ADHD – A Personal Walkthrough & Guide

Have you ever.. told yourself that everything is fine.. but waaaay down deep in the back of your brain, a part of you just feels like things aren’t right?

My first relationship was a lot like that; It lasted a little over three years and ran for most of my time in college, and.. it came with a lot of emotional turmoil, a lot of guilt and apologizing, having frequent arguments and “serious talks”, and a lot of nice outings being ruined by some sort of painful argument in the middle of it. (Car rides together were especially prone to going south in an instant and turning into a miserable time.)

But from my perspective, it really seemed like we were both earnestly trying to be good to each other! It FELT like we were two partners trying to treat each other right.. and we just had some.. hard to break habits and patterns. And maybe some of my expectations were just.. too high or too selfish, anyway, so.. maybe it was more my fault for being too high-maintenance. I didn’t think I was asking a whole lot, but.. if my partner said something I asked for was unreasonable then.. I figured he was probably right. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I Scream, You Scream… 😓

So often, my ex and I would need to spend a couple of hours having a loooooong, emotionally exhausting talk(and/or argument) about our problems. And at the end, we’d come away with things we both needed to improve on.. I guess? I know that I’d agree to work on things like.. being more independent, expecting less of my partner’s time, not raising my voice when I got angry, and not overreacting so much to little things. 

And after we’d spent all that time to talk things over, I’d tell myself that surely things were gonna be aaalright now. (Right???)

Yeah.. nah. 

It NEVER actually worked out that way.

Every single week, there was almost always some crisis or problem that needed addressing. I’d be pouring my mental and emotional energy and time into solving it. And, as a result, my emotional well-being was always running on fumes. I was in a constantly churning sea of emotions.. sometimes feeling happy and hopeful, other times feeling guilty and angry, and other times feeling downright miserable and needy. This never-ending emotional cycle made it impossible for me to ever truly catch my breath enough to think clearly. 

There came a day, however, when I finally found my senses coming back to me.

What day was that? Well, it was the day my ex broke up with me.

Despite being emotionally devastated at the time, as soon as I was cut loose from his emotional rollercoaster.. I rapidly felt an old.. familiar.. sense of strength.. rationality, and self-sufficiency coming back to me!

I remember it literally hitting me like, “Ohhh, oh my gosh! THIS is how I used to feel! How did I just not notice that I wasn’t MYSELF for 2+ years???”

Coping with Brain Freeze 🧊

I found my current partner a little over a year later and things were going well. But my college relationship sort of.. kept haunting me for the next few years. I desperately wanted to just be able to move on and let it go, because I was sick to death of thinking about it and worried my friends and family would see me as obsessing over it, but I just couldn’t put it behind me.

And once my current relationship started to get more serious.. the wounds of my past relationship only started to hurt me more. I was spiraling into anxiety left and right for even the smallest of my perceived missteps. I was constantly afraid that I was doing something wrong, or that I wasn’t being enough fun to be around for my partner and that one day he’d realize he didn’t like me. And I could never quite shake the feeling that any day now, my partner would finally get sick of me and snap like my ex so often did. 😔

Fortunately, I eventually decided that I could either keep suffering inside my own head for the foreseeable future or I could start seeing a therapist about my anxiety. So, although it was a bit intimidating, I signed up for therapy, and a few sessions into seeing that therapist, I finally learned the truth about my previous relationship; that relationship wasn’t just simply “unhealthy”, it was abusive.

Turns out, my ex boyfriend, who I thought was also earnest trying to treat me right and make our relationship work, had been emotionally and verbally abusing me, and in the process, wore away my sense of sanity and self-esteem.

I don’t think there’s any single thing that would have gotten through to me when I was fully lost in the fog of that relationship, but.. I know there was always a little voice.. deep deep down inside of me that felt things weren’t quite right.

For instance, I remember that I’d occasionally remind myself that if we got married one day, “worst case scenario, divorce was always an option, right?” And it DID seem odd to me at times that I was so incredibly emotional over everything all the time.

But unfortunately, as I was young, and it was my first ever relationship, I had no frame of reference for how it should feel to be in a healthy relationship!

I just assumed that all the emotional turmoil was.. part of the package? That most couples probably had fights multiple times a week that I just didn’t see. And that well.. if you love someone, you can’t just LEAVE them, can you? I couldn’t just turn off my love for the other person, so.. I believed I just had to keep trying to make it work, to keep compromising till maybe.. one day, things were finally good?

We All Scream.. for Ice Cream!

It was almost as if that relationship in college was feeding me vanilla ice cream. And as it was my first relationship, that meant vanilla was the only flavor I had ever tasted! Sure, vanilla ice cream isn’t all that good, but when you have nothing to compare it to, it still seems pretty sweet.

Besides, the person selling me this ice cream told me over and over again that this ice cream was the best ice cream I’d ever find, and convinced me I was soooo lucky to have it! 

After that bittersweet relationship ended, though, and I met my current partner, it was like I finally got a taste of chocolate. And.. wow!🤯 It was hard to believe ice cream could be that delicious! The taste was just soooo much better! 🤩

In this chocolate ice cream relationship, me and my partner actually have fun when we hang out together! When we go out and do things as a couple, we actually enjoy what we’re doing (instead of having fights that sap away any hope of actual fun). And we both genuinely respect and admire one another.. and share much of the same silly sense of humor. 😊🙃

I didn’t realize it when it was all I had known, but the vanilla ice cream of my first relationship was ultimately just a hollow imitation of the kind of companionship and joy you can share with someone else through a relationship. Now that I’ve gotten a taste of what a real loving, mutual, caring relationship is like, I will never settle for someone peddling me crappy vanilla ice cream ever again! 😆

The Chocolatey Conclusion 🍫

My relationship in college was not good (to put it mildly), but nowadays, I am just am so so grateful for where I have ended up. I’m grateful to the therapist who helped me understand and process that awful relationship and rediscover the love for myself that I had lost. I’m incredibly grateful for my current partner who has always treated me with genuine love and kindness. And I’m proud of myself for how far I’ve come in just the past couple of years. 💛

And even if, in a perfect world, I’d have never been in that abusive relationship, the experience is helpful to me now.. because it makes me feel more confident and excited about getting married to my partner later this summer! 😁💐💍

(Btw, uh if I disappear for the next few months.. just know I’m most likely just busy battling the monstrous beast that IS planning a wedding. It’s a boss battle that’s definitely harder when you play on ADHD-mode! 😆)

Overall, I hope everyone out there in a crummy-tasting relationship, will one day find a flavor of ice cream that truly makes them happy. 😊🍨