[Once upon a time when I started this blog, I think I must have envisioned a much more elegant introductory post. Hard to say. According to the placeholder first post, I set this blog up in July 2015, which was about two and a half years before my marriage began ending, five years before my ADHD diagnosis, and six years before my sitting down to write whatever this post is gonna be. Eventually^TM I’ll get around to all the backstory (maybe), but for now, we’re in medias res because, after six years, this is where the motivation to write FINALLY hit me.]

Today was a tough day.

ADHD often comes bundled with this nasty thing called RSD — Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Basically it’s a little internal voice that seizes onto the tiniest indication that someone is upset with you for the slightest of reasons, real or imagined, and will not shut up until you are fully convinced that this person doesn’t like you anymore. I’m trying to get better at telling myself it isn’t real, but sometimes my rational mind is not as strong as that little voice is.

And it kicked my ass today. I’m not happy about it.

There’s this fella I’ve been seeing for a few months. We haven’t really talked about titles, but when I mention him in facebook comments, I refer to him as “my partner” because honestly, it’s more concise than saying “this guy I’m seeing.” So that’s who he is on this blog as well, at least for now, and that’s the disclaimer on that.

So this partner knows I’ve got ADHD, and I’ve explained about the RSD thing and how I’m trying to push past it but I’m not good at it yet, and I think he understands it at least a little.

A few weeks ago he mentioned that a friend of his had an extra ticket to a show happening in September and that he was going. This past weekend he invited me along. My son’s dad agreed to take parenting duty that night, so I told my partner that I could go. Then I went to the ticket website and saw that there was no general admission, only seats. And the section where my partner and his friends will be sitting is sold out, so while I could still go to the show, I wouldn’t be there *with* him. They’re not bands I’m rabidly excited about seeing, so I wouldn’t choose to go by myself, so I shouldn’t be too upset about not being able to go with him, right?

Rationally, sure. But RSD took this as a rescinded invitation. RSD said “he doesn’t really want you there anyway.” And it spiraled from there. I sent a barrage of really insecure text messages and we ended up in a discussion about how I’m worried that he’s getting bored with me because we don’t really go out and *do* a lot of things, we just hang out and watch movies together.

In real life, there are good reasons for that. We see each other only on weekends because he lives nearly an hour away. The world is slowly coming out of a pandemic where going out wasn’t really an option for a long time. We’ve been talking about going for a hike but the weather has been crappy the past couple weekends I’ve been up in his area. See? I can do this. I *can* talk down the RSD. But it’s powerful. I still worry that he’s gonna get bored. (He told me he’s never been with anyone long enough to get bored, but it’s been gnawing at me since this past weekend when it rained us out of that hike again.)

To sidestep for a moment: I’m a pretty good overthinker. I’ve been overthinking for a really long time, just in general, about anything and everything. Initially one of the things I was going to put on this blog was (mostly) tongue-in-cheek overanalysis of kids’ media. I have an English degree; reading meaning into things where there is none was a big part of my actual major. If I can back it up with evidence from the text, it’s all good.

This overthinking is a double-edged sword. It gets me into ugly thoughtspirals because I am able to pull what *seems* like cromulent evidence out of nowhere in no time at all. I think in images, and the image that comes up here is a fractal. Every thought branches off into so many more, and then so many more off of each one of those… and within seconds my brain is holding so many thoughts that I wish I could somehow download everything onto a screen just to be able to see it all in front of me at once. Maybe then I could show it to people, and maybe they’d understand me just a little bit better — probably they’d still think I’m really fucking weird, but at least maybe they’d understand a little better.

Sometimes the RSD takes the reins of all that overthinking. Other times, I’m able to throw some kind of wedge into the spokes of the wheel, slow it down, and start to pick apart the knots and figure out what other underlying things might be contributing to me feeling less than awesome.

Tonight I was able to slow things down and realize that a lot of things had happened today that were outside of my control. The concert was seats, not general admission, and neither of us knew that until I tried to buy a ticket. Okay, that sucks. Prior to that, the power had gone out here at my place (while I was heating up my lunch in the microwave) and it got in the way of my being able to do laundry, which held up my being able to do other chores on the list. Blah. Prior to *that* I had been on the phone with Neutrogena customer care for what felt like a very long time this morning, trying fruitlessly to find out if there was some way to make them go back to the OLD formula of the facial scrub I’ve been using for maybe six years because the NEW formula is gross and smells like old orange juice and I’m breaking out more than usual and surprisingly self-conscious about it. And some of that *may* be related to the fact that I woke up this morning with cycle day 1 in full force a few days early (silver lining is that it’ll be mostly done by the weekend, but I don’t love the fact that it was early). But I’m really blaming the facial scrub because I’m the angriest at that. Nobody ASKED for a new formula, and the most recent reviews on Target’s website will back me up!

So I did all that overthinking, and it turns out I was doing an awful lot of course correcting today. It’s exhausting. I don’t always realize where the spoons are going until I’m anxious over something that is often unrelated.

Every once in a while, I’m able to clearly identify what I’m feeling that’s causing the anxiety. I find that if I can put a specific name to a feeling, that helps the anxiety go away. The first time I noticed this, the feeling was fear. Today’s thoughtspiral was brought to you by a combination of disappointment and impotent rage. I’m getting better at this. I’m titling this Part 1 because I’m sure it will happen many, many more times.

It’s 2AM and I need to gtfts, but hey! I’m finally writing again! Let’s see if I keep it up.