Always told myself things would get better once I got out of the situation; instead I found out the worst symptoms of my mental disorders were simply being masked by external factors.
I recently broke down for an entire day after a judgemental encounter with someone, and learned about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, that I have had it for my entire life and that almost all ADHD sufferers experience it at least once. Just learning about it really helped change my perspective and gave me a way to move forward.
Having had multiple run-ins with narcissists over the years, including my mom, I've had a habit of letting myself get harmed and being trapped by guilt or some misplaced loyalty. Now I know the (at least in part) the source of this habit and can change it.
https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-an...
If someone was neglected or attacked by a caregiver when they approached them for help, especially if it was infrequent, and repeatedly told they weren’t allowed to feel bad about it/it wasn’t happening/if it was happening it was all their fault, and suffered significant distress because of it - how else would it present?
Especially if it was at an age where they couldn’t process or verbalize what was going on, and the parent was one they couldn’t reject themselves (because they needed them or they’d be orphans or whatever).
If RSD is really due to emotional neglect/rejection based Complex PTSD underlying the whole thing. It would make a lot of sense.
At the time, I had undiagnosed OCD. And, it turns out, the medicine which I was being given against my will for an ADHD diagnosis I received at age 5, was causing me to experience dry mouth, which made me instinctually suck on the buttons and corners of my shirt. Mystery solved. But two therapists and years of punishment didn't figure that out. I did, in my adulthood.
I had the same experience with uncontrollable, hour-long bouts of laughter which would end in vomiting and extreme stomach pain. Punished for them, told I was just trying to get attention. Turns out that was an expression of OCD. And dozens of other things not worth mentioning. The older I got, the more I came to appreciate the level of misunderstandings about my issues which led to even more violence inflicted upon me.
So that is a possible avenue of explanation for why RSD and ADHD seem to be correlated. After speaking with some friends who have borderline disorder (I don't have this, but I do have bipolar disorder type II) it seems to be something they have experienced as well. And a great deal of BPD cases involve trauma.
There is little doubt that something chemical is taking place given that specific gene mutations seem to cause these disorders, or at least predispositions to them. I'm sure that there is a correlation between RSD and the dopamine reuptake issues which characterize ADHD. But the feedback systems in nature vs nurture mean that these disorders can cause problems which themselves exacerbate the disorders or cause new symptoms to present.
That would definitely make a lot of sense.
You are never taught how to properly tend to the emotions of both yourself and others, so unless you pair with an emotionally well-adjusted partner, you will lack the emotional knowledge required to teach your children better. And what's worse, your brain will relapse into the habits it does have experience, which may often be negative.
And boom, we have the wheel and the multigenerational cycle of abuse.
Highly recommend to be radically honest and natural about everything. Every time you get a piece of info about yourself aka natural feedback will immediately enlighten you and help you expand your perspective and move forward.
It's a bit counter-intuitive because so many of us are taught to hold thoughts, words and actions back, but once I stopped doing that, things started to improve massively.
I watched non-ADHD people attempt the same but none of them evolved (my sample is small, 40+ people, I don't have notes on all of them). So far, the only difference I could find, was ADHD-pattern-recognition + that weird ADHD-Naïvité <3
Linking the people-pleasing to RSD and thus ADHD recently was a massive eye-opener. And the connection between people-pleasing and cutting people off as two sides of the same emotional spectrum.
Being overly honest to someone who is actually a problem is one of the common behaviors, as is forgetting some/all of their actual problematic behavior when they 'get better' so as to preserve the important seeming relationship.
"However, later on, repeated instances of abuse and maltreatment generate a cognitive shift in the victim's mind: that preventing the abuse is in their power. By the time the inescapability of the abuse becomes apparent, the emotional trauma bond is already strong.[12]"
Being fully authentic and honest (regardless of the circumstances) is essentially narcissist bait. And it works.
And at the beginning, narcissists WILL make things better when they have someone like that around. They got their supply, and the love bombing, extreme gratitude, etc. will all help make EVERYTHING feel amazing.
However, at some point dysregulation of one or both parties starts to happen (or one or both parties starts getting bored), and then that gets turned around and the shit starts, and then any authenticity or honesty gets used against the target while the NPD person denies all responsibility.
It shows how interactions between these different kinds of people play out given different population distributions.
I’ve seen people get more functional - then be immediately attacked by said NPD person (indirectly) through gaslighting and sabotage, which of course put them back where they were. ‘The meds stopped working’.
Or maybe it was the meds stopped working - except for what I saw going on, at least.