I have always come down very hard on myself for being such a procrastinator. I never realized that there is a far better term: Interest-Based Nervous System. I am an academic, so I am including my sources, but I realize that people aren't going to click on the links. They are just there if you want them. I can be incredibly focused on things that interest me. I can dive into a video game, a novel, a project, with gusto and be happy as a clam. However, grading papers or cleaning the garage can feel impossible. I know that it should be done, but actually doing it can feel nearly impossible. I spend a lot of energy just making sure that I do the things I should be doing, not the things I want to be doing.
People may think that everyone has those days, where they would prefer to watch TV or play games. That is my day every day, every hour. I am constantly reminding myself that I have to do X, Y, or Z. I am constantly having to police my behavior.
I never thought of ADHD being an emotional disorder. I always knew that I was "intense". I knew that I experience emotions and feelings at a depth and speed that most people simply don't understand. I don't know if people realize how frequently I am hiding what I am feeling because I don't want to frighten them away.
I have been told it makes me seem very aloof. I might feel something cutting me to the core, but my face will barely register that I have been hurt. However after years of being told that I am taking things too personally and reacting too intensely, I have gotten to the point of figuring that I am not supposed to react at all. A lot of people seem to think that I don't feel at all.
I do, I feel a lot.
What I feel most is rejection. I can't think of anything that cuts me more deeply than feeling rejected.
I am going to talk about Kevin. I know it's emotionally loaded, but I believe that our interactions exemplify some of these issues.
Kevin and I were acquaintances who became friends. We danced together, we went to shows, we hung out, we texted every day. I would have called us quite close. Kevin was having some issues with an ex-boyfriend. I was dating said ex at the time. (That's a whole story, but that's not the point of this one.) I have to wonder if Kevin ever understood how hard I worked to be supportive of his feelings while dating someone that he was constantly frustrated and angry with. I know that he was surprised when I asked him if we could not discuss his ex while we were doing a show together. I told him that we could talk about his ex during the week, but while at the show, I just needed to focus on my part and staying in character.
That was the end of my friendship with Kevin.
What followed was a spiral of rejection that I still haven't recovered from. Kevin and I could no longer work together. We managed to share a stage, but the backstage stuff was horrible. I am not sure our cast mates realized how deeply hurt I was, probably because I didn't tell them. I felt like they took Kevin's side. Kevin rejected me, I felt like my cast and director rejected me and so I dropped out of the show.
I returned the next year and Kevin did not. I was able to rebuild my relationship with my cast. A couple of them also struggle with ADHD and they were wonderfully understanding of my much cheerleading I needed just to show up for rehearsals, much less perform.
This past year Kevin rejoined the show as a part of a dance cast. We (mostly) managed to avoid each other. However, it felt like his new cast (many of whom are friends or acquaintances of mine) no longer wanted me around. I felt rejected by them and so I avoided (and still avoid) them. I knew in my brain that they were likely avoiding interpersonal drama, but that didn't change the fact that I felt the rejection.
I haven't been dancing because even where Kevin won't be, maybe those people will be and they probably don't like me anyway.
I know, in my head, that this is all bullshit. But that's the problem with my ADHD brain, knowing that it isn't really personal or a rejection doesn't matter.
"RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) can make people with ADHD anticipate rejection — even when it is anything but certain. This can make them vigilant about avoiding it, which can be misdiagnosed as social phobia. Social phobia is an intense anticipatory fear that you will embarrass or humiliate yourself in public, or that you will be scrutinized harshly by the outside world."
I don't know how to explain how challenging it was to return to dancing after what happened with Kevin. I did and it was the hardest thing I have done in a long time. Unfortunately, after my return, I felt rejected by two other people in the dance community. One of them is a friend of Kevin's and their rejection hurt so much that I ended up walking around San Francisco for an hour, waiting for the dance event to be over so I could get a ride home. I have not attended a dance event in SF since. The other person has almost no connection to Kevin and their (perceived) rejection of me had nothing to do with dance. Regardless, I haven't been to any dance event since. I miss dancing, but the anxiety is so severe and so deep that I am not sure I could ask anyone to dance. I figure there is no point in attending if I just sit on the side, rocking myself like a crazy person, because no one will ask me.
In the past week, the hyper-focus, the emotional intensity and the deep feelings of rejection all happened in the course of a couple of days. I tried to protect myself, but everything was stripped bare and I was left raw. I fell asleep crying last night. I knew that it wasn't real, that things will sort themselves out in a few days. It didn't matter. I was exhausted and tired but my brain would not stop spinning. I didn't fall asleep until after midnight. I woke up sick and exhausted this morning and barely made it to work on time.
What makes it worse is that I know that the feeling of rejection will not fade, will not ease. I just have to process it through and wait it out, because the person that I feel rejected by couldn't be bothered to resolve in a timely manner due to other priorities. (The person involved is not to blame for my ADHD issues. However, I disagree with their handling of the situation and even more so with their timing.)
Today's song isn't perfect, but the feeling of it comes close to how I'm feeling, over the top emotional. :-)
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