by 8catpaws » Fri Mar 18, 2022 9:45 pm
I take a very high dose of stimulants for my ADHD twice a day, and an unfortunate side effect is that if someone or something repeatedly yanks my brain by either doing things that stress me out, or rips my attention away in a short amount of time, I’ll go into an info overload and anxiety attack. Due to being hyper sensitive from my meds, I’ll yell, snap, shake, push, whatever my brain can think of to get the stimulus to stop, and Im completely powerless at these times to control my actions. I had one of these today and I snapped really aggressively at my boyfriend while we were sitting next to each other at my kitchen counter, and all I wanted to do was cry in the moment because I felt so helpless. Without even saying a word he waited for the main wave of the attack to be over and just bear hugged me until the second half (the guilt, shame, anxiety part about the incident even occurring) was over and I had never felt so loved and seen before in my life. Instead of reacting, he remembered when I had told him that stillness and silence is all I need in these moments to calm down rapidly and some physical reassurance that he didn’t downright hate me in these moments. It was a simple gesture but it meant a lot to me. He asked later what had triggered it so he could at least try not to repeat what made me so distressed. I’ll say it again, that hug and then his follow up made me feel so seen, heard, and loved and I’m very grateful he’s genuinely concerned for my well-being and understands that when I’m in shutdown mode I need help and it’s not an act of aggression. These attacks are so often met by others yelling back at me which only serves to make them worse and last for an hour rather than 5-10 minutes. His understanding saved me from an hour of immediate distress and days of anxious fear of the event occurring again, and I wish I had the proper words to express just how much this made my day
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