My Anti-Gravity Headspace

I’m Emma.

As stated in my bio, I can’t afford to see a therapist/psychologist right now. But I also don’t know how to process or understand anything that goes on in my head. Writing usually helps me sort my thoughts and feelings, so I figured I might as well share those things on here to see if anyone gets what I’m saying or relates.

I’ve never actually seen a mental health professional, so I’ve never been officially diagnosed with anything. But despite the usual disconnect between my mind and body, I still figured out my brain does not function like most people’s brains do; after a ton of research I self-diagnosed myself with ADHD. I am 100% positive about this.

That ADHD also disrupts my day-to-day functioning to an extreme degree. My goal with this blog is to sort out all my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and functioning patterns to try to find a way to help myself function a little bit better.

Please don’t be shy about interacting! I promise I am always very polite and I feel genuinely happy hearing from people, even if most of the time interacting with people can be stressful for me. I still do my best! :)

Hey there! Thank you so, so much for this, it really means so much to hear that; both that my words resonated with you and that it does get better. I know I haven’t been active on this blog for a couple months now for a couple reasons, but I’m so happy to see that people are still reading my posts (and you’ve inspired me to start writing again!).

//TW: discussion of s*icidial thoughts and depression

Growing up, I was considered “smart”. I was reading before my peers and had a much larger vocabulary than them. I had better comprehension on a wide variety of topics. My test scores always fell in the “advanced” range. I could carry on conversations with adults with ease. It wasn’t long before I was put in “gifted” classes.

By high school, I was a straight-F student.

“You’re a smart kid,” my teachers would tell me. “You clearly understand the information, so why are you failing my classes?” I never knew how to answer that. They were right, I understood the information. I had no idea why I couldn’t do better. I was told repeatedly that I was just lazy, that I wasn’t trying, that I lacked self-discipline. I believed every word of it, and I was constantly frustrated with myself.

At 21, however, I understand now why I struggled so bad. All that time I was struggling with ADHD in a system that provided no help. Yes, I understood the information, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it.

Let’s talk about the role that the “gifted” label played in that.

I was never taught in school how to study, or that I even had to. I just knew that I was “smart” and therefore I naturally understood the information. In 3rd grade I switched to online schooling only, which provided minimal structure and minimal interaction with my teachers and peers. I was expected to work off of my own structure and complete work on my own. I had absolutely no idea what to do.

Imagine you have to run a marathon. Your whole life you’ve been told “you’re so fast, this will be easy for you!” and that’s all you know. So as soon as that marathon starts, you break out into a full sprint and pass all the other runners. But after awhile, you get tired and start cramping up, and you have to stop. Before long, all the other runners have passed you and left you behind. Because the thing is, they were taught to stretch before hand, to hydrate and pace themselves. They were taught proper running form, but you? You were fast, that was all you needed. Now you have no idea why you can’t keep up or even how to move forward at all. All you know is that the people around you are telling you that you’re lazy or that you’re not trying hard enough, even though you can barely stand.

That is exactly what the education system felt like to me. I was not given the resources I needed to succeed and I watched all my peers pass me. I still don’t know how to pick the pieces up, if I’m being honest. I don’t know how to apply to college or choose a career, I still don’t drive, and I have no idea how to fix that.

The thing is, no one would have expected this in the beginning because I was “smart”, and they assumed that my failure to keep up was because of laziness. Teachers need to be trained what to watch for in students to help identify ADHD early on and effectively support the students dealing with it. Because that never happened, though, it led to so many other problems in my life.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me and I blamed myself for all of this. I started having panic attacks looking at a single worksheet because no matter how many times my eyes went over it, I couldn’t process the words that were written (and I should add that I didn’t even know what a panic attack was, I just thought I was dying because I suddenly couldn’t breathe or feel my limbs). I would get so overwhelmed I would freeze in place and stop functioning. By the time I was 11, I was dealing with depression and constant suicidal thoughts. I thought I was broken and useless because I wasn’t able to do what was asked of me.

Ten years later, none of this has gone away. I still get immense anxiety trying to complete basic tasks. I’m still chronically overwhelmed and exhausted, and I still face bouts of depression. I still deal with suicidal thoughts on a daily basis that I can’t seem to get rid of no matter what I do, even when I’m not actively depressed (passive ideation, not active).

In my last post about sensory processing issues, I talked about my experiences with textures/physical sensations. But today, I’m going to be talking about sounds. This would happen to be because I’m currently in a state of sensory overload, so I’m intensely evaluating my responses to auditory input.

In my odd relationship with sounds, I’m sensitive to both understimulation and overstimulation. If I’m in complete silence, it brings me anxiety. I become hyper-aware of tiny sounds that add up, and my environment just feels too big and vast. The world itself starts feeling too big, and all I want is to curl up in a tiny spot to make the world feel smaller. To combat this, I usually turn the radio or white noise on in the background, or better yet, I’ll put my earbuds in with music. It provides the perfect sound bubble that keeps me cut off from the world in a way that still allows me to interact with the world.

Overstimulation, on the other hand, does also bring anxiety, but different and so much worse. Like understimulation, I become hyper-aware of all the sounds around me, but rather than the world suddenly feeling too big, it just feels too… much. All of the sounds I’m hearing abruptly become way too loud and it starts to hurt. This is the worst with the sound of people talking. Their voices become so sharp sounding, and it sounds like they’re yelling even if they’re speaking at normal volume. Words start to blur together; it sounds like I’m processing them at a delayed speed. Like I’m hearing the words, but they’re not registering in my brain. Somehow, auditory overstimulation even affects my eyes. My vision starts to blur and go dark and my eyelids start twitching, like they’re trying to close; I have to squint if I want to see. I don’t know how to fully describe the feeling overstimulation brings out in me. Like I’m about to cry, my chest hurts, I feel restless. Something somewhere hurts but I haven’t actually figured out what yet.

Like understimulation, the best method of fighting overstimulation I have is to put earbuds in and listen to music. Somehow, even when my environment is too loud and busy, familiar music in my earbuds as loud as possible calms me down. It’s like I said before, the sound bubble. It blocks everything out. It helps too if it’s music I’m familiar with, sometimes it’s even the same song on a loop for hours and hours. Music helps with social overstimulation too (earbuds only, though), or just in general any time I’m feeling upset or overwhelmed.

I have other problems with sounds too. There are certain noises that are just so unreasonably upsetting to me, I have to leave the room. Specifically, the sounds of people eating and breathing, silverware scraping against dishes, pencils scraping, etc. Even some types of music bother me. Usually it’s electronic music with lots of tiny sounds like clicking and tapping, or that has an unusual beat to it; it can also be ambient music that’s droning. A lot of the songs people consider to be “calming” are usually stressful for me, whereas my “calming” music is actually pretty busy and energetic.

Recently on my post about being hyper socially-aware, someone asked if I was like that to sense potential danger. At first, I didn’t even consider that. I just assumed that I was more intuitive/observant than most people (and that is partially it, being different at a young age leaves you feeling fascinated with others and wanting to understand them). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that was exactly the case, it is a defense mechanism. So let’s get to unpacking some childhood trauma.

Before I get into this, let me break down two key pieces to this puzzle:

As an INFP, I am hyper-aware and hyper-sensitive to my own feelings. They guide everything I do and affect me very deeply.

As an enneagram 9w1, I am hyper-sensitive and hyper-aware of my environment; I strive to maintain peace and harmony, and when that’s replaced with conflict and negativity, it makes me extremely upset and it’s very hard for me to bear (amplified by my INFP Fi). The idea of upsetting the people around me or putting my needs ahead of theirs is immensely anxiety-inducing.

So now that we have that out of the way, let’s explain the environment that I spent my formative years in.

The Trauma:

To be clear, my mother was never abusive, and I’ve never had to wonder whether or not she loves me; I know she does, and she tells me often. But she is still mentally ill, and the effects of that have done their fair share of damage on me over the years. Untreated Anxiety and Depression, PTSD, and [suspected] Avoidant Personality Disorder (from childhood abuse) have all done a number on her and drastically affected so many of her behaviors.

People dealing with that gallery of conditions I just listed can be very prone to stronger mood swings and emotional outbursts, which is understandable. My mom in particular is very unhealthy/not emotionally regulated and tends to be a very cynical, bitter, and pessimistic person (again, understandable), so she focuses on the negatives of everything and finds faults way more easily, which amplifies everything by a lot. She can also be prone to sarcasm and passive-aggressive behaviors.

So, needless to say, it doesn’t take a lot to set her off. And when she does get set off, it’s a lot to take in (especially for someone that’s extremely sensitive to that) and it lasts quite awhile. Even something as simple as a restaurant making her food wrong/poorly as enough to get her super worked up: ranting and raving, saying things like “of course, why not? Whatever, it doesn’t matter anyways, I give up, I’m done with everything” with increasing intensity (I should note that we always get take-out, so this happens at home). Sometimes it takes the form of pacing around the house chanting “I hate my life” repeatedly like it’s some kind of mantra (which is something no child should ever have to hear their parent say). Sometimes it’s being extremely irritable and snapping easily. In any case, I don’t know how else to describe it other than that she radiates the most intense negative energy I’ve ever felt in my life; it’s completely overwhelming and it’s enough to make me feel nauseous.

In addition to all of that, because of her abusive upbringing, she doesn’t handle any sort of criticism or anyone else’s negative emotions well at all. If you tell her something she’s done upset you or she perceives a negative tone, she’s going to take it as a personal attack and get extremely defensive, usually lashing out. But on the complete other end, if something about you is bothering her, she will not tell you. She’ll simply let it fester and complain about you to others behind your back (or take passive-aggressive shots at you) because she can’t handle the confrontation of bringing it up normally. It can be hard to know exactly where you stand with her.

The Effects:

Now imagine living with both the mental state I described in myself earlier and the environment I described. There was always a negative and turbulent environment and absolutely nothing I could do about it. Any slip of negative emotions on my part resulted in even more emotional pain. I was made to feel guilty for feeling and expressing my emotions, even if they didn’t have to do with anyone in particular. I learned to fear my feelings and hide from them, to push them down and bottle them up and pretend everything was fine. I learned to fear how I come across to others so I wouldn’t convey too much genuine emotion and risk upsetting them. At this point, I’ve become so emotionally repressed, I don’t even know what I’m feeling most of the time. I physically can’t cry even when I want to because my body won’t let me. I worked that out of myself a long time ago so that my emotions wouldn’t be a burden on others.

I also learned to fear others. I’ve become obsessed with reading their faces and voices to see if there are any signs of irritation. Even if there aren’t, I second-guess myself and assume that they’re upset with me, and I stress myself out about it. I can’t trust that the people around me are being genuine and I’m always paranoid that everyone is secretly upset with me and thinking poorly of me. I’m always afraid of saying the wrong thing and setting people off.

Maybe part of this comes down to the fact that I’m too sensitive and I’m paranoid of things that aren’t real. Maybe I pick up on a lot of cues that aren’t actually there. But the idea of risking assuming things are fine and potentially upsetting people is just too great to me. Trying to look out for my own wants/needs feels selfish, so I don’t do it. Letting myself feel feels too dangerous, so I don’t do it.

And at this point in my life, I have no idea how to undo any of that.

I only just learned very recently that Sensory Processing Disorders were a thing, and a part of neurodivergence at that. I had no idea, I always thought I was just “picky” with textures. Turns out though, freaking out if your clothes are the wrong texture isn’t normal. Who would’ve guessed.

I still remember going places with my family when I was little, like 2-8, that involved dressing up in nicer clothes. My parents would buy me the prettiest dresses; think lots of chiffon and lace and sparkles. I looked like a little princess, and all the grownups would fawn over me. I’m sure any other little girl would’ve relished the chance to dress up and the attention from adults. But I, on the other hand, would spend the day sobbing.

I hated those dresses.

I would walk around with my arms held out so they wouldn’t touch the sides of the dress, and I squirmed constantly because I could feel every millimeter of the scratchy fabric brushing my skin. It was so itchy it hurt. It was like a thousand spiders crawling all over my body and biting me. Even if the fabric itself wasn’t so bad, if there were noticeable seams touching my skin, it was just as bad. I couldn’t not cry when I felt like someone was setting me on fire.

It was the same all throughout my childhood. Instead of buying cute underwear with fun characters and patterns on it like most kids would want, I would insist on getting the highest waisted ones possible —even though they were plain— so that they could shield my skin from the waist of my jeans. When I discovered camisole undershirts existed, I was ecstatic to finally have something to keep scratchy seams off my skin. To be honest, I never really grew past most of that. I stick to jeggings instead of jeans, soft t-shirts only, and if something does have a bad texture, I simply cannot wear it. Sometimes even touching it makes me squirm uncontrollably.

I was out shopping for clothes with my grandma recently and every so often she would suggest something with a bad texture. The second I would touch it, my whole body would involuntarily shudder and I’d have to shake my hands for a second to get the texture off. She would chuckle every time I did it, and I’m sure it was funny to watch. I know it didn’t make sense to her, but then I realized that it didn’t make sense to me either. I never actually even realized I did that.

The more I thought about it the more I realized just how sensitive to textures I actually am, and not just clothes either. Paper, cardboard, walls, and unglazed ceramic are some of the worst to me. If I accidentally touch them, I do the shudder thing and immediately want to cut my hands off; I have to shake them or clench and unclench them to get the texture out. If I accidentally scratch them? Oh my GOD. I feel it in my whole body and it makes me want to throw up. I can’t even contain how awful it feels. Even after I shake it out of my system, it still lingers.

It translates to food, too. If there are too many contrasting textures, it gets hard to get down. If I find an unexpected texture (especially while eating meat), my appetite is destroyed and I can’t finish eating. If I try to force myself to, I start gagging.

There are good textures too, though. Those were always my favorite toys when I was little. It was always so satisfying for me to run my hands over the good textures again and again. Even nowadays, if I find something with a pleasing texture, it’s so hard to resist holding it and feeling it.

I’ve been having a really hard time eating lately. Most days I don’t really even realize I’m hungry until it’s too late —or maybe I’ve just tuned hunger out. Either way, by that point I’m shaky, nauseous, dizzy, and I have I headache; it gets so bad I have to lay down instead of preparing myself food. Other days I can tell I’m hungry, but the task of preparing food for myself is so daunting I don’t even know where to start and I end up not eating at all.

I’m not sure why it’s so daunting to me, I guess executive dysfunction? First there’s that shifting between tasks; I have to stop what I’m doing and readjust my mindset to start something new. Next, I have to actually decide what to make, which is not easy because I never know what I want or what my body needs. Then there’s the gathering of ingredients, actual preparation, etc. and it just seems like so much. Usually I just drink my coffee in the morning and then wait until dinner to eat, occasionally with a small snack to tide me over. I know it’s not healthy.

The other problem I keep running into is that something is not right in my body right now. I think it’s anxiety and maybe bad gut balance from poor diet but it’s hard to tell. Nothing seems appealing to me right now though. Even my usual favorite foods seem gross to me. Everything is making me nauseous and I don’t know why. Everything I eat feels wrong and makes me feel bad. I know my body is craving something but I don’t know what it is. I just don’t want to eat.

“Stop staring off like that, it makes you look rude and disinterested.”

That’s what my ex told me any time that would happen. The one time it stood out in particular was a day that we were at an unfamiliar, crowded restaurant, with a large group of people (most of which I didn’t know and was not comfortable with), after a stressful day full of activity and social interaction. There were so many sounds everywhere: people talking, ice clinking in the glasses, forks scraping the plates.

When that happens, my brain can’t process all of that input at once and some functions stop working. Usually it’s my sight. I end up staring off into the distance at nothing in particular and I essentially stop taking all visuals in. Everything blurs together and stops registering. People have told me before that I look like I’m in a trance. The more overwhelmed/overstimulated I am, the longer it lasts and the more often I do it. I can’t control it very well.

My ex was aware that I had social anxiety and that I was easily overwhelmed. He said that he understood and that he would support me. But when my social anxiety would affect the quality of our time spent together, or it would make him look bad, he would get frustrated. Suddenly it wasn’t okay anymore.

Often, I would also use my phone as a crutch in uncomfortable social situations. He told me it was rude to do, that it made him feel like I didn’t want to be with him or his family. So I would put my phone away and try to ignore my rapidly rising anxiety levels.

Despite taking away my coping mechanisms, he did nothing to help fill that gap. He still continued to pressure me into anxiety-inducing interactions and situations. He still put me on the spot constantly and stole so much more of my mental energy than I had to give. Then he would complain that it wasn’t enough.

No matter how many times I felt I explained that I couldn’t interact as often or intensively as he wanted me to, he still complained that I wasn’t calling him or texting him or getting together with him enough. Every free moment I had away from work I ended up giving to him, not out of want but out of guilt. Because of his own mental illness and emotional turmoil, I felt like it was selfish of me to withhold that from him. So I gave him so much more of myself than I had to spare and it left me feeling drained and exhausted and numb.

It took me months to process exactly what I was feeling and why. Why I was burned out. Why I was depressed. Why I was avoiding him. And why exactly I was so scared to confront those thoughts. He promised he listened to me even though he only heard what he wanted to hear. He told me he cared how I felt even though he disregarded that in favor of what he wanted.

I thought I was crazy, that I was just perceiving things wrong. I second-guessed myself until I didn’t know what was real anymore and I doubted all my memories. When I finally did sort through my thoughts enough and gained the courage to tell him I wanted to end the relationship, it didn’t go how I planned.

He told me he didn’t understand. He told me I never communicated any of those problems to him, and that I misinterpreted his words and actions. I second guessed myself again. He told me I didn’t know what I wanted. He told me it wasn’t fair of me to end things without giving him a chance, that he deserved another chance.

I had never felt so lost and confused in my life. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Maybe he was right, maybe my memories were wrong. Maybe I forgot things. Maybe I misinterpreted things.

From everything I just described, my ex sounds like a bad guy. His actions were certainly harmful and unhealthy and did a lot of damage to me. There are details I’ve chosen to omit for the time being. But he’s not actually a bad person, and I’m going to explain why.

After years of analyzing all of that and trying to understand, I realize now that part of what he said was correct. While to me, I did communicate things, to him I didn’t. I’ve always struggled with direct communication, especially with regards to my own feelings. I sugarcoat everything; I fail to assert myself. I put it gently and indirectly. Making my needs clear felt selfish and I avoided it if I thought I could handle it, which was often. And that was when I would attempt to communicate. A lot of times I didn’t address problems because I didn’t know they were there. I had no idea I was depressed. I had no idea I was overwhelmed and burned out.

He was the kind of person that needed direct and blunt honesty. He needed things repeated. At the same time, he was too fragile for that. He took things personally and would spiral into a depression, so I felt even more scared of being direct. He didn’t understand his own emotions or how to express them in a stable or healthy way. He lacked social awareness. He was an impulsive and selfish and obsessive person. I enabled those behaviors with my own lack of communication in order to avoid what I assumed would be conflict because I didn’t want to hurt him. I felt that taking time for myself or responding to my own needs was selfish.

We were not compatible. Neither of us were aware of our own needs to the extent we each thought we were. Those needs conflicted. He needed way more attention and interaction than I was capable of giving. I needed way more space and alone time to process than he could give. I know in relationships sometimes both parties have to make sacrifices for each other, but your mental and emotional needs are not something you can sacrifice. I know that now. If we had each know ourselves better, this wouldn’t have happened. But we didn’t, and the relationship dragged on and on way past when it should have with me being miserable and him thinking anything was fine and having false hope. In the end we both got so much more hurt because of that.

My reason for sharing this story is to help others with ADHD/anything else understand this:

You need to make learning about yourself your priority. Understand yourself before you date anyone. Learn your strengths and weaknesses, your triggers and your limits, your needs, your coping mechanisms, your habits and behaviors. Learn all of them. Set boundaries in place to protect these things. Then learn how to express them to other people. Those around you cannot read your mind, they won’t know your needs unless you make them clear. If a person isn’t willing to learn those things and respect them for you, DO NOT DATE THEM.

Understand your needs and limitations and make them clear to those around you.

Do not date people who refuse to respect your mental and emotional boundaries.

Please.

What is hyperfixation? I’ve heard it described multiple ways. One person said it felt like falling in love, and another that it was like a safety blanket. Others have described as frustrating and consuming, like you lose all control of yourself and all grasp of the world around you. I agree with both sides.

As a teenager, I started becoming aware of the fact that I would go through what I referred to as “obsessive phases,” where I would find something that I loved with all my heart and soul and it would fully consume me. It was all I thought about, all I talked about, all I wanted to do, and it brought me more joy than anything else in the world. Sometimes it would last weeks, sometimes months or years. Sometimes it would be a cluster of “sub-interests”.

At 12, it was Evanescence; I listened to their music exclusively, researched every song, every band member, and I sat and looked at each CD cover and booklet constantly. At 14, it was Marvel and DC; I watched the movies, read the comics, listened to the soundtracks, researched everything, watched interviews, all of it constantly. My friends and family started getting frustrated with me because it was all I ever wanted to do or talk about, but it was my life. At 15 it was Star Wars, 16 was My Chemical Romance, 17 was Star Wars again, 18 was The X-Files and Marvel again. These past few years have been anime, with the specific anime I obsess over fluctuating every couple weeks or months.

I feel like this is an important aspect of ADD/ADHD (and perhaps being an INFP is a part of the intensity of this, in my case) that not a lot of people talk about. To some it might just sound like we’re simply passionate people that get really into things, but that’s a drastic understatement. It’s so much more than that. It’s completely all consuming and capable of invoking stronger emotions than anything else in life. It can become a part of your identity, a coping mechanism, a form of self-expression, and even a way of communicating.

It can also, however, be terrifying. For me personally, I lose control of my mind to the point where I can barely focus on day to day life. Instead of functioning I just want to pace my house and think about whatever I’m hyperfixated on, or listen to the music, or read about it, etc. I have to reign myself in hard these days so I don’t talk people’s ears off about these things, despite how badly I want to talk about them.

But it’s not just the loss of mental control that’s scary; it’s also about how quickly these periods of hyperfixation can end. When I become obsessed with something, it becomes my life and my identity. Until suddenly it isn’t. Then I’m either left feeling empty and aimless or completely engrossed in something else entirely. A lot of times I can even end up feeling completely apathetic towards previous hyperfixations; not a great thing when you’ve already told everyone how much you love it and bought a ton of merch for it.

For example, the other day my dad was talking to me about something about Star Wars. It was cool, I do still like Star Wars, but I’m not completely engrossed in it the way I used to be and my reaction reflected that. “I thought you loved Star Wars!” My dad told me, naturally confused. He was right, at one time it consumed my entire soul. Now I still like it, but compared to anime, I really don’t care all that much. It just doesn’t make me feel the way it used to, the way anime makes me feel now.

Bare with me here because this one’s a biggie. I am a very intuitive person. And I don’t mean that with regards to the MBTI, though that also wouldn’t be wrong. I mean I frequently come to very accurate conclusions of people based on minimal information, if any at all. I could describe it as simply picking up on people’s “vibes,” or just a matter of gut instinct that I can’t actually explain. One my say I’m an extremely or abnormally skilled people-reader, despite having a hard time interacting with them. Believe it or not those two points are actually connected.

When I am observing people, I observe and analyze everything. I pick up on every single micro-expression in someone’s face, the subtlest gestures and body language, their exact choice of words, the tiniest changes in the pitch and tone of their voice, etc. Even when I’m not actively observing, I still pick up on all these things and what they could mean without directly and consciously processing them.

When I’m interacting with people, it gets harder. My brain still has to process all of that but is expected to do so even faster, while also having to process my own role in the conversation. If it’s a mundane/small talk conversation, it’s even harder because I’m expected to remember and vocalize concrete details. After awhile, it gets to be way too much and I can’t handle it anymore.

It’s like juggling while running on a treadmill turned all the way up. If properly trained and given enough preparation and practice, juggling can be done. When not juggling, running on a treadmill set to the proper speed is fine. But when you combine them and turn the speed past the comfortable level? You crash and burn.

Now let’s put you in handcuffs and set the treadmill on fire. That’s forced eye contact.

I am so much more comfortable when I don’t make eye contact with people, despite the fact that that’s what’s expected of me. Because when I make eye contact, several things happen: 1.) I feel nervous. It feels invasive and too intense and I don’t like it. 2.) I can’t observe the rest of the person’s face and body language, so I miss some of the details I rely on. 3.) I get distracted by the eyes themselves and stop paying attention to what the person is saying.

Now let’s add spikes onto the track of the treadmill. That’s people with strong personalities or strong displays of emotions.

That shuts me down more than anything. It’s so completely overwhelming my brain can barely process it. I don’t know how to handle strong displays of emotion —negative ones, especially— or how to respond to them. Not knowing makes me panic, which makes it harder to function. If someone’s emotional expressions are strong enough, it actually makes me nauseous and brings me to the brink of tears. Not knowing how to react causes further panic, too, because then I worry about how I’m coming across. I don’t want people to think I don’t care when I do.

I cannot possibly emphasize enough how accurate comparing all of this to a deer in headlights is. That includes both how it feels to me and how I react.

Now, back to the point about me generally being intuitive. Like I said, I pick up on everything about other people. Including a lot of things other people don’t pick up on, things I don’t even know how to explain. But it’s still there. If no one else is seeing it though and I don’t know how to explain how I came to that conclusion, do you think anyone believes me? Most of the time, they don’t. “Just a feeling” or “gut instinct” or “vibes” are not acceptable answers to people. They say I can’t just dislike someone “for no reason,” even though I do have a reason.

It hurt. Bad.

I’m normally not super bothered by words. I have I genuinely self-deprecating sense of humor (not because I’m insecure, because I AM secure and I genuinely think it’s funny), and roasting/being roasted is fun to me. But this was different.

I’ll spare you the details, but long story short I got into an argument with my 12-year-old brother. He wanted me to research something for him that he was unable to research himself, which I did to the best of my ability (research can be hard for me though) and I couldn’t find the answer he wanted. He couldn’t accept this. Things got heated and he lashed out, saying, “it’s not my fault you’re dumb and lazy.”

I know he’s young and immature and he was frustrated, and I know he probably didn’t mean it. But it still cut me so deep.

It hurt because I know that so many people have thought that way about me. My teachers, my employers, my family. Even having advanced test scores every year for state testing and being put in gifted classes. Even bending over backwards at my job to make sure things were getting done. They still thought I was dumb and/or lazy, no matter how hard I tried.

The reason for that is because I’m not “normal.”

I regularly and easily become so overwhelmed that I can’t function. I get paralyzed and do nothing at all.

I have a hard time understanding questions and instructions if they’re too vague, so I either misunderstand and do it wrong or I ask “stupid questions” in a desperate attempt for clarification.

I did not ask to be this way. I don’t want to be this way. I try so hard to give the people around me my best, but no matter how hard I try I can’t function the way everyone expects me to. So they assume I’m dumb and/or lazy. And it hurts like you wouldn’t believe.

So I know that sounds a little bit emo, but I don’t mean it like that. I mean literally people never seem to get what I’m trying to say, which usually leads to them getting the wrong idea about me or lecturing me over something I said. I’ve gotten so frustrated with this over the years that I’ve developed the habit of drastically overcompensating for it by being as specific as humanly possible.

When I type out texts to people, it can take me hours to formulate a single text because I have to find exactly the right word that fits; sometimes if there’s more than one word that fits, I use them all with slashes. I re-read my texts over and over and over again to see if they make sense to me, or if it could be misunderstood in any way at all. I usually end up sending paragraph texts to people because it takes more sentences than it should to ensure that I’m conveying exactly what I want to convey. There are too many words out there and too many ideas and some ideas are simply too big.

Sometimes there simply aren’t the right words or terms to convey what I think or feel, so I have to use similes/metaphors or make up terms. Most of the times I feel like these go right over people’s heads, even though they can perfectly convey exactly what’s going on in my head.

One of the things I have the hardest time with —especially when I’m already feeling overwhelmed— is questions. This is in two separate ways: too vague questions and too many questions.

Too Vague Questions:

Simply put, if you ask me an open-ended or vague question, I will not know how to answer. It’s not because I’m dumb, or I don’t know anything about the subject at hand. It’s because I don’t know what you mean. You have to be specific. Otherwise, I’m immediately going to get overwhelmed with all the possibilities of what you could mean and what you could be looking for in an answer. I analyze everything.

Am I supposed to be as vague as you, or should I be specific? Are you looking for my opinion, or for facts? Do you already know the answer and you want me to follow your train of thought? Do you not know and want it explained? I cannot process all of that at once, so I end up looking like a deer in headlights. It’s frustrating.

Too Many Questions:

This one is pretty cut and dry. If you ask me too many questions, much like the vague questions I get overwhelmed and I shut down. And when I say “too many questions,” that depends entirely on a.) my mental state and b.) the topic at hand.

If I’m in a good place and we’re talking about whatever my current obsessive hyperfixation is, 1000 questions won’t be enough. If I’m overwhelmed by external stimuli and you ask me one question about what I did that day, what I’m doing later, anything about the environment I’m in, my brain gets mad.

It’s already working overdrive to process everything going on around me, now suddenly it has to stop and process a.) what exactly you just asked and how, b.) what kind of answer you’re looking for and why, c.) what the actual answer is based on that information, and d.) how I should verbalize that to convey what I mean in a way that ensures you’ll understand. Usually there’s a few steps in between, though, such as panicking, rethinking, getting distracting by something, rethinking again, etc. And that’s just for one question. Repeating that again and again is exhausting and completely overwhelming.

Even when I’m around people I feel wholly comfortable with, it’s still stressful. I still have to stop my entire train of thought and essentially switch gears before I can start pedaling again, and sometimes my brain is too tired to process that switch. The stop and go action hurts.

Now if I get any of those kinds of questions wrong? I’m done for the day. It’s all I’m going to be able to think about now and it immediately leaves me feeling drained and exhausted. I beat myself up after the fact, wondering why I misinterpreted the question, why I articulated what I was thinking wrong and gave the wrong idea, why I panicked and couldn’t answer. It’s exhausting.

So imagine your bedroom. You have maybe a shelf with some books or decorations on it, a dresser with some choice items on it, your bed, etc. You know what you’ve brought into your room and everything has a place.

Now imagine someone turned the gravity off.

Everything in your room that once had a place is now floating aimlessly around the room. No matter how hard you try to force your pen holder onto your desk, the second you let go it’s going to float away and everything inside of it will scatter.

Before long, you have no way of getting to anything you need because you have no idea where it is. It’s complete chaos. Even if you find it, there’s always the chance that the second you try to grab it, it’ll float just outside of your reach. Or something else will crash into it and break it.

Sometimes other people look into your room and say things like,

“Why is your room such a mess? Why don’t you just clean it up?”

And no matter how hard you try, you just can’t explain to them that even if you spent an entire day putting things where you want them, the second you let go they’ll just float away again.