My intention with the blog was to document the processes that take place inside my brain, weird goings on I have had all my life, but which I now understand are due to my ADHD. Below is a particular incident that illustrates Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, or RSD which you can read about here.
So, last week when dropping my older son at school (he has a place as his neurodiversity classes him as vulnerable), my younger (supposedly neurotypical) son, who is an unstoppable chatterbox with no inhibitions (wonder where he gets that from…) starts telling the Headteacher at some length about how we are reading Harry Potter together. The Head very primly responds “Oh my goodness, really? Harry Potter is too scary for our house”.
Her kids and my kids are the same age and she knows I know this. So, in one instant she shot down his enthusiasm and reprimanded me. She shouldn’t have said it, but my reaction was totally over the top. I didn’t say anything to her (as she’s my kids’ headteacher, had it been another parent at a social group I would, probably wrongly, have verbally ripped them to shreds) but the comment festered and it poisoned the rest of the morning. I still think about it from time to time and probably will for the next couple of years. As soon as I got home I set my younger one up with his home learning and spent a furious 40 minutes researching all the other primary schools in the area and looking into the process for transferring kids to a different school.
Thankfully, it abated somewhat and I was actually able to see my RSD for what it was. I was able to step back and get some perspective. In case you’re wondering why it’s worth getting a diagnosis -this is why! In the olden times pre-diagnosis, it would have torpedoed an entire week and I would have developed a lasting hatred for the Head that would never have gone away, no matter how nice she might have been on subsequent occasions.
My life is peppered with such incidents: slights and judgey comments that have the power to enrage and destroy when you have a sensitive soul and an RSD infested brain.
Abigail's Library 