Tag: adhd

Empathy

thepinkrosediary

I remember one time in grade 10 English class we all had to bring in a rough draft of a paper we were going to submit later on that month. The teacher collected the papers and then started to rip off our names off the corners. After she did that, she started to explain to the class that she was going to give everyone a copy of someone else’s paper to correct. We wouldn’t know whose it was because the name would be ripped off. My heart instantly sank. I never really enjoyed people reading my writing. I was always very timid of being wrong or not being smart enough so the thought of someone reading my paper scared the shit out of me.  

When I received my paper back after it was being corrected by one of my classmates, I remembered why I hated it so much. The one thing that I remember being written on my paper was “this paper is too personal, maybe try something that isn’t as personal.”  

I was embarrassed. The paper I wrote was very close to my heart. After that I absolutely hated when people read my work, and still to this day I hesitate making my blog posts too personal. The thing I realized is that the people that influenced me the most on my journey to becoming my authentic self all told very vulnerable stories. Reading and listening to these vulnerable stories of others helped me feel less alone and more connected to myself. 

My focus isn’t going to be on the folks who think my work is too personal. The truth is – a lot of it is going to be very personal. My goals and focus are to help someone feel less lonely like bloggers, podcasters, and authors did for me.  

So here it goes, my story about Empathy. 

In early 2020 (when the first shut down was happening) I was going through a really hard time in my life for a few different reasons. The first reason was because I loved school and was having a hard time coming to terms with not going back in person. On top of COVID stopping me from going to class in person – I was also struggling with low self-esteem and I was craving intimacy. 

I had been single for 4 years at this point and was starting to feel lonely.  

I met a guy through a mutual friend who told me up front he didn’t want a relationship. At the time I didn’t realize how badly I need connection and intimacy in my life, so I too said that I wasn’t looking for anything long-term (when I read this to my partner later, he will probably laugh because he knows how much I love connection and intimacy). 

We met and there was this instant emotional connection that I felt with him. I felt safe when he was around and I could tell that whenever I opened up about something he truly cared and took everything in. In my past, this wasn’t something I ever experienced. I always felt like I annoyed my partners when I would share personal stories. I never felt as if someone truly heard or understood me. 

We ended up spending quite a bit of time together. The more time we spent together the more feelings other than “friends” started to grow. Not just on my part either – we both started to fall for each other. 

But at the end of the day, I wanted a relationship and he still didn’t.  

It hurt a lot. I couldn’t understand how we could both feel this strong of a pull towards each other but he still did not want anything to come of it. 

I quickly sunk into a pretty deep depression. I started to push my family and friends away. I was going for drives by myself at night to sit in a parking lot and cry. I was turning off all my location settings because I didn’t want anyone to find me and try to talk me out of being sad. I isolated myself completely. I got to a very low point that was difficult to overcome, especially when I couldn’t even put it words the emotions I was feeling at the time. 

Both really wanting love again and feeling a very strong emotional connection with him made it hard to move on right away. I couldn’t explain to my friends at the time what it was about him that I liked so much because all they could see were the red flags I blatantly ignored. 

Because there were so many red flags my friends had a hard time seeing the good qualities that I saw in him. It kind of made them blind to how deeply depressed I was.  

Whenever I would cry or say that I felt down the responses I would receive from my friends (most of the time) would be: 

  • You’ll get over him soon 
  • He told you he didn’t want a relationship 
  • Some people just aren’t meant to be together 
  • It’s better now than later when you develop deep feelings 
  • He’s an awful person. You can do better. 
  • You were warned this was going to happen 

While I know none of these words were meant to hurt me – they did. I kept wondering why no one understood where I was coming from. I kept thinking that if people are telling me I shouldn’t be this upset about a situation, then maybe something is truly wrong with me. 

**Turns out a lot of females with ADHD feel emotions much more intensely than females without. Also, a lot of people with ADHD have a hard time regulating their emotions, which is something I have struggled with my whole life. 

I kept a very negative narrative in my head saying things like: 

  • Why can’t I be normal? 
  • Why am I so sad over this? 
  • What is wrong with me? 
  • Will I ever be enough for someone? 
  • Why do I feel my emotions so intensely? 
  • Will I ever be normal? 

It took me a long time to heal from this.  

It wasn’t until my journey of self-growth that I was able to look back at a time that really caused me a lot of hurt and reflect on it in a healthy way. I did this by constantly researching ways I can find my true self. I was constantly trying to find ways to be a better person.  

I listen to a LOT of self-help podcasts now. A lot of them talk about empathy and how practicing empathy (yes, it can take a lot of practice) can bring you more connected to not only others, but yourself as well. Sometimes I will YouTube guests that are on podcasts and listen to different videos of them talking. 

That’s when I stumbled onto the YouTube video:

It really helped me connect the dots in my life when she says towards the end of the video: 

“Because the truth is, rarely, can a response make something better. What makes something better, is connection.” 

This started me on a HUGE discovery of Brené Browns work. I will talk about her quite often on my blog because I believe that her words have helped me find my authentic self again, and truly teach me ways to love myself again. 

By reading Brené Browns work I started to understand that what helps us feel connected to people. The thing Brené Brown says is what connects us the most is empathy. 

Empathy is what I was missing in my conversations with some of my friends when my heart was broken in 2020. 

I was being judged for having feelings towards him, being this upset over it, and talking to him in the first place. I was being told not to listen to sad music because it would make things worse. I was getting shamed for being sad over something that caused me a great amount of pain. 

Being judged made me feel unconnected from everyone. It made me feel alone and isolated. It made me feel crazy.  

I know that the reasoning behind this isn’t because my friends are terrible friends. Just like, when I too tried to fix my friends problems in the past, it wasn’t because I didn’t love them or didn’t care about them.  

It’s because: 

  1. I wasn’t comfortable talking about hard feelings because sometimes they triggered things I wasn’t ready to heal yet, or 
  1. I didn’t know how much power empathy has and the connectedness it brought  

That doesn’t mean that me and my friends don’t have good intentions. We do. We say things like “you can do better,” and “it’s better now than later,” because we want the person to know there is a bright side to look on. I know my heart just breaks whenever I see a friend sad. I’m always wishing I could do something to take away their pain instead. I start trying to say things that seem positive instead of just being there and feeling their pain with them so they don’t feel alone. 

I think looking on the bright side is so important, but it isn’t the first step. The first step is to recognize how the person is feeling and reacting to that with empathy. Empathy brings connection. Empathy helps remind the person that they aren’t alone, because I too have felt deep sadness or shame.  

Empathy is a skill that has taken me some time to develop. If I had tried to feel empathy towards every single person in my life right away – it would have been too much. I could have triggered something that wasn’t healed yet or become too empathetic and forget about my own feelings. 

Practicing empathy has been hard because it has also helped me reflect on why I don’t have empathy for certain people and situations. (It helped me identify my triggers and what caused them, another topic for a blog one day!!!) 

I strive to have more and more empathy every single day. There are days where empathy still seems impossible, but I remind myself that I am not perfect. I do not need to be perfect either – I just want to push myself a little bit harder than the day before. 

I’m not sharing this story for empathy either. I am healed from this experience; that is why I am comfortable sharing it. I’m so thankful for this experience because although I was in a dark place – it taught me so much. 

It taught me that loneliness is one of my least favourite feelings to feel for long periods of time.

It also led me to a healthy relationship with a man that continues to want to grow with me every single day. 

This experience has led me to the love of my life. A man that challenges himself every single day with me to be a better person, even when it gets really dark and hard. A man that applauds me when I stand up for myself instead of calling me down to my worst. A man that can reflect on his actions and can apologize first, but also will call me out when I am being the stubborn one that needs to apologize first but won’t. A man that drives me absolutely bonkers by singing to himself every second of the day – but also is so comfortable being himself and that inspires the heck out of me even when he’s blurting out the wrong lyrics. A man that has not yet once questioned this path that I am taking, but instead decided to join me for the ride.  

This past year and a half with my partner has taught me more about myself and taught me how to love someone on a whole different level. I am so grateful for all that experience has taught me and that it led me to a relationship that makes me feel whole instead of invisible.

I truly am grateful not only for this rollercoaster in 2020, but for my growth. To be able to take a step back and learn from a situation that caused a lot of pain instead of staying cold towards it shows the amount of growth I have done. Every single day I get amazed about how much I am growing, and get excited to see what’s next in store for my journey. 

Although it has been really hard at times on this journey, I know that practicing empathy for others has brought more happiness into my life.  

Practicing empathy has helped me really understand people on a whole different level. It has brought my relationships so much closer and so much more real. It feels so good to be able to truly understand someone’s feelings and be emotionally connected to them so I can help support them the best way possible. 

To me, seeing and feeling someone empathize with me is the most comforting, safe, and purist feeling. I instantly feel a little bit lighter, a little bit more courageous, and a little less alone. 

Cheers,

K

My ADHD Story

thepinkrosediary

Being diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 27 has been both a beautiful eye-opening journey, and a journey of confusion and shame.

I am going to share my experiences before the diagnosis, during the process of the diagnosis, and where I am today after being diagnosed for almost 8 months.  

So here it is – my ADHD journey. 

Ever since I was in junior high, I had a gut feeling I had something going on in my brain that made school very hard for me. In junior high I remember wondering if I had a learning disability because I was struggling to read, pay attention, and put any effort into anything that was school related. I didn’t tell anyone that I thought I was different because I didn’t want to be made fun of or have people not believe me. I cared way more about fitting in with my peers than I cared about my marks in school. I also wasn’t ready to accept that I might need extra help in classes when all of my other friends didn’t.  

Although I don’t remember a whole lot of junior high – I do remember struggling to focus in class. I remember teachers moving my seat because I talked too much to my friends. I remember getting a “green slip” (it meant you were in trouble in my school) because I blurted out an answer instead of raising my hand. I remember going into tests without studying for even five minutes because I couldn’t focus long enough without daydreaming.  

Now fast forward to high school from 2010-2012. When I was in grade 10, I was falling behind in quite a few of my courses. I was constantly being reminded by my teachers and parents that I had to start caring about school more if I wanted to graduate with my friends.  

Once the realization set in that I might have to stay in high school for an extra year I started to feel so much guilt and shame. I didn’t want to let my parents down, and I didn’t want my friends to think I was a failure. I wanted to be able to show everyone that I was capable of graduating with my friends. My parents and I also came to the conclusion that French immersion was one of the reasons I was struggling so much in school. I mean it makes sense – it isn’t my first language so at the time I can see where this idea came from. It was a lot easier to tell people I struggled learning a new language than it was to tell them that I struggled with the language I have been speaking my whole life. I dropped out of French immersion in grade 11 and I started to buckle down for the last two years of high school. 

I spent hours every single day re-writing notes after school and going over things that could possibly be on tests. I convinced myself that maybe people were right. Maybe I was just lazy and didn’t care about school enough. I was finally receiving good grades now that I was dedicating basically my whole life to school. I enjoyed getting compliments from teachers and my parents, which ended with me pushing to the back of my subconscious mind that there may be more to it than me just being lazy. 

Now fast forward a few months after graduating grade 12 and I’m on my way to the next chapter of my life. I was really excited to go to university and thought now that I wasn’t lazy, I would pass all my courses with flying colours. BOY, WAS I WRONG! Not only did the feelings of being stupid, not good enough, and isolated come back in university – so did that thought that maybe it was something else causing my struggles in school.  

Not only was I struggling with my courses in my first year of university, I was also away from home for the first time and had no sweet clue how to be a grown-up. My ability to focus was lost again. My priorities were strictly drinking for the first time in my life and making new friends. Because my attention was focused on all the things you do at university not relating to the school part, I was failing courses. And the ones that I wasn’t failing? I was just passing. I couldn’t hold my attention long enough to study for a test and was daydreaming during every lecture. 

I remember being in one of my psychology classes and talking about IQ. I instantly felt sick to my stomach. I felt a sense of, what I now know is, shame. I thought about how I didn’t belong in university and that my teachers that told me I wouldn’t go anywhere in life were right. Guilt quickly sunk in. As wild as this sounds now, I remember feeling grateful and a bit of relief knowing we didn’t have to take an IQ test. I remembered thinking that I knew something was off about my focus at school and because of that I would probably fail an IQ test if given one. I felt like a fraud sitting in the classroom next to people that deserved to be there. This guilt, shame, and sadness quickly took a downward spiral.  

It turns out if you don’t do well in university, they don’t make you get your failed tests signed by your parents like teachers used to when I was in junior high.

***THANK GOD: that did a lot of damage on my self-esteem and confidence, as I’m sure many others experienced as well***

Instead, they send you a letter telling you that you’re on academic probation. A month had passed since I moved home for the summer when I received a letter in the mail from STU (my university).  

I went into my room and opened it with a huge smile on my face because getting mail feels like Christmas to me. The excitement I was experiencing quickly switched gears into sadness and shame. All I remember reading is that my GPA was below a certain level and if I didn’t get it up by a certain point I would be kicked out of university. 

I instantly started to cry. I kept telling myself that my teachers from junior high and high school were right. I won’t amount to anything. I was stupid. I was lazy. I wasn’t smart enough to go to university. I started to blame myself for having fun in my first year and not focusing on school. Yes, I definitely should have focused more on school and a bit less on socialization, but it wasn’t the only reason behind my struggles in school. I didn’t tell a SOUL until years after I received that letter. Not my parents, not my friends, not anyone. The shame I felt from reading the words “academic probation” resulted in me getting my GPA above the level that you needed in order to stay enrolled in the school. I didn’t want everyone to realize I was a fraud and a failure so I tried as hard as I could to just get by. 

It wasn’t until my third or fourth year of university when the psychologist I was seeing mentioned me possibly having ADHD. The psychologist asked me if I was ever diagnosed with ADHD in my lifetime. All I could do at the time was laugh and think “okay doc, I know I talk a lot and have a lot of energy but there is no way I have ADHD.” I felt an instant protector mode come over me because I subconsciously still didn’t want to admit that I was different than my friends and classmates.  

The truth is my perception of ADHD was probably one that most of us have: a little boy bouncing off the walls and having a shit ton of energy. I ended up ignoring this suggestion and stopped going to see the psychologist. I told myself it was too much out of my way to go to my appointments once a month. I convinced myself that taking that one hour, once a month, to go see the psychologist was time spent away from studying and I needed to focus on school. 

I ended up graduating from St. Thomas University in 2016 with a major in Criminology and two minors in Human Rights and Sociology. This is a part of my life that I never used to be proud of because I barely passed most of my courses and didn’t feel like I deserved the degree. I’ve come to realize there was a lot to be proud of in those four years, including getting through unofficially diagnosed with ADHD.  

Flash forward to the fall of 2021 when I am seeing a counsellor at NSHA. Who, on a side note, has made a drastic positive impact on my life that I will be forever grateful for. 

I mentioned to my counsellor that in 2015/2016 I was asked by a psychologist if I was ever diagnosed with ADHD. As a counsellor, he wasn’t able to diagnose me but he made the suggestion that I get a referral done from my family doctor to get into an ADHD specialist.  

This is where my true ADHD journey began. 

I was referred to the ADHD specialist in September 2021, and in January 2022 I was sitting across from him at my appointment getting a proper diagnosis of ADHD. I quickly booked an appointment with my family doctor to go over medication and started Vyvanse right away. I’ve been on anxiety medication and anti-depressants. Nothing has quite made me feel more myself than my ADHD medication.  

In a Ted Talk called “Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story,” Jessica McCabe talks briefly about taking medication for the first time. This is how she describes her first-time taking medication: “The first time I took my medication, it was like putting on glasses and realizing I could see without squinting. I could focus.” I remember taking the medication and realizing I could actually think one thought at a time. I didn’t realize that for 27 years I was having way too many thoughts going on at once inside of my head. I thought that the way my mind worked was how everyone else’s worked. I didn’t realize how busy and overworked my brain was for the past 27 years. After taking my ADHD medication I could actually sit down and write again. It honestly blew my mind how much more in control of my mind I felt. 

The first bit after the diagnosis of ADHD I was exhilarated. I was researching everything there is to know about ADHD. I was making connections from my past behaviours to this new diagnosis. Things in my life were starting to make sense and it was so relieving. I felt like I finally had the answer as to why I was always misplacing my keys and phone. I understood why I couldn’t listen to music with too much bass or have too many different sounds going on at once. It turns out I get overstimulated, which is something that’s super common in people with ADHD. I understood why certain fabrics of bed sheets and clothes bothered my skin to a point where I couldn’t have it touching me anymore. I understood why I struggled doing chores my whole life and why I always found myself daydreaming instead.  

I was really happy and felt so free for the first bit of this journey. Making connections of my new diagnosis to experiences from my past for the most part was really interesting. At one point though my excitement and happiness started to change directions. I felt a lot of shame, guilt, anger, frustration and sadness come in. I was so hurt at the fact that people thought I was lazy, loud, annoying, and impulsive instead of seeing me as someone that was struggling and needed help. I was struggling with my self-esteem and built up a lot of resentment because I didn’t understand how I went 27 years undiagnosed. I found myself lashing out at people I love, and I lost a lot of interest in the things I loved most. 

It wouldn’t be helpful to anyone if I lied about me struggling sometimes. Through this journey, negative emotions still come up. There are days, I am angry that people don’t understand why too many sounds at once sends me into an instant state of panic because I’m over stimulated. There are days I fear that my ADHD will get in the way of having true meaningful relationships (both friends and romantic). There are days I feel resentment towards people that didn’t realize I was struggling my whole life. There are days I still feel as if no one understands me. There are days that I get frustrated about having ADHD and wish I could be neurotypical.  

But, as I grow, and as I learn to love myself on this journey, those days become less often, less intense, and less scary. 

And in those times, when I struggle to see the light, I start to remind myself how far I’ve come. I remind myself that my regular meditation practices help me become more aware and less reactive to situations I feel overstimulated by. I remind myself that I am constantly working towards the best version of myself and that those who love me unconditionally will accept me as who I am. I remind myself that my perception of ADHD used to be a little boy bouncing off the walls with non-stop energy, which helps me have compassion towards the people that didn’t realize I was struggling. Because they too, like me, weren’t educated. I remind myself that it’s hard for people to understand what you are going through if they don’t understand the situation itself. I remind myself that because of my non neurotypical brain, I am more empathetic, compassionate, creative, passionate and many more traits that people with ADHD seem to have. 

Most of all I remind myself to be compassionate towards myself. I remind myself that all my feelings are valid that come up. I read positive affirmations and practice gratitude to help me stay more level headed. I remind myself that every day is another chance to grow and learn something new. Every day is another chance to be kinder to myself and find new ways to love myself. 

I wanted to share my story for a bit and I am glad that I am getting the chance to do so now. To anyone that reads this and is going through the same thing, something similar, or even something completely different –you are never alone, and you are always enough. 

Cheers,

K