the too muchness of suffering : ADHD-ing trauma.
Have neurotypical ideas of suffering, trauma, and healing have informed my shame around my too-muchness?
Suffering should be done in silence.
You should take your pain into your private space (e.g., your bedroom), where you can dissect yourself and the suffering into little pieces. One by one, analysing the whys and hows, the ifs an buts.
Whether it’s licking your physical and/or emotional wounds — none of it should be done in of public. Your drama is meant to be processed in a civilised manner.
The world wants to see the final product — the healed and thriving self.
The self that has finally re-discovered itself and is on a path to a better future — a future where bodies thrive, take happy selfies, feel safe, and speculate about their dreams.
As an invisible disability warrior, I’m no stranger to suffering. Although chronic pain is something I’m used to, the last summers emotional trauma and its impact was something that shook me to my core (context: a person I loved deeply suddenly vanished from my life).
I have been quite open about my feelings and pain. I’m prone to oversharing — both offline and online. My too-muchness has caused me loads of issues over the years (but it has also helped to find a community). Deep inside me, there is this radical need for authenticity, transparency, and connection.
Without telling my story (either through art or writing), I feel voiceless and incomplete.
The disappearance of a person who co-created me for nearly a decade, has hit me hard and awoke a range of emotions that I’m simply ashamed of (such as resentment, rage, and guilt).
I want to dig dipper into this complex web of trauma triggers and panic attacks. This is not to justify them but contextualise them within the regimes of able-bodied and able-minded realities, in which mentally unstable bodies might be seen as obstacles to progress.
Mourning online
While trying to preserve some traces of privacy, I share content that often touches upon how it hurts, how difficult it is to move on; how the pain might never end; how I thought I was fine but I wasn’t; how I’ve still not learnt much throughout this process; and how grateful I am to have people around me who continue support me despite my ongoing, boring pain.
I want to get better.
The world needs me in good shaped to be useful and truly loving. However, becoming better/more civilised at suffering — and potentially becoming an example of a Wife Abandonment Syndrome Survivor — is something that I’m struggling with.
Dealing with this loss has been one of the most difficult processes in my life. My entire sense of self, the world around, and my possible futures suddenly vanished. While dealing with confusion, I desperately tried to re-invent parts of myself and imagine my existence beyond what our plan was.
This process of re-figuring comes with loads of toxic and intense emotions. What happened to the unconditional commitment to our co-imagined futures? What am I supposed to do with this painful presence? Why has this happened to me? What if it happens again? All of these lead to overwhelming analysis paralysis.
Anger is something I would normally steer away from — such an uncivilised emotion after all? Being angry is something that other people would (e.g., making dramatic scenes, screaming , sending each other angry texts, and so on). I’d normally watch them from the comfort of my illusionary safety.
I have become this angry, uncivilised person.
My too muchness could be found in the way I have been processing events and emotions related to the trauma. I have sent those texts. I have created tons of sad art and shared them online. I have become a troll in my own timeline — polluting happy and proud feeds with traces of my pain and sense of worthlessness. Finally, I have managed to unsolicitedly dumped my trauma on others — for which I am incredibly sorry.
When it comes to processing this trauma, my ADHD brain juggles multiple plots of ifs and hows.
My neurodivergent pathways simultaneously light up with memories, faces, places, hopes, ideas, dreams but also — fears, insecurities, and regrets. It often does not give me a specific event I should hold on to. Instead, it provides me with a ton of examples and potential scenarios — all of which are overwhelming. In many cases, I can imagine and recollect the smallest details of things that happened — such as a weird smell, a cup standing on a desk, a sound of a broken window, or early morning sun rays in the bedroom.
It is like having a special power to embody your past experiences — unfortunately, many of them are painful ones.
Knowing that my frontal context is underdeveloped has made me realised how neurotypical ideas of suffering, trauma, and healing have informed my shame around my too-muchness.
It’s not that my pain is not valid or real. It’s that my cultural conditioning has made me believe that neuronormative (neuro-ableistic) is the only right way to process trauma — from point A to point B (or how Viki Stark frames it, from Tsunami to Sun Shower).
I’m slowly grappling with some of the language around ADHD and notions such as Emotional Dysregulation and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. What I’m sure about is that my too-muchness simply comes from feeling too much (caused by a neurological disorder).
Time heals all wounds, but is this the case for ADHD?
In theory, the [semi] linear timelines of healing makes so much sense. However, in my case, it causes loads of shame and guilt for not getting this right.
It’s like I’m stuck in these strange temporalities where the presence struggles to fully exist — there is just a painful past and the future oriented construction of the healed self.
a wee note of appreciation:
I’m extremely grateful for all the incredible people that continue to love and support me, despite my messy healing journey. I’d not be able to write these words without your support. Thank you.
