RSD: touching the emotional void

January, February, March, Winter in and out. A tricky time of year. A tricky time in life. My mood takes on the weather as I fail to warm my bones and mind up.

I often talk about the bounties of my ADHD diagnosis. But what that doesn't tell is the tale of struggle and hurt and constant battle I fight with myself daily, glaring back through the reflecting glass of my brain chemistry.

'I don't understand why you feel so much pain,' my brother said to me.

I do.

It's very simple. I feel everything so bloody intensely.

That brings some great highs, but also some great lows. And great needs. The need to be understood, seen, loved, cared for. Normal right? Except when these needs are not met. And have not been met since… forever.

Imagine one day your heart drops a little messy ball of need that is not scooped up and gently spinned and stitched into a shawl of warmth and reassurance. Just left in front of you, red and definitely out of place. Then the next day, another little ball of need joins it and tangles itself in. Every day, another little ball ignored, then another and another, once, twice, ten times a day. And the little ball keeps growing and growing and turns into a proper big mess, an uncared-for mountain of need. And when things go wrong, as they always do, in small or big ways, the mountain grows taller, wider and casts its shadow ever darker. And then the RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria - look it up, it's a real thing) monster rears up its ugly head and anxiety production dials up to 11, and that's another yarn shop altogether. So you try to find ways to knit all this endless thread of need into something useful that you can actually carry without being smothered.

So what if I feel ignored, invisible and unvalidated? I will use all my needy wool to dress up in my powerful cloak of visibility and use my newfound powers to do all the things for everyone else that I wish everyone else did for me.

I am Super Needy Girl! Are you in need? I understand you! I will wrap you up in care and love and I will take your problems and make them mine and you will feel better. If you feel better, then I feel better, right? That's how it works? yes it does. Most of the time.

But in reality I just take my mountain of need to new heights. How could I ever be enough to get on top of both your needs - my main priority as a super heroine - and my own? So I shove mine back down to be dealt with at a 'later' that rarely comes.

And all the messy needy wool tendrils keep unravelling and wrapping themselves around my ankles and my heart and my brain and soon I am drowning in the overwhelmingly cold waters of everyone's needs.

This is where you’ll find me sometimes. Deep below zero in the cold shadow of my self-made mountain, stuck and lost, unable to sleep or move. Frozen. Feeling invisible and useless and a failure and all the other lovely side thoughts that go with this particular winter stew that I revisit throughout the year - waiting for the warmth cavalry to find me and come on, save me already from this overloaded smorgasbord of emotions and mixed metaphors. There, a hug and a laugh. A kiss can make it better.

This is not a pity party, it's the dark side of happy helpful empathic Karuski that most people don't get to see. One feeds the other. Sometimes one eats the other too.

I write these words as a hopeful reminder to try and not cannibalise myself so much. Maybe stop thinking I have to solve other people's problems and still trust my own worth. I don't yet know any other way. But I'm yearning for a different kind of yarn. One that I can knit into a nice pair of loving gloves, hat and who knows, maybe a new armour d’amour where I am safe and warm and I can finally feel safe enough to sleep.

This is not just a story of ADHD. It’s trauma in action. ‘But what trauma, when you have everything?’ Yes, including the other side of the rainbow, coloured sad by countless times being misunderstood at closest quarters, with minor and major notes of abuse, emotional and otherwise. With great power comes great vulnerability and this makes me an open target for preying eyes.

I've turned my super neediness into a superpower, a giant coping trick for my ever busy, ever feeling ADHD brain. It's both beautiful and exhausting.

The clever thing to do would be to stop caring. To stop trying quite so hard. Or risk facing The Unravelling of The Messy Me Fortress and Subsequent Unfurling of The Great Tsunami of Hurt. But this is not in my heart language. I must care and care deeply, and maybe find a way to cushion the blows with the silk and satin of true friendships. So I will speak up and share for solace and understanding, and kindness. Starting with myself this time.