Last night I listened to a podcast on Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, https://www.divergentpod.com/blog/ep-29
. It’s is common amongst ADHDers, & therefore some autistic folk. And I realise that it’s probably been the main influence in my life, the motivator for my masking, the cause of my fawning response that has sometimes made me vulnerable & often made me squirm, & the source of so much grief & anxiety.
I’ve learned some strategies over the years to help me, both to establish better boundaries & to be more rational in my thinking & less reactive, but have also been led to blame other people for my insecurity, rather than see it as a product of my ADHD (which hadn’t been diagnosed). And guess who was at fault? My parents of course, mainly my mother.
I have no doubt that my mother was AuADHD like me. She had her flaws, but was smart, witty, funny & had a good set of values. She was a bit of a snob, aspirational, but not a victim blamer. Her own health issues arose when she still had one child in primary school, and she died at 45, so she didn’t get the chance to do, learn & reflect as I have over my longer life, (& I’m not done yet!)
But I know her values from so many discussions about newspaper articles & Phillip Adams’ column in the Saturday Age. She, like many of her generation, was still shocked by the enormity & depravity of the Holocaust, even though she was only a child during the war. She judged the German people harshly, but could be very warm with individuals of any background. She befriended a Czech refugee family. She admired Don Dunstan, supported drag queens, loved filling in for a friend who worked for a gay intererior designer in his shop…
I wonder what she would have thought when my sister came out as lesbian, & my oldest as non-binary?
And I wonder how she might’ve responded when I started to explore my own neurodivergence?