#trauma and adhd

[traumaalchemy]

[iwritethingssometimes]

And then if you add enough trauma and/or depression, then nothing gives you enough stimulation and you just sit there in hell.

adhd is so embarrassing ur basically like “I have to have fun right the fuck now or I’m throwing myself off the roof” 90% of the time and you also have very little control over this

[chai-penguin]

On Isolation

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

*displays textbook symptomatic behavior of my own disorder that I am well educated on* what’s my deal why am I like this

[iwritethingssometimes]

Sometimes you stumble across a video that reshapes the way you view your life.

[possibly-a-secunit]

fuck it we ball

[thebibliosphere]

Speaking of therapy, I say, as though we're old friends, and you're not a stranger trapped in this metaphorical elevator with me and you can hear the suspension wires starting to fray.

I've been doing a lot of work recently that's focused on imposter syndrome and the feeling that no matter how well or how much I do, I'm not good enough. That I'm somehow tricking everyone into thinking my work is actually good.

Some days it's a minor niggle in my head that I can gentle and soothe with logic and affirmations. Or smother, depending on the mood. Other times it's loud and all-consuming and the mental anguish it causes me is so real I can feel it twitching in my muscles. This desperate fight-or-flight instinct with nowhere to go and nothing to fight but myself.

Anyway, because I'm several types of Mentally Unwell™, I was switching between workshop sheets ahead of next week. Filling in different forms. (Trying to get a good grade in therapy) And I got my "recognize your harmful ADHD coping mechanisms" worksheet mixed in with the "you're not actually lying to people, you just feel like you are because your brain is full of weasels" worksheet, and seeing them side by side made something go topsy turvy in my head, and I just had to sit and breathe for a couple of minutes until the urge to scream passed. Because it clicked, it all suddenly clicked.

The reason the imposter syndrome workshops and therapy sessions aren't sticking was because I do routinely trick people into thinking I'm someone I'm not.

Because I'm masking my ADHD for their convenience.

I've always known there was something wrong with me. My neurotypical peers made it abundantly clear I didn't fit in or was failing in some way I couldn't see nor remedy, no matter how hard I tried.

So I compressed myself into a workaholic box of hyper-competence in the hopes they'd stop noticing the flaws and exploit like me instead. And then subsequently lived with the daily fear that if they looked too close, they'd realize I'm a monumental fuck up with enough personal baggage to block the Suez Canal.

If you ever need someone to burn themselves to ashes for your comfort and convenience, I'm your gal.

Or I used to. Until I had a bit of a breakdown, and the rubber band holding my brain together snapped and pinged off into the stratosphere, never to be seen again.

Unfortunately, the trauma of living like that didn't also fuck off and instead left a gaping maw where my personality ought to be, so now I get to deal with that aftermath.

And it's that aftermath that's affecting the imposter syndrome shit. Because yes, I am hyper-competent and good at what I do-- but it doesn't feel real because that is how I mask.

And the truly frustrating thing is I am good at what I do. I am not pretending. I worked hard to be good at this. It just feels like I'm dicking around because 90% of my personality turns out to be trauma masquerading as humor in a trenchcoat, and having people genuinely like something weird I'm doing is so foreign my brain has decided it's just another form of masking.

I'm pretending to be a good author so people will think I'm a good author, and my brain thinks we are in Danger of being found out. We are in Danger, and writing is Dangerous because then people will know I'm Weird and not whatever palatable version I've presented myself as for their NT sensibilities.

Like the neurotic vampire with a raging praise kink wasn't an obvious giveaway.

Anyway. I got nothing else. Thanks for listening.

I'm going to go be very normal in another room and not stare into the abyss of my own soul for a bit.

[crohniewitch]

[graciereadshannigram]

hey, ya girl had a breakthrough in therapy. who wants to journal with me?

and to be so clear: this is a very nuanced topic, and is based on me and my experience, not saying this is true for all autistics (i'd hope that'd go without saying, but. covering my ass, anyway).

---

the autistic trauma of moral vigilance

aka: being raised in a world where your natural way of being was read as wrong

here we go, folks!

1. every mistake was magnified

when you're autistic, your “errors” don’t get interpreted as oops.

they get interpreted as defiance, disrespect, or dysfunction.

you didn’t make eye contact? you’re rude.

you didn’t answer fast enough? you’re ignoring me.

you asked too many clarifying questions? you’re challenging me.

you didn’t mask your overwhelm? you’re overreacting.

so your body learns:

“if i’m not constantly vigilant about how i show up, i’ll be seen as bad.”

2. masking becomes morality

you didn’t just mask to fit in. you masked to be perceived as a good person.

you learned to suppress natural behaviors—stimming, directness, emotional honesty, tone mismatches—because they weren’t just “weird,” they were interpreted as rude, insensitive, selfish, inappropriate.

and over time?

you stopped being able to tell the difference between what’s wrong and what’s just not neurotypical. you started assuming everything that caused friction was your fault.

so you worked harder and harder to appear morally polished, socially fluent, emotionally tidy. even when it was costing you your nervous system.

3. repair was conditional — and rarely initiated by others

when you’re autistic and raised in a neurotypical environment, you’re almost always the one expected to adjust.

so when a rupture happened?

you were expected to apologize first

you were expected to explain yourself

you were expected to take responsibility for “miscommunications” — even when the other person didn’t meet you halfway

this teaches your brain: “if i don’t preemptively take the blame, i’ll be punished — or worse, completely misunderstood.”

so you spiral not because you were wrong, but because you fear what will happen if someone else decides you were.

4. black-and-white morality became your structure for survival

because when the rules are unclear and inconsistent, when neurotypical norms feel like quicksand, your brain builds rigid systems to try and feel safe.

so you cling to moral absolutes:

“good people don’t yell.”

“if i’m right, i must be calm.”

“if i mess up, it means i was selfish.”

“if i’m hurtful, i’m dangerous.”

you make yourself small, soft, and passive because god forbid anyone see your real emotional intensity and call it wrong.

again.

---

anyway, gonna be screaming the mantras

REGULATION IS NOT A MORAL REQUIREMENT

and

MY BODY IS NOT ON TRIAL

until they hopefully stick.

[positivelyadhd]

here is your reminder that all trauma is valid.

trauma is to do with how our brains process (or don't process) memories and experiences and that if something is traumatic for you then that is trauma.

it doesn't matter if you or someone else thinks it should be significant or not or if someone else went through the same thing and wasn't impacted by it. what matters is if it's significant to you and how it impacted you.

a huge part of recovering from trauma is allowing yourself to accept that you had it in the first place.

[afniel]

So today I woke up and promptly remembered that hey, didn't I have jury duty at some point this month...? I went downstairs and checked the summons postcard and sure enough, I did.

Last week!

Now, this isn't me confessing a criminal misdemeanor, because I was excused, actually. Luck was on my side (and so was the Wayback Machine, which is how I had to check). No failure to appear, no foul.

The thing I'm actually proud of is that I didn't freak out about it. See, when you've got a lifetime of internalized ADHD shame, the typical reaction to realizing that You Forgot Something, Again, goes like this:

Panic so much. You're going to be In Trouble. Nothing can possibly be worse than being In Trouble. This is a category 5 emergency.

Self-flagellate as hard as humanly possible. What kind of useless sack of unreliable shit, accidentally mislabeled as a human being, could have fucked this up so badly? This is just like everything else in your life. Nothing you do is ever right no matter how hard you try. What's even the point? You're an eternal fuckup. Might as well just accept it.

Existential crisis spiral until you can't even remember what the real problem is. The problem is just you. The problem has always been you. Why are you like this?

Eat an entire thing of Oreos, or whatever your self-destructive self-soothing behavior of choice is. Do you feel better? Not really. You stopped hyperventilating at least, so it'll have to be close enough.

Actually deal with the real problem, if it's even a problem. It probably wasn't. Now you just feel stupid for getting so worked up about it.

Completely fail to realize that you punishing the hell out of yourself in steps 2-4 is just reinforcing your panic response and making you less capable of coping in the future, because you've had it beaten into your head that forgetting things, a normal and reasonable human error, is Simply Not Acceptable, even if it's ultimately pretty harmless. But hey, if you kick your own ass about it harder than anybody else would or even could, then you've personally made sure you have control over the severity of the punishment, right?

Right?

Does that sound like a trauma response? Well, it should, because it is. Many people with ADHD have this same trauma response, because having a brain that doesn't work like everyone else's in a world that is not just not built to accommodate that, but in fact is built to convince you that this is a personal, moral, and unforgivable failure is actually pretty traumatic.

That's verbatim how I've lived most of my life. Don't ask me how the hell I got this far carrying on like that, because I don't even know. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger gives you a goddamn complex. But I've been working on it over the past I don't even know how many years, and today, my response was more like this:

Oh shit jury duty was a week ago. Well, now I just feel silly.

Uhh...let's figure out the worst possible outcome. Jail time? Seems highly unlikely for a first time misdemeanor. Possibly a fine, but probably a warning.

Let's look up what actually happens to people in my county who miss their jury duty. They get sent a second summons. That's very reasonable and not at all a real problem if it happens.

Let's find out if I was even summoned to appear. If not, it isn't even a problem. Mention it to my partner at this point. They say 'yeah, I forgot I had jury duty once. I looked up whether or not I was summoned on the Wayback Machine. You told me to not worry about it either way because people honestly forget all the time, and it's a fixable problem whatever happens.'

Realize they are right (and that I forgot this happened until they mentioned it because it was such a non-issue), and I should take the advice I give and treat myself like somebody I care about. I reassure myself that it's not a big deal and people do it all the time and nobody's doing to be personally affronted, and a sincere apology goes a very long way even with a cranky judge if it comes to that. I check the Wayback Machine.

I was excused anyway, so no big deal in the end. I now have a funny story to tell, and I'll probably remember better in the future as a result. Realize that even if it had gone worse, it still would have ended up a funny story later. Yeah, even if they inexplicably threw me in jail for a night. That sure would never get old retelling.

Have a shower and get on with my day.

Gold star for me, I completely didn't even realize that I was de-catastrophizing so well until after the fact. Like I've got it down to a reflex now. I am legitimately just a much calmer person than I used to be. Feels pretty alright! I could get used to this not kicking the absolute mental health out of myself every time something goes slightly wrong. Highly recommend being nice to yourself actually, 10/10 experience.

Anyway that's me tooting my own horn. I feel very emotionally stable and pretty good about that fact. It's been a fucking journey.

[vero-niche]

when you tell your therapist something from your past and it leaves them speechless

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

Gentle reminder that your disability and/or chronic illness struggles are valid, even if others have it worse. It’s not like there’s one definitive Most Disabled Person In The World and they’re the only one entitled to accommodations or reactive emotions. That’s not how it works <3

[feralboo-the-weirdo]

You know what is just mind boggling? Neurotypical people exist. Like there are people who can just DO things and not have depression, anxiety (in every form ever), RSD, sensory overloads, and not get overwhelmed. Like there are people who can work for eight hours every day and still do things after. People who can make phone calls with no struggle. Who aren't constantly bombarded by a cacophony of thoughts both good and bad when they do things. Who have anxiety but it isn't crippling. who can spend hours, WEEKS with people and not get tired or fear that everyone there hates you. People who have no idea what Depression or intense trauma feel like. People who hear instructions and do it right first go. People who can follow a conversation without zoning out, or having to mask.

Like. Do neurotypical people actually exist?

Because I can't even imagine what it would be like to be neurotypical. Or mentally healthy. Both sound alien and foren. But like. Obviously they exist because neurodivergent people wouldn't struggle so much if not for how the world was structured for Neurotypical people but I don't know if I've ever met a neurotypical.

idk. food for thought I guess.

[possibly-a-secunit]

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

There’s no chaos, there’s no drama…

Chaos and drama are Ed’s baseline.

His childhood home.

His experiences on Hornigold’s ship.

Probably the early days as Blackbeard as Ed built a reputation.

And then Ed became so talented at creating the theatre of fear, controlling the chaos and drama to his own ends, he was able to cocoon away, and for a time was probably glad not to feel it directly…

‘The feel of not to feel it When there is none to heal it…’

And now Ed’s numb.

Because it’s all Ed’s known; his brain is built around it. The adrenaline, the cortisol. Without it he feels hollowed out, a ghost.

But think of what Ed’s asking for. Chaos - disorder, panic, confusion. Ed thinks he would rather feel such emotions than safety. He’d rather die in the sturm and drang than live in ennui. Because it’s familiar. He doesn’t know there is anything else. Chaos is familiar, boredom is death.

But Ed doesn’t really want chaos and drama. He wants novelty, serendipity, originality. And he wants love - to receive and experience it. It’s just Ed has only felt the centres of his brain light up by the negative. What he begins to realise on Stede’s ship, and then through meeting Stede, is that the same (better) stimulus can occur from positive experiences.

Ed’s immediately drawn to the knickknacks, overkill, and lunacy. You see the awe and wonder at the auxiliary wardrobe. The delight at finding someone to play dress up. The seventh heaven of the lighthouse fuckery. The dizzy delight of that damn good marmalade. The relief of unburdening to someone who cares. And it just keeps getting better… beautiful clothes, moonlight compliments, conversation and foot-kicking, lazy breakfasts, flirty swordplay, nighttime story-telling, treasure hunts, co-captain brandies… it’s all hitting Ed’s amygdala over and over.

And at the centre of it all is Stede understanding every part of Ed intuitively. Stede explains, ‘Guys like Blackbeard live for adventure… it’s like nourishment for them.’ But Stede doesn’t plan a raiding party, he plans a day of fun. He understands how Ed needs variety better than Ed.

When Stede leaves, Ed tries so hard to recreate the feeling through food and textiles and an on-deck sing-song, but returns to the chaos and drama after being made to feel unworthy, unsafe of any other life. It’ll never again be enough, though. It wasn’t enough before; just a holding place for where a real life could’ve, should’ve been, and Ed knows that now.

In the end, Ed doesn’t choose drama and chaos - he actively revolts against it because he realises it’s killing him. Instead Ed chooses a quiet life in an inn in some backwater with Stede. It’s enough.

The slow whimsy and delight in the everyday is what Ed learns to appreciate. As Roach says, ‘We eat, but how often do we taste?’. Ed can find novelty in the ordinary because Stede knows how to see idiosyncrasy in the seemingly mundane. After all, a successful raid is returning with a half-dead plant now displayed in pride of place.

Stede’s the god of small things really, and whilst he does have an eye for the extravagant, his baseline is set in the minutiae. Stede can inspire wonder in a shared cup of tea. And that’s what Ed needs - to watch the clouds and sunset for the beauty, and feel the quiet wonder of everyday life.