Emotional Breakdowns

[2adhd]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone else suffered from having RSD? I am wondering if anyone else has RSD episodes that are like an emotional breakdown? This is going to be geared more at the people you love hurting you.

[apersonwith]

Yes! But for years I was understanding the feeling of RSD more as a panic attack related to anxiety than RSD related to ADHD. Understanding this difference has been really important to my coping. I think that before my diagnosis I would experience what I thought was a panic attack that kind of froze my emotions, left me unable to communicate, and compelled me to escape to solitude. I would then feel shame about feeling overwhelmed and very strong negativity to whoever or whatever triggered me. Being incapacitated in this way is debilitating so I felt broken. I am working on reframing this process as being something that is a part of my ADHD and sharing with people close to me that if this happens I need time to reset. I'm working hard on not blaming the trigger but accepting that this is something my brain does, the same brain that has all my strengths.

[AngelamarieQ in reply to apersonwith]

Wow! This is pivotal for me because i don’t know how to advice my daughter, who has ADHD, and the grief i feel because of her meltdowns and sense of hate towards me. I also have ADHD and this is very hard to take.

[apersonwith in reply to AngelamarieQ]

completely relate to you! My daughter who is now in her 20s has ADHD (inherited from me no doubt) and when she lived with me at home we often found ourselves in opposition to each other. the worst triggers were a) getting her out of bed in the morning, and b) getting her to tidy her room up. She tended to react pretty hatefully and have meltdowns when I tried to push her to do better and I really did not understand what a big role emotional sensitivity and reactivity plays in ADHD. This made worse by my own tendency to get upset which escalated things. Now in her 20s she still struggles with the same things but in her own place, and gradually getting better. We are now very close because we talk a lot about what ADHD really does to us and manage to forgive each other, but its been a long hard road.

[Spud-u-Like1982]

What is RSD?

[FocusAndFlow in reply to Spud-u-Like1982]

Rejection Sensitivity Disorder - Basically, as ADHDers, we take things too much to heart, but more than that -> It's illogical and to the extreme. What makes is more difficult is knowing that it is not logical and beyond a 'normal' emotional reaction, and so we punish ourselves for it, we retreat from society, get depressed, more anxious, and all the rest of it.

I myself have been misdiagnosed bipolar 2, anxiety disorders, severe depression, etc. and I ASKED SEVERAL DOCTORS if it was ADHD. I was consistently told that it was not possible, as being a CFO in highly competitive field, I simply would not be able to function at my level.

Fast forward 20 years of misdiagnoses, 40 failed medications, including 4 for anxiety which led me to quite Benzos cold turkey four years ago (resulting in a surprising amount of brain damage), and I am left with no career to speak of, doctors who do not know what they are doing and a wife who openly rejects me in a rather offensive, almost mocking fashion.

Now then...

Do I have RDS - Yes. Do I let it control me - No. By reading books by Dr. Amen (highly recommended), reading the Stoics, and simply forcing myself to 'let it pass' over the last 1.5 years, I've become increasingly resilient by simply tolerating extreme discomfort and repeating to myself over and over that it is not real. I mean that although it is real, it is not commensurate in scale to the anxiety, anger and depression that it's causing in me. Over time this does get easier, but I learned my lesson for sure: I take a little ritalin to help me stay on track but that is it. It's all exercise, nutrition, planning and time-keeping tools, etc. Never again any pills that affect the central nervous system to 'alleviate anxiety'. They actually did more harm than good and by a country mile.

I have not let myself 'breakdown' in the last 1.5 years since my diagnosis just before my 50th birthday. I've had major life events that would definitely justify emotional breakdowns since then (including. most recently, my chronically emotionally abusive mother now being in hospice at my brother's house while dying of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. No relationship there for the past 12 years and she is ready to die without seeing me or talking to me. So be it.) and yet, I simply do not let myself cry or 'indulge' and I call it. Although it sounds harsh and it is extremely challenging, one day turns into two, and so on with weeks and months. Before you know it, you have a new normal, and I can attest that this is much, much better than living through the hell of having outburst and having them explained away as panic attacks that somehow 'must' be accompanied by a xanax or some such poison. No thank you.

i know two things: I practice self-compassion every day, every second of the day, in every way, and I take full responsibility for my life. It's my life, not the doctor's, not the pill's, not my wife's, not anyone else's - Mine. I choose to live it, come what may.

RSD is a very real thing and it is quite a potent elixir of self-hatred. That requires an even greater elixir of self-compassion. I have found, in my limited experience thus far post-diagnosis, that it is the ONLY implement of war against RSD. My hope is that I can start calling it an actual 'cure' over the coming years. I'm on my way.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this inspires others struggling with this to somehow make it a bit easier to get that monkey off their backs as well. That's one ugly monkey and he's in a really bad mood all the time.

No one should have or make time for such a monkey.

Be well. Godspeed.

[Lilwonder in reply to FocusAndFlow]

Yep. I have recently found self compassion. It is a total game changer.

[AngelamarieQ in reply to FocusAndFlow]

Thank you for sharing your story. It really sheds some light in our gray journey

[ChakasHuman]

my doctor recommended to me the book “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone. What I’ve read so far has been very helpful for combatting RSD.

[apersonwith in reply to ChakasHuman]

Thanks for the recommendation! I find that audiobooks work best for me and pleased to see there is an audio version of this on Audible so I will check it out. RSD is such a barrier to the back-and-forth of both work and personal relationships and I really want to find ways to diffuse its impact.

[LifeAfterDiagnosis]

Yes - and the hard thing is that it's more about my perception of rejection, and not likely "real" (intentional) rejection. I convince myself it's real, though. I get mad at myself about it.