Abby says…embrace your inner ‘weird kid’

Growing up I was called ‘mardy’ (moody/sulky for those people not from the midlands or north of England), ‘over sensitive’ and my personal favourite, which I eventually learned to embrace, ‘weird kid’. All this just by the people who loved and liked me...and to be fair they weren’t wrong.

My whole life I’ve been angry with myself for feeling too much, being too much, and not being able to cope with life like everyone else. Now I know I have ADHD, and that emotional dysregulation is a symptom, everything makes sense. I learned about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) which is, 'when you experience severe emotional pain because of a failure or feeling rejected. This condition is linked to ADHD and experts suspect it happens due to differences in brain structure.' (Cleveland Clinic, 2022)

Over my lifetime I've asked myself: ‘What’s wrong with me? Why am I like this?’ These questions were finally answered, when I was diagnosed with ADHD, at 30 years old.

...But now what?

How do you suddenly stop beating yourself up when you’ve spent a lifetime doing it? How do you break the cycle of feeling ashamed, embarrassed and wishing you were like everyone else?

I find it hard to have compassion and love for my current self but I know that's what I need. I had a therapist, a few years ago (pre-diagnosis), who asked me to think back to a moment in my childhood and to imagine talking to my younger self, to give her a hug and tell her what she needed to hear. It was very cathartic at the time and I often think back to it.

‘By reparenting our Inner Child, we can release and heal the pain from the past.’ - Margaret Paul, Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child

I saw a post of social media this week of someone editing themselves into old pictures from childhood and it reminded me of that therapy session. I decided to try making some pictures of me now with my younger self. As I'm a very visual person, and I have a strong maternal instinct for children, the images really helped me to imagine having love and compassion for the younger version of me, reminding me to be kinder and less critical of my current self. When I'm older, I'll probably look back at my 30 year old self with compassion and love, so why not try to do it now?

Being self-aware and self-critical can be good to some extent, but when it’s all the time and negative self talk is constant, then it's definitely a problem. People with ADHD tend to have low self esteem because our neurodivergent brains approach tasks and think about things differently to neurotypical people. Therefore, we spend our lives being critiqued, 'why have you done it like that?', 'you can't say that', 'stop interrupting' etc. Nearly 100% of ADHDers experience RSD so we take this criticism to heart and our self esteem plummets.

When I look at the younger version of me, I feel protective of her, I want to hug her and tell her it's ok to be herself and that there's lots of things to love about her. Even if she doesn't like that she talks too much, or she's loud and weird, or she's too sensitive, some people will love that.

(Fun fact: Ryan Gosling has ADHD, love this moment where he's unapologetically enthused about jazz)

Being 'too chatty, too loud, too weird' also means she'll often be the life and soul of a party, an enthusiastic team player and creative thinker. Her sensitivity makes her a compassionate, empathetic person who treats people with kindness. Her ability to be her authentic, weird self will make people feel more comfortable to be themselves around her.

I’m going to refer back to these pictures to remind myself when I’m being overly harsh and self-critical, I’m doing it to her too. Even as I write this, I feel my inner child is comforted and I feel better for it.

Be kind to youselves, to your inner child and thanks for reading.

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