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As a fellow ADHD that is coming off of a full on emotional cycle for rejection sensitivity/ trying to work through how I'm viewed without taking it so personal.

I get it.

I've been told I'm over bearing, exhausting, too emotional, too sensitive-- I often feel like am outlier to everyone.

Because of my big emotions, I'm hyper aware of the underlying why of people, why they do what they do, why i do what I do. I analyze and evaluate--- and try to process, but sometimes just fully crash out.

Like think a toddler whose whole world is so small that every meltdown is because it IS the end of the world-- that's my crash out. No logic, just hurt, just needing and wanting comfort but knowing I won't get it.

Crash out, shake it off, get back to a baseline appropriate mental awareness and masked state, and hope the next emotional crash out is months away.

unfortunately same here. still constantly get told i’m over reacting or being to sensitive or emotional.

no advice, but im sorry you have to deal with this too. It sucks hugs 🫂

I can't properly see what you wrote because I don't have my glasses on so I'm gonna just comment on this as a placeholder so I remember it later (famous last words).

Quick link hopefully related to topic: https://www.facebook.com/reel/941094211343252/?referral_source=vod_deeplink_unit&surface_type=vod

Could be some rejection sensitivity in response to criticism. I do that and often I’m sensing something that wasn’t intended. So much fun! I hate it. The tears come. Ugh! My therapist says the emotions will continue to come but the trick to managing myself is to not dwell on it. Instead, I acknowledge it, feel it a little bit, and then move on to what’s most important - usually a point the other person is trying to make. I tend to always make it about me, me, me. Ugh! At least I’m aware of the pattern and I hope I’m better. I feel better about it.

Same here! I recently got better at handling them, what worked for me is acknowledging them, labeling them, attempting to specify why I'm feeling them, and letting them pass without feeding more into them because they don't define me.

Allow yourself to feel them all without making it worse for yourself. For example if youre sad over a breakup get somewhere where you can process them without making it worse and dont add fuel to the fire by attacking yourself verbally, cry it out, get frustrated, let all that energy out, and understand that youre not just some sad person. You're just someone who got hurt and it will take time to feel better but you'll have better days.

As a guy - I knew I had ADHD when I heard about RSD - and its telling that I spent my entire life unconsciously avoiding rejection.

I think a big thing people forget, cause it ain’t in the DSM. Adhd causes allot of failure experience. Cause you struggle you whole life with failing, in what others see as mandatory. So even if you do it ok, people, society and life sees you as failure. This splits us. Because we grow up with the same values. “Just work hard and don’t complain” and even if you have Adhd, most people see it was an excuse. Cause it’s how we’re programmed. This creates a deep rooted critic inside you, that always comment on you, and then you go out and others confirm that. Creating a cycle where you just feel worse and worse.

The key is to embrace your own critical version, in the end it wants to protect you, but is pretty bad at that. Act and schema therapy helped me connect with those deep rooted parts of me. And with training you u understand, it’s just a scared little dude, trying to save you.

A real good therapist can guide you. My first sessiom id let my worst view of my self speak freely, completely broke me. But a week later, its not as powerfull as it was.

Changes are small. Take time. Ans they suck. But as long as you label your sensitivity as weak, you’ll fight so much more. Its never the things you feel bad about that causes most pain, its ignoring them cause the world thought you those ideas are bad.

Dude this hits so hard. The "just let it go" advice is the absolute worst when your brain literally won't let you stop thinking about it. Like telling someone with a broken leg to just walk it off

The breakup thing especially sucks because you know logically it's over but your ADHD brain is still trying to solve the unsolvable problem. Been there and it's exhausting

Same here, friend. Just know that you are heard and seen here.

Be curious and spend time learning about your self and how your body and mind operate. At first I wasn’t even aware that I was repressing my emotions for so long that I became numb and addictive. On the other hand if your emotions are bleeding out impulsively or compulsively like stream of consciousness NO FILTER then your nervous system is firing all the time and no self control you need to practice controlling it. This is learning and self discovery. Working on healthy coping mechanisms, learning what forms of mediations or relaxation are for you to calm your nervous system. It’s really hard but you can make small steps to make it slightly better

As a person that has had very big emotions since childhood I hear you! This is all emotions mind you, not just the negative ones :)

I have most of the exact same problems and I know how hard it is. I obsess over interactions, ruminate over the things I can't change and I can get very upset about rejection, one nasty comment can make me spiral.

I work in a very demanding customer service job dealing with mortgages, people can be awful. I've started to practice more mindfulness, allowing myself to feel what I feel, deep breathing, blasting my ears with screamy music, taking 5 and moving from my desk.

It's not easy and there are times I've lost friendships/relationships/got in hot water at work when my emotions get "too much". Please try to be kinder to yourself, as I am trying to be to myself. We cannot help these emotions but we can be self aware and that imo is part of the battle. You got this friend <3

Hey OP, this is something that, as you see in the replies, a lot of us struggle with.

In therapy we kind of had a realization about what contributes to this a lot for me. My work from then on was to just sit in my emotion and experience it. This tested out the theory and let me understand it better.

That lesson has been: When I'm experiencing strong emotions I'm not applying the skills and tools that we as people with ADHD utilize to help us get by in life and help us with our impulse control.

In regular interactions we need to pause and think before we act. What I am finding from this with ME, is when it comes to strong emotions, not only is this is still critically important, but sometimes thinking needs to go out the window and we need to just Pause.

I have been dealing with avoiding emotions my entire life. Whenever a strong emotion comes up, I act out and fight about it, talk about it, act out about it, lash out about it, drink about it, ignore it, or whatever else. When I'm alone I think through what caused it and hyperfocus there. In my mind, it'll help me avoid ever dealing with the strong emotion again because I'll get it right next time. BUT, by thinking through it like that, I'm still not dealing with the emotion, I'm distracting myself from it. It's still there and lingering, and it won't go away until you've felt enough of it.

What my therapist suggested, and what has worked for me so far, has been defining that emotion, and feeling it, and focusing just on that emotion. If you must have a hyperfocus, don't think about the cause of being sad, think about the sadness. Then rest, cry if you're moved to, and feel the sadness. The same with anger. Feel it, experience it, let it burn a bit until your body and your mind has felt sufficiently.

Emotions are physical things that our bodies do, and they affect us in a lot of different ways. A lot of times, once the emotion has been felt, THEN you can finish the pause and begin to think

For me this is the worst part of my ADHD. I am 59 and was diagnosed only this year. I can still remember my mom, who is WWII generation, saying I was too sensitive and shouldn't take things so personally growing up. I think she also said the same things about my dad who, in retrospect, probably also had ADHD.

I wondered for most of my life why things seem to bother me more than others - and why my excitement would shoot through the roof compared to others. I've put SOOOO much energy into emotional regulation over the years. I can remember getting pulled aside at work for being overly emotional, and having girlfriends who didn't understand how I felt.

I'm happily married now (25 years this year) and nearing the end of a successful career. But I still deal with this. Just this week my wife and I had an argument and I had to remind myself - HARD - that her being mad at me is not rejection - she's just mad.

I've been on meds for 8 months now and they have helped a lot - but not with this. I wish they would.

I relate to this so much. I was only diagnosed last year at 57, and my whole life I’ve been told the same things you’re describing. You’re doing too much. You’re too emotional. It’s not that deep. Just let it go.

What people don’t get is that for some of us emotions aren’t a volume knob we can turn down. They’re more like a radio stuck on full blast. Rejection, criticism, break ups, even small things can feel physically painful, not because we’re weak but because our nervous systems are wired differently.

I spent decades crying over things I “shouldn’t” have cared about and feeling ashamed for not being able to let go. Add ADHD hyperfixation and it becomes almost impossible to move on until your brain feels like it’s resolved something. Being told to just let it go feels dismissive, not helpful.

DBT group therapy helped me years ago because it finally explained what was happening inside my body and brain, not because it made me less emotional. I also had PMDD, which made everything even more intense and confusing.

You’re not broken. You’re not choosing this. And it’s not a character flaw. A lot of the pain comes from being misunderstood and criticised for something you never asked for.

You’re not alone in this, even when it feels like everyone around you is telling you to toughen up.

I am the same. It’s difficult. I’m sorry you are dealing with this as well.

Like, what would happen if I stopped asking questions? If I stopped focusing on how someone else feels?

I get that. I have two modes: emotionally distant, and intense emotions that all turn into crying eventually. (Happy, sad, angry, surprised, excited, doesn't matter.) There's no halfway point—either my emotions are on, or I'm shoving them deep down and pretending like they're off.

Usually, I'm in "emotions are off" mode. Part of that was growing up in a conservative part of the US in the 90's, when a man showing anything but anger or restrained happiness was seen as "gay" and being gay was considered a moral failing. (My parents never had that attitude with me, not even my dad, but that didn't change the rest of the world.) But a bigger part of it is my emotions are... uncomfortable? They're too intense, too uncontrollable, too prone to overstimulation, too taxing. When I really like a show, I have a hard time finishing it, since the emotional highs of the finales are going to be greater. I don't really rewatch or reread things that I like because my emotions are like a poorly-behaved dog that has to be kept on a short leash. I basically go through life sublimating every emotion, and only let them out when I'm by myself, and not even all that often, to avoid screwing up my plans.

I hear people talk about catharsis—how it feels good—invigorating, even—to totally let go every now and then. My emotions don't feel good. They're exhausting. I feel one, and suddenly I'm changing through all of them. I burn through all my energy at once and I'm unbalanced, numb, and tired for the rest of the day. I don't know how to have emotions a healthy way—I'm not even sure that I can without medication—so I tamp everything down and release it over time at levels I can manage. My family thinks I'm strong because I don't give in to emotion in crisis situations. I'm not strong; I deliberately affect being emotionally stunted, because otherwise I would react to everything like it was a crisis situation. Shit, I'm pretty sure the reason I have so few lines on my face is because I don't really make expressions.

Even as I write this, any emotion coming through in text is probably subliminal. I know that deep, deep down I'm frustrated, and intellectually, part of me is saying "This situation is frustrating," but my conditioned dissociation response is so deep-seated that I'm not consciously registering anything but my baseline level of anxiety.

Two parts to this, in my experience: one is people who want to tell you how to be for their own comfort, which is, you know, worth a limited amount.

The other is being slow to realize what one is putting out into the world. Our feelings are our feelings, and feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are. And they are subject to change - via new experience or reflection. But they are strong - sometimes overwhelming. For our own health we have to learn techniques to manage what we let those strong bursts of feelings dictate - we have to figure out what if anything they are going to fuel, without allowing them to just explode.

But how we express ourselves in various contexts is up to us to figure out. As much as I have wanted to make it someone else’s fault that I was saying things or acting in a way that was a problem in a given situation, I have to own that it’s something that sometimes happens. And it’s part of an ongoing process of learning to regulate my own feelings - not because “someone might be bothered so that’s the most important thing”, but because there are situations where my just coming out with things is not going to work in my favor or will unnecessarily stress someone else out or the like.

I know that we as a community have often gotten messages that we are too loud or too blunt or insensitive to other people or that we “feel things too much” (which can mean that we are just amplifying things that make someone else uncomfortable), and that the cumulative effect of suppressing those things leads to bottling things up and being miserable in addition to anxious or whatever else, but I’m not suggesting that people suppress their feelings.

What I’m saying is that missing social cues is a common thing, and it’s not anyone else’s doing but our own. And it’s one of the reasons why this is a disorder rather than just a quirk. I always try to gauge things by if I genuinely hurt someone’s feelings or caused them a problem unnecessarily, and if that happens I immediately take ownership of it, because ADHD and whatever else I have means >I< have a harder life, not that someone else does. I don’t mean harm, but if I cause it I have to fix it. So it’s more important to me if the result of something is against my rules of how to treat people than it is how someone says something to me about them. Which is hard, but I’ve lived with ADHD for years. It’s taken a lot of practice to see the difference between on the one hand anxiety about doing the right thing or offending people, and on the other hand seeing if the ask the person is making is realistic or fair. If it’s about me having strong feelings about something, sometimes just saying “wow, I have some strong feelings about that” can make things easier in the situation. Maybe that makes it possible to express them without the explosive nature of them sort of forcing their way out, which is usually what alarms people anyway.

Yep always being accused of over reacting being overly sensitive, taking it to heart etc etc etc Basically l'm emotions with legs lol

Friends telling you to let it go is absolutely not helpful. those kind of comments are what lead to feeling internalized shame about being an emotionally sensitive person, when in fact that is not a deficiency, but instead a fantastic strength that you have. Practice compassion for yourself and the way that you do for others. I want you to abolish punishment. do not punish yourself for having a neurological profile that makes you more tunes to your emotions. Ask yourself generous questions about how you can make these big feelings easier to navigate. If you can try to explain to your friends that your neurobiology is different and not able to let painful things slide in the way that regular people are. But you can get better with practice.

I've had the same difficulty all my life, too. It sucks so much! I had to learn how to hide my emotions so much that I lost touch with them. I helped while I was in the thick of dealing with assaults, betrayals, etc., but eventually I had to learn how to deal with what I had suppressed for so long. UGH!!

Therapy is the key, if you can find a therapist you really connect with and feel like you can trust. That took a very long time and numerous therapists, but eventually I found the right ones when I needed them.

It's an ongoing process and some days are better than others. I still have problems, but with the therapy I've received and by constantly working on this problem, it gets a little easier with time. You learn what helped you the last time and try to apply that to this time, and sometimes that works out.

It's just how life is for us, but it doesn't have to always be so devastating. We can learn to handle it better....sometimes.

Maybe it's the wrong approach but if people want to tell me such things and treat me as such I just move on. Those type of people are not my people and I don't need them in my life. Also, as I get older I've learned to really not give a fuck what others think. I'm just gonna do me.

I’m right there with you. I struggle mostly with perceived failure or rejection. I can get an email from somebody that makes it sound like I might have messed something up to a very minor degree and I physically and emotionally react as though I’ve been fucking shot. I’m recently diagnosed, 40, very successful in public service. I’ve learned to cope with it throughout my life, but it’s still an issue that’s there. Add to it that I haven’t cried since I was 13 because my cryer is broken (yes that’s something I’m working on), and I don’t even have an outlet for the inappropriately internalized feelings. You’re not alone and we’re all wired a bit fucked up.

And then once I made an effort to stop caring so much, apparently that's bad too

No! I'm playing my games.

This has been a huge struggle for me, litterally my whole life. I’m not officially diagnosed yet but working on it :) I cry so easily for almost any strong emotion (embarrassment, anxiety, anger, confusion, conflict, guilt, scared, lovey-dovey, happy, ect). The only thing that has ever helped me (even if it’s just an in the moment fix because i usually always circle back to it and get emotional again) but the only thing that helps is thinking to myself “is this going to be a big deal in 5min? 10min? An hour? How about by bedtime or toworrow?” If the answer is no, then I know I’m overthinking it and can tell myself it okay and to move on.

People say they want a guy who's in touch with his emotions, but as a guy who's non-consensually in touch with every emotion all the time I suspect what they actually want is a guy who can write a good poem.

It feels like when feelings come into play all logic goes out the window and the lack of self control is brutal

You take medication and therapy