Alex Partridge

So if there is a disconnect over time, therefore, after perhaps years of masking between the version of you that is being presented to the world and the version of you that's hiding inside, can that make that inner version of you quite lonely?

Oh, exceedingly lonely.

When I speak to people who experience RSD, they have told me that in the past, heartbreakingly, people close to them have accused them of making mountains out of molehills and when they've tried to explain that their intense emotional responses are RSD, it gets dismissed.

Do you think this cycle of perhaps someone trying to open up about it

and them getting met with a dismissal only perpetuates that shame?

Oh, absolutely.

I totally agree.

People with ADHD certainly go through life wearing a mask.

And sometimes when they are triggered by RSD, they can perhaps snap.

It can come out as intense sadness or rage sometimes.

The people I've spoken to on my podcast have said,

actually many of them have said that they've been labeled as dr jekyll and mr hyde yes because the version that their friends family perhaps are used to or their colleagues is this masked version of themselves and then someone says something a tiny comment or they're criticized and boom this explosion and this new side comes and this new side of them comes out that no one's seen before and it can be quite shocking the difference in presentation between

The triggered version versus their masked version.

The triggered version that perhaps could present as bursting into tears or internalizing it or externalizing it, perhaps in a huge row in the office or with your partner.

Is that the inner child almost trying to scream out in frustration, almost annoyed that they've been seen and the effort that they've put into masking has gone to waste in that moment?

I think it's such an emotional condition, so much more so than the medical community I still think give credit for.

Emotional dysregulation, is that part of the RSD conversation?

It's fascinating.

I truly agree with you.

ADHD is not a deficit of attention.