@MilesOfSand

I’m not belittling what I understand is a huge challenge and a diagnosed condition, but in a small way, a little mantra of ‘fuck em’ can help with the people who actually say something, like today’s woman.

@MilesOfSand I absolutely agree!!!! I don't see it as belittling; I need to develop a "fuck 'em" mentality. I feel so much calmer now, and can see a clear path...but that was not where I was a few hours ago. A mantra like that is easier to grasp when the feelings are like chainsaws in my brain!

Also @Justilou1 you're right too: time & place, eh?! Good luck with your new meds

Totally understand it’s easier said than done . Here’s to running up a hill somewhere (real or metaphorical) and yelling FUCK EM! at the top of your voice

Also I think you can put tons of work into reprogramming your belief that everyone is thinking badly of you, and that it’s actually just your brain saying that, and then one person like your woman today speaks out of turn and puts you back to square one. But they’re a red herring.

Have you looked at Facebook groups, OP? You can chat about anything on this one:
www.facebook.com/groups/ukwomenwithadhd/?ref=share

If you don’t do Facebook or want anonymity, you could set up a dedicated FB account in a pseudonym.

You sound very strong, and I’m finding your thread helpful. Can I ask how you got assessed for RSD?

Adhd and autistic here (with RSD) too, and I agree with others. Your communication style might be different but it isn’t wrong. It is absolutely not ok to shame someone for communicating differently, and while some people might disagree, I think there is nothing wrong with over sharing at all. In fact, I tend to make better friends with over-sharers because we understand each other well.

I’ve had several situations like this one you have described just this month. You are absolutely amazing for even making this post describing what RSD is like here in addition to the others. Every time I see posts made by people like me it makes me feel more accepted and not as weird. Thank you.

OP I don't have your conditions but I have bipolar (my side serving is CPTSD) which has worsened very badly over the years.
I have said all manner of "socially unacceptable " things. Spoken at too much length, volume and speed - plus since I decided to be open about my illness, I know a couple of people who definitely think I should have kept that under wraps.
It's easier said than done, but the fuck em attitude really is the only way to go.
My condition, like yours, is serious and lifelong.
I can't fucking be expected to walk on eggshells and constantly overthink what I'm going to say. And neither should you.
I have enough on my plate making the decision to walk out the front door, or even stay alive some days. I give zero fucks about anyone's opinion now.
I truly hope you can come to the same place.
You've nothing to be ashamed of. At all.

Maybe the woman who messaged meant you might be making yourself vulnerable by oversharing? After all you have no idea who will be reading your posts and there are some unpleasant people around to say the least. As Silverontoast says it's not Ok to shame anyone but unfortunately some people love to do just that and worse to anyone they perceive as vulnerable.

@SparklingLime

Have you looked at Facebook groups, OP? You can chat about anything on this one: www.facebook.com/groups/ukwomenwithadhd/?ref=share

If you don’t do Facebook or want anonymity, you could set up a dedicated FB account in a pseudonym.

You sound very strong, and I’m finding your thread helpful. Can I ask how you got assessed for RSD?

Thank you @SparklingLime - I do do Facebook and am going to join this group for sure.

OK so for how I got my assessment:
My much-adored mum who killed herself was never diagnosed; however in retrospect, I see so many things that make me feel sure she had both ADHD and Sensitivity Rejection Dysphoria. When I then tried to take my own life (via a method that doesn't usually see people survive it), I was diagnosed with depression and put on fluoxetine for 10 years. But it never seemed to make the slightest difference to most of my symptoms, although the suicidal feelings dissipated, and I put that down to gratitude for having failed by a freak chance, and being given a second chance of life. Plus, I never felt depressed, even on the day that I made the attempt....the best way to describe it is that I felt frantic, like I couldn't cope with the internal "noise" in my brain. Anyway, around 5 months ago, I was really struggling with this "thing" that people were calling depression but didn't feel like depression; whatever it was, though, felt as though it was getting worse (I think maybe perimenopause was affecting it). So I started Googling and came across posts about adult ADHD....and it was like a seismic shock; an earthquake in my head. So many things that I had thought were my rubbish personality seemed to suddenly be there in words in front of my face. To say I was stunned doesn't go near to covering it. The effect it had on me was to actually make the symptoms worse....as though knowing that there was a big chance that I had this condition called ADHD seemed to remove the last bits of strength I had to manage it without help. I went to my doctor and he told me that an adult assessment could take up to 2 years. I felt at this point that because the suicidal feelings were coming in waves more strongly than they had in a decade, there was a real chance I wouldn't make a 2-year wait. I have the most wonderful partner, and he insisted we take out a loan and go for a private diagnosis. So in total for assessment & diagnosis and the putting in place of a shared medication prescribing plan with my NHS GP came to around £1000. I am so grateful to my partner for insisting we borrowed the money and just went for it. It has helped with so many of my symptoms and I feel a huge amount of gratitude for that. But the symptom it hasn't really helped with is the Sensitivity Rejection Dysphoria. And something like today's events have really hit me hard. I'm still not asleep when I should be; I'm awake and straddling the divide of calming down and trying to see it all in perspective on one hand, and on the other hand feeling such complete humiliation of the way those 4 people "left the group" one after the other, and then receiving the message I mentioned upthread. I hate myself for my DC's sake. If I annoy people, then my DC may find that they suffer as a result? Sorry - not making much sense at this stage! But I appreciate so much the help I've had on here tonight .

I can't express how grateful I am that every single person who has responded to me tonight has said something which has rung true, and helped me. I was scared to even put this post up here in case I outed myself, or in case it made things worse in my head. But I'm so glad I did and grateful to you all, as it certainly hasn't made things worse, and in many ways made things so much better. I'm still really struggling with the implications of today - the woman who messaged me was trying to protect me I think, so it's not that I am upset that she did. I'm just so upset with myself and my over-sharing, and the way the SRD makes me feel so raw and see-through to my bones. I'm so upset with how ADHD makes me make myself so vulnerable. And fear in case my lovely DC suffers as a result. But the sun will keep rising in the sky at dawn, and setting at night, and time will pass, and I will learn, and this pain will pass too.

I am glad you do feel supported, feelingpeeled raw. You do have great strength and resources to still be carrying on after all the struggles you have had. I had not heard about SRD and have only recently been learning about adult ADHD from these boards. I can identify with some of it, hence being awake here at this time of morning when I am trying to reform my habits. hence a lifelong failure to do what is 'normal'. I think anonymous message boards can sometimes tempt us to over share, I had an incidence of that myself a few months ago and ended up asking for my thread to be deleted. But although I try to keep my sense of proportion that it was annonymous and nobody actually cared, I do still think about it. I am only saying that to show you are not alone in dwelling on whether you have made a 'mistake' in sharing personal details. You do seem to have a supportive partner and did you mention a counsellor also? So I hope you can talk this out and not worry over it. I always say I am my own teenager which is why I am up so late/early. Hope you get some sleep and feel better.

There are many things that annoy me when people misuse social media groups.

1. People using them to try and flog me tat. It got so bad I now always call it out or the group quickly becomes derailed

2. the mememes. People who regularly take up air time, normally telling us how wonderful they/their off spring are in thinly veiled ways. I just ignore or change the subject on the thread.

3 People posting irrelevant bollocks like cat memes.

Different groups might have different dynamics depending on the number of people and wheterh people know each other in real life. But regardless, people being honest about struggling? Especially after the 18 months we have had? That would never make my eyes roll.

Do you know what I think OP? I think that every time someone is truthful and open and honest and vulnerable about their life, and particularly about areas where they are struggling, it’s good for the world.

You done owe it to anyone to lie to make them feel comfortable and there is nothing wrong with you sharing your experiences.

You don’t know who you’re helping. My cousin got a diagnosis of adhd in adulthood after seeing others with adhd sharing their experiences on social media and recognising himself in what they said. It has made an enormous and positive difference to his life to have that diagnosis, and it wouldn’t have happened without being being open and vulnerable.

However kind she intended to be, that woman was wrong to message you. You’re allowed to share your story and doing so is good. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You should be proud.

I strongly suspect I have ADHD but I fear ridicule from the GP because, when I had post-natal anxiety I was treated like an idiot and I find any form of rejection unbearable. I can feel completely humiliated by something another would find mildly unpleasant.
It always helps to hear from people similar to me!
Remember, our society is only set up for neuro typical persons. Everyone else is seen as weird-I have been called weird my whole life. I try to embrace it as I just want to be myself. After all, where’s the “be you!” and the “be kind” when it comes to people like us?! It seems to be forgotten. I bet you have a lot more empathy for others because of your condition and please forgive yourself as it isn’t your fault