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Post by iz42 on Apr 7, 2022 0:14:19 GMT
I have come to believe that I have ADHD and RSD and it's making me wonder if that's what has caused my issues in past relationships. I'm wondering if others have experience with this? I notice that I struggle with it in most of my interactions and it makes it very difficult for me set boundaries when I know I'll be hurting someone's feelings. I agonize over these kinds of things. It comes with a strong sense of shame for being this way and not having a stronger "sense of self." It even happens with strangers -- when I see others expressing frustration (in the car, in the grocery store) I take it very personally and assume that I am to blame for whatever is going on with them. I've long struggled to figure this out and now I wonder if it's RSD.
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Post by tnr9 on Apr 7, 2022 11:38:36 GMT
I have come to believe that I have ADHD and RSD and it's making me wonder if that's what has caused my issues in past relationships. I'm wondering if others have experience with this? I notice that I struggle with it in most of my interactions and it makes it very difficult for me set boundaries when I know I'll be hurting someone's feelings. I agonize over these kinds of things. It comes with a strong sense of shame for being this way and not having a stronger "sense of self." It even happens with strangers -- when I see others expressing frustration (in the car, in the grocery store) I take it very personally and assume that I am to blame for whatever is going on with them. I've long struggled to figure this out and now I wonder if it's RSD. Hi there…have you discussed this with a medical professional? There are medications for ADHD and likely there is therapy for RSD….but I would encourage you to discuss them. |
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Post by usernametaken on Apr 7, 2022 16:37:37 GMT
RSD is an interesting thing. Since I am diagnosed ADD, BPD, PDD, GAD and cPTSD, with an FA attachment, I have read a lot of literature on all of these, and they all overlap. Have you had an official psych assessment just to make sure there isn't something else?
Even though not officially recognized, the line between RSD and these other things seems to be that people go through therapy, usually CBT or DBT and their symptoms do not change. DBT is the gold standard for emotional reactivity.
While traditional ADHD stimulants won't help with RSD, I have seen that sometimes drugs that lower blood pressure have been reported to help.
As I've gone through therapy, and spent a lot of time learning how to set boundaries and raise my self esteem my reactivity to things is way down. One thought that really helps is I am not so important or powerful to be impacting people nearly as much as I think I am. We are all just running around worrying about ourselves. In the off chance that I did impact someone, all I can do is try my best, I am not responsible for their feelings.
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Post by iz42 on May 23, 2022 22:53:12 GMT
RSD is an interesting thing. Since I am diagnosed ADD, BPD, PDD, GAD and cPTSD, with an FA attachment, I have read a lot of literature on all of these, and they all overlap. Have you had an official psych assessment just to make sure there isn't something else? Even though not officially recognized, the line between RSD and these other things seems to be that people go through therapy, usually CBT or DBT and their symptoms do not change. DBT is the gold standard for emotional reactivity. While traditional ADHD stimulants won't help with RSD, I have seen that sometimes drugs that lower blood pressure have been reported to help. As I've gone through therapy, and spent a lot of time learning how to set boundaries and raise my self esteem my reactivity to things is way down. One thought that really helps is I am not so important or powerful to be impacting people nearly as much as I think I am. We are all just running around worrying about ourselves. In the off chance that I did impact someone, all I can do is try my best, I am not responsible for their feelings. I was diagnosed with ADHD by my primary care doctor but have not had an official psych assessment. My mom and sister have also been diagnosed, so it's very likely that i have it too. I take wellbutrin, which is sometimes prescribed for ADHD. I will look into the non-stimulant medications that you mentioned. Right now I'm more focused on finding self-acceptance. I find it frustrating that I was not diagnosed earlier in life. I think this happens pretty often with women who have inattentive ADHD. I didn't realize until the past year (at age 40) that it was having such a huge impact on my life -- especially around emotional regulation and RSD. My current therapist does not specialize in ADHD but she has been helpful in helping me figure out new approaches to these challenges. I'm realizing that much of what I thought was anxious attachment is probably symptoms of ADHD. My boyfriend is securely attached but he has ADHD too...and even though our relationship is secure, we run into challenges around RSD. He tends to respond to threats with anger, whereas I get sad and hypersensitive. It's going to take a fair amount of effort for us to work through this. I am hopeful because we both want to make the effort, and he is a kind and thoughtful person. Being more aware of the situation helps immensely. |
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Post by iz42 on Mar 8, 2023 19:29:17 GMT
I realized today that I've done all this research on healing insecure attachment and emotional regulation and what I've taken away from my research is that emotional dysregulation = being upset. So dysregulation is when you're upset, and regulation is when you're calm. My therapist said basically that's not true. I've been telling myself that anytime I'm upset, I need to soothe and make the bad feelings go away, and otherwise I'm dysregulated. The faster I can make those feelings go away, the more "healed" I am.
The problem is that sometimes bad feelings (like grief) linger because it takes time to work through them, not because I'm bad at soothing myself. Maybe sometimes regulation = being upset and letting myself feel those difficult feelings. This seems contrary to a lot of stuff that I read online.
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Post by alexandra on Mar 9, 2023 5:14:33 GMT
I agree with the therapist. I don't think being upset or angry automatically equals being emotionally dysregulated. Think about the stages of grief for example -- denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance. It is said that everyone needs to go through each of those stages, not necessarily in order or in equal duration (and sometimes stages occur more than once), to fully process and get through grief. That doesn't mean every grieving person is dysregulated, as having feelings is normal for just about everyone, insecure or secure. The difference, in my opinion, is in the part where the person with the feelings is actively processing them. If someone is overwhelmed with feelings and not fully understanding them or where they're coming from, not having tools to cope properly with them, ignoring minimizing or avoiding them for long periods of time, or getting stuck in them and not processing, that's what I'd define as dysregulated.
When I was AP, I'd get triggered anxious. That was not being emotional in a healthy way, that was being dysregulated. I often didn't understand the wounding that caused it or couldn't connect with myself (over- or under-coupling, attributing the actual problems upsetting me to something incorrectly), I'd be totally overcome with emotions, it would impact my eating and sleeping sometimes, I'd ruminate and get stuck at some stage so I wasn't fully processing through the emotions no matter how long I sat in them or repeated talking about them to others, maybe I'd look to others to emotionally regulate and calm me... I'd definitely call any and all of that being dysregulated. It would absolutely interfere with my day to day life and ability to care for myself. I couldn't accept myself for having feelings and be okay with feeling them or just being me and having it be enough, or accept my limitations and feel okay about it.
There's nothing inherently wrong with being upset or sadness, or anger, and with feeling it and internally reacting to it, as long as you're processing and not just ruminating stuck. Secure and neurotypical people feel everything, too, but maybe have more tools to process it so the more minor upsets don't interfere with living life. Putting it on yourself that having overwhelming feelings means you're doing something wrong and are dysregulated is not giving yourself enough grace, which will magnify the bad feelings while minimizing the part where you process them in a healthy way. Sometimes it's okay to just recognize that your feelings aren't fully the truth, like with rejection sensitivity, and that you do need to manage them for a bit while just waiting for them to pass. Other times, it's okay to recognize that you're dealing with and working through something complicated and with a real external root. That you're really having a reaction to something in front of you that happened and your feelings and reactions are completely in line with whatever it is and your other issues aren't magnifying it, and that it can still take time to fully understand and work through, and give yourself some patience and compassion while you process.
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Post by iz42 on Mar 9, 2023 7:03:18 GMT
I agree with the therapist. I don't think being upset or angry automatically equals being emotionally dysregulated. Think about the stages of grief for example -- denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance. It is said that everyone needs to go through each of those stages, not necessarily in order or in equal duration (and sometimes stages occur more than once), to fully process and get through grief. That doesn't mean every grieving person is dysregulated, as having feelings is normal for just about everyone, insecure or secure. The difference, in my opinion, is in the part where the person with the feelings is actively processing them. If someone is overwhelmed with feelings and not fully understanding them or where they're coming from, not having tools to cope properly with them, ignoring minimizing or avoiding them for long periods of time, or getting stuck in them and not processing, that's what I'd define as dysregulated. When I was AP, I'd get triggered anxious. That was not being emotional in a healthy way, that was being dysregulated. I often didn't understand the wounding that caused it or couldn't connect with myself (over- or under-coupling, attributing the actual problems upsetting me to something incorrectly), I'd be totally overcome with emotions, it would impact my eating and sleeping sometimes, I'd ruminate and get stuck at some stage so I wasn't fully processing through the emotions no matter how long I sat in them or repeated talking about them to others, maybe I'd look to others to emotionally regulate and calm me... I'd definitely call any and all of that being dysregulated. It would absolutely interfere with my day to day life and ability to care for myself. I couldn't accept myself for having feelings and be okay with feeling them or just being me and having it be enough, or accept my limitations and feel okay about it. There's nothing inherently wrong with being upset or sadness, or anger, and with feeling it and internally reacting to it, as long as you're processing and not just ruminating stuck. Secure and neurotypical people feel everything, too, but maybe have more tools to process it so the more minor upsets don't interfere with living life. Putting it on yourself that having overwhelming feelings means you're doing something wrong and are dysregulated is not giving yourself enough grace, which will magnify the bad feelings while minimizing the part where you process them in a healthy way. Sometimes it's okay to just recognize that your feelings aren't fully the truth, like with rejection sensitivity, and that you do need to manage them for a bit while just waiting for them to pass. Other times, it's okay to recognize that you're dealing with and working through something complicated and with a real external root. That you're really having a reaction to something in front of you that happened and your feelings and reactions are completely in line with whatever it is and your other issues aren't magnifying it, and that it can still take time to fully understand and work through, and give yourself some patience and compassion while you process. Yes, this makes sense. I think my misunderstanding comes from reading material that suggests that when you're regulated, you are able to soothe yourself and move on from an upsetting event fairly quickly. That leaves out the fact that there are some circumstances where feeling intense anger, sadness, loneliness, etc. would be expected, and it's not always possible to move on right away. And people with sensitive nervous systems might struggle with this a little more. I can see how getting stuck in one emotion could count as dysregulation, but my therapist described it as being more extreme than that -- characterized by very intense mood swings and other kinds of impulsive and extreme responses that would be symptoms of BPD, for example. I don't know if this is how most clinicians would describe it. Maybe there are different ways that the term is used outside of clinical mental health settings. The problem with my current struggle is that I can't always tell the difference between processing through something and ruminating. Processing for me does sometimes look like thinking through a concern or issue for a day or two, and then I usually come to a better understanding of the situation. At the time I do feel very stuck because I hyperfocus on it and this can look like rumination. In these moments I am sometimes upset to the point where I'm distracted and it's hard to sleep or focus on other things. I can usually still manage my daily life but it's more difficult. Then I usually move through it and feel like I understand where the response came from and what I need to do moving forward. Maybe my own process is different from the neurotypical process and that's part of what is confusing here. |
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Post by alexandra on Mar 9, 2023 19:04:24 GMT
In my experience, ruminating was looking at everything over and over, trying to figure out if you missed anything and seeing every angle, without actually gaining any new or further information from it or moving forward with your own understanding of how you can digest the information. Like, it was more about, how can I bend this situation or change enough in a way to make something that's not working for me fit my needs, where is the secret piece I missed -- while letting the focus on it consume me and interfere with my life. So that's why it wasn't processing it, because there was an aspect of lack of acceptance and trying to find a new angle to gain back control over something I actually couldn't change, instead of accepting I couldn't change it, I had feelings about it, and now I need to digest that all and figure out the next steps in the direction of moving forward. I think doing this for a couple days maybe is dysregulated but can be okay, like maybe that's how someone experiences their denial stage or analytically starts their process. But sitting in it at that intense level of rumination for weeks and months is likely not processing.
Since I'm neurotypical, I can't speak to what's more standard to the ADHD experience, only to the insecure attachment side. But your brain processes differently, so I agree that trying to force yourself or aspiring to respond in a neurotypical way probably doesn't set you up for success.
I can say, processing through minor issues should probably be on the faster side, like say someone saying something rude at work shouldn't spiral someone out and ruin their entire day (though it can if there's other stressful stuff going on and the reaction is really about the other stuff). But for actual issues, they aren't handled better by anyone by rushing through feelings.
I was once really, really taken aback by a guy after a few dates... something that might have been a dealbreaker came up, and I told him I needed a couple days to think about it. I really did, I had every intention of getting back to him within two days, and I was leaning towards continuing to get to know him. He started blowing up my phone within a few hours, saying he needed to know immediately because he simply didn't believe that I needed any time to think about or process anything because I seemed emotionally mature, so I must just know. I felt bad that he had such a strong anxiety response that he couldn't give me any space, especially since he barely knew me, but wow was that an unfair assumption and expectation about someone else's process! Hearing that made my decision, I didn't want to see him again, but it kind of reminded me about what you're saying. In this case, don't be his voice putting shoulds and assumptions on your process.
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